The demise of the book editor

On The Guardian Books Blog, Stuart Evers laments the changing role of the book editor.

These days, experience of shaping, honing and bringing out the best in an author is unnecessary to land a high profile role [as an editor]: all you need to be able to do is identify the product.

There has always been an element of this, junior editors and freelancers charged with doing the dirty work while the commissioning editors went to lunch and did the deals. But over the last few years the role of the editor has become even more diluted - almost as though anyone one can do it.