Today, an editor's sharp pencil can be a luxury in the consolidating industry of large trade publishing houses, which have recently undergone a significant contraction in their editing staffs. These are the editors who shape, tighten, and polish American literature and the copy editors who detect grammatical errors and rescue writers from creative spelling. According to data from the U.S. EEOC, the number of publishing professionals in New York who are largely editors has declined by 16 percent since 1990. But the number of books published in the United States has surged by 42 percent during the same period according to the publishing firm R.R. Bowker. According to the Times , editing has gradually deteriorated over the past decade.
Many books have one or two percent errors - whether grammatical, typographical, or factual.
Editors are expected to do more than edit. They are increasingly taking on other corporate responsibilities, such as acquiring new titles. Manuscripts that were formerly published nine months after submission are now published in as little as four months. Consequently, writers and publishers are hiring freelance editors to edit books both before and after submission. Several people, of varying capabilities, may edit a book before it is published.