Seeking editors with a passion for Espionage Thrillers to help craft propulsive stories that blend operational realism with high-stakes conspiracy, following elite operatives who’ve been burned by the very institutions they served.
Job Outline
This is a unique opportunity for editors who are fascinated by espionage, military culture, and geopolitical suspense to combine specialist knowledge and editorial craft in helping to shape gripping Espionage Action Thrillers. Our ideal candidates will review manuscripts and outlines from a story level — digging into character setup, arcs, plot, structure, pacing, and ensuring it all falls within genre expectations for an espionage action thriller. Relay Publishing is looking for editors with Dev & Line manuscript editing and/or Outline Editing experience who want to earn a competitive, reliable income in a fun online working environment while collaborating with our editorial team to create fiction novels.
We want to work with people on an ongoing basis who are creative, passionate, and conscientious. As a virtual office, communication is key — we like to work with individuals who can meet deadlines and communicate clearly and efficiently to keep project coordinators up to date with your progress.
Relay Core Values
- Collaboration
- Honesty with sensitivity
- Problem-solving
- Pride in work
- Fun & Friendly
Necessary Skills & Experience
- A strong interest — bordering on obsession — with the Espionage Thriller and Tactical Action genres, with broad familiarity across key titles and authors in the space.
- Preferred (not required): specific knowledge of military, law enforcement, or intelligence environments.
- Understanding of Espionage Thriller tropes: burned asset protagonists, institutional betrayal, ascending villain hierarchies, dual mission and conspiracy threading, and the moral framework that distinguishes righteous violence from gratuitous spectacle.
- High-level editing experience. We are looking for the best of the best, with a passion for plot, structure, and pacing and a drive to see stories come to life — including a sharp eye for the genre-specific balance between action sequences and investigative procedural.
- Technical credibility: enough working knowledge of weapons, tactics, military and intelligence structures, and tradecraft to identify when a manuscript is getting it wrong in ways that will cost it credibility with its core readership.
- Character development: ability to evaluate characters and story arcs to build hyper-competent yet psychologically credible protagonists and multi-tiered antagonists — operatives, bureaucrats, and shadow puppeteers — whose motivations hold up under scrutiny and whose interactions generate genuine dramatic tension.
- Research skills: capable of assessing whether tactical, political, and institutional detail has been blended seamlessly with fiction to create scenarios that feel real and earned rather than researched and inserted.
- Excellent communication and analytical skills.
- Time management and prioritization.
- Technologically savvy in order to work with our project management software and Word.
About You
In a nutshell: you enjoy a challenge and thrive on problem-solving through storytelling. You love the brainstorming process, working collaboratively, and finding creative ways to sharpen operational realism and propulsive conspiracy-driven suspense. You know when a hero feels too invincible, when a conspiracy doesn’t hold together, and when the violence hasn’t been earned — and you know how to communicate that clearly and constructively. You are passionate about editing and can work reliably with deadlines.
About Relay Publishing
Relay Publishing is a multi-genre fiction publishing company running since 2013. We have a catalog of over 1,500 books in multiple languages including English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian, with our focus being on romance, dark fantasy romance, psychological thrillers, legal thrillers and post-apocalyptic fiction.
After many years working with publishing freelancers, we like to think we know what makes a creative, fun, and collaborative online environment. If you check out Relay’s Testimonials you’ll see we have a reputation for being a kind company that is considerate and provides clear instructions, pays fairly and on time, and helps creatives develop their craft.
We have a small team of people running the company, handling the coordination of projects, marketing, finance, human resources and administration. We also have a database of over a hundred creatives to bring our books to life. If you love stories, you’ll be among great company!