Will Wolfslau

Will Wolfslau – Editor

An editorial strategist with more than a decade of experience editing fiction and nonfiction at Big Five publishers.

Overview

I am a seasoned editor with more than a decade of experience working for major trade publishers. I have helped shepherd dozens of bestselling and award-winning titles from the germ of an idea through to publication. I began my career at Farrar, Straus & Giroux (part of Macmillan) and then moved to the Crown Publishing Group (a division of Penguin Random House). At both companies I had the pleasure of collaborating with some of the greatest writers working today, and I played a pivotal role in producing more than one hundred books.

I love artists, and there is nothing I enjoy more than creative collaboration. As an editor, I want to work with you to fully realize the best version of your story. And I do mean YOUR story. I don't believe in one-size-fits-all editing, but in helping you to uncover what you truly need to say -- and then making sure it sings. I'm equally comfortable with big-picture feedback as I am with sentence-level minutiae. When it comes to a great book, there's no gamble too great and no detail too small. And I've enjoyed working with authors on draft after draft -- for years, in a few cases -- until a book was the absolute best it could be.

I also believe that editing is of little use without direction for how to get your books to readers. In my current role at an editorial services agency, I have helped clients through every publication path. For some it's a book deal with the Big Five, for others, a dream match with a savvy small press. For others, it's self-publishing, whether through an elite hybrid publisher or simply through KDP. Each has its pros and cons, and all can be successful in connecting you with your future readers. As part of my service, I like to leave you not only with a ready-to-publish manuscript, but with an actual publication plan.

I have worked in nearly every genre, but literary fiction remains nearest to my heart. I'm no snob, though -- you're just as likely to catch me on the train reading a mystery or manga. Whatever the genre, whatever the style, I seek excellence: a story that needed to be told, and could not have been told by anyone else.
Services
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs Entertainment History Political Science & Current Affairs
Fiction
Contemporary Fiction Literary Fiction
Languages
English (UK) English (US)

Work experience

Crown Publishing Group

Sep, 2015 — Jan, 2021 (over 5 years)

I began my career at Crown (a division of Penguin Random House) by assisting editor Tim Duggan in the development of his acclaimed Tim Duggan Books imprint. Our major titles included Timothy Snyder's ON TYRANNY (which spent more than 50 weeks on the NYT bestseller list), David Wallace-Wells's THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH, Michael Beschloss's PRESIDENTS OF WAR, and THE LAST GIRL by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Nadia Murad.

As an acquiring editor for the Crown list I published fiction and nonfiction titles with a focus on pop culture, including a groundbreaking biography of Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee and a history of the Japanese inventions that shaped global pop culture. I also published SLONIM WOODS 9, Daniel Barban Levin's extraordinary, lyrical memoir about his experience with a cult that began on his college campus.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

May, 2013 — Aug, 2015 (over 2 years)

I began my editorial career as an assistant to now-publisher Mitzi Angel. I worked closely with her extraordinary list of literary authors including Rachel Cusk, Ben Lerner, Garth Greenwell, David Means, Donald Antrim, and Paul Murray.

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