Is it worth editing a book?

I’ve been asked this question a couple of times recently. It’s actually not an easy question, as you might guess. That’s because the answer depends on all kinds of things, including where you are up to in your career, the conventions of your discipline and practices in your home country. Some people would rather not be bothered with edited books at all because they don’t count for anything in their national quality/audit processes. Other people are early career, and the best thing they can do to get a job is to churn out as many peer refereed journal articles as quickly as they can. Edited books are not a good option in these circumstances, you might think. Well maybe, maybe not.

I approve of editing books, and have in fact edited a few myself. I’m very pleased with one of them in particular, because…