These days, most of our editorial work is done using Ceres, a custom authoring system that we have developed in house. Ceres is primarily based on two elements: text files and SVN access. In general, authors and editors collaborate on a content piece—such as an article or book—using markup text stored in text files that are version-controlled using SVN.
Note that, in some cases, the use of SVN is superfluous—for example, your editor may decide that an article doesn't warrant setting up a SVN harness and may decide to do most or all of the work with you via e-mail (thus making things even simpler).