Lily Cooper

A Phenomenal Editor

‍Previously Penguin Random House

Lily Cooper was a Senior Commissioning Editor at Michael Joseph, home to authors including Marian Keyes, Jojo Moyes, Stephen Fry, Alex Michaelides, and Holly Jackson. She has worked with bestselling authors such as Jodi Picoult, Louise Penny, Emma Straub, Rainbow Rowell, Claire Daverley, and Virginia Evans.

Lily started her career in publishing at HarperCollins, where she worked at the SFF imprint HarperVoyager for two years. She then moved to Hodder Fiction, where she worked for six years with bestselling authors including Jodi Picoult, Will Dean, and Louise Penny, as well as new writers such as Abi Daré, Abigail Bergstrom, Sara Sheridan, and Philippa Malicka. Highlights of her time at Hodder include editing and publishing The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan, which was selected as a Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year, The Girl with the Louding Voice, which was a New York Times bestseller, a Waterstones Book of the Month pick, and shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize for Fiction, and The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan, which was a Good Morning America book club selection.

At Michael Joseph, Lily was the lead acquirer for reading group fiction and edited and published a wide range of bestselling and critically acclaimed authors, including Gillian Anderson, Emma Straub, Rainbow Rowell, Claire Daverley, Charmaine Wilkerson, and Virginia Evans.

With ten years of editorial experience under her belt, Lily has sat in hundreds of acquisitions meetings and knows exactly what kind of writing lights up a publishing team. But she never loses sight of the effort that it takes to write a novel, and she always takes a friendly, supportive, and collaborative approach to the editorial relationship to help authors refine their unique voice and make their book the best—and most commercially viable!—version of the story they set out to write. Known for leaving no stone unturned during the editorial process, Lily loves to help authors hone that killer hook, tighten their plot, and make every sentence of their novel sing—all while building their knowledge and confidence for future books.

“A true editorial talent”

“Lily is a phenomenal editor. The genuine thrill she gets from making a story the best it can be is wildly apparent, and she was always there to ask great questions or answer my own with grace, insight and warmth. What’s more, she remained calm, kind and supportive at every stage of the process – structural edits, problem-solving phone calls and sentence tweaks were all given the same dedication, and never once did her interest in my project seem to waver. She is consistent, celebratory and white-hot with her work ethic. A true editorial talent.”—Claire Daverley

“Lily is an insightful, smart reader and editor, and like all good editors, even lets you think that they are your brilliant ideas. I absolutely loved working with her.”—Emma Straub

“Lily loves books, which makes working with her a joy. I consider myself very lucky that she loved my book in particular—I knew I wanted to work together about five minutes into our first call. She is enthusiastic and dogged and kind, willing to put many hours in beside the writer at both the structural and, blessedly, line level to make a manuscript the best it can be.”—Austin Taylor

“Working with Lily is a pleasure. Her attention to detail is extraordinary and elevates the early drafts we’ve worked on to become novels I’m extremely proud of. She has a great eye to the market and understands readers and booksellers alike. I feel lucky to have been able to work with her.”—Sara Sheridan

Lily’s Genres

• Historical Fiction
• Literary Fiction
• Book Club & Reading Group Fiction
• Up Lit
• Crime & Suspense
• Speculative Fiction
• Upmarket Women’s Fiction