Associate Editor

Inkitt • San Francisco, CA

4d • Onsite

About The Position

Inkitt is seeking an Associate Editor to help build its romance catalogue. The role focuses on identifying books with potential and reimagining their characters, stakes, pacing, plot, and emotional payoff. The editor will analyze manuscripts, reader feedback, and engagement data to understand where stories lose readers, develop editorial plans for substantial rewrites, and collaborate with authors and agentic AI tools to carry out revisions. The editor will then test revised stories with readers, interpret the results, and apply those findings to future books.

The Associate Editor will work with authors, freelance editors, marketing, and the wider content team. This position is based on-site in San Francisco five days a week. Inkitt describes itself as a technology and entertainment company using AI and predictive algorithms to discover stories and develop them into ebooks and screen and streaming content.

Requirements

• Love romance and read widely in the genre, with knowledge of its tropes, heat levels, and subgenres.
• Have strong editorial instincts and be able to explain why a story is not working and how to improve it.
• Bring creative story ideas and enthusiasm for reinventing books, not merely repairing them.
• Be comfortable developing creative theories from quantitative data, forming hypotheses from reader data, and explaining them clearly.
• Be enthusiastic about using AI as a creative tool and able to evaluate and improve its output.
• Be smart, curious, quick to learn, willing to take ownership, and interested in taking on responsibility early.
• Have 1–3 years of experience in editorial or publishing, an MFA, or similar.
• Be able to work on-site in San Francisco five days a week.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with serialized or web fiction, such as Wattpad, Galatea, Kindle Vella, or webtoons.
• Experience giving developmental feedback to writers.
• Experience writing fiction, plays, or screenplays.

Responsibilities

• Read manuscripts and diagnose where and why stories lose readers, using reader feedback and engagement data.
• Develop editorial plans for major rewrites, including new hooks, revised story arcs, stronger character motivations, and more effective payoffs.
• Collaborate with authors and agentic AI tools to execute rewrites.
• Run reader tests on revisions, interpret the results, and apply what is learned to subsequent books.
• Build working relationships with authors, freelance editors, marketing, and the wider content team.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level