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The Editorial Process
Acquisition
Developmental Editing
Comprehensive Editing
Copyediting
Fact-Checking
Proofreading

From acquisition to proofreading, the editorial process is long and involves several kinds of editing. The following are the typical stages.

Acquisition

Editors are paid to acquire books that make a profit for the publisher. This consideration overrides those of prestige, duty to Literature, and personal conviction. Fortunately, good books, prestigious books, books that deserve to be published, can and do make a profit. This fact makes the job of the acquisitions editor both bearable and more difficult.

The editor Richard Marek, in his article in Editors on Editing (see Sites and Books), posits three kinds of books. First is the "sales department book," a non-fiction title with a predictable niche and appeal, whose profitability can be better estimated by a sales department than by an editor. Second is the "subsidiary rights title," a genre fiction title whose greatest hope for profit is sale to a mass-market paperback house. Third is the "editor's book." This last doesn't fall into a genre, or resemble known sellers, or fill a known niche. The editor's instinct, conviction, and powers of persuasion are alone responsible for getting this kind of book published. It is rarely successful, but when it is--e.g., Kon-Tiki, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The Perfect Storm--it can sell millions and make careers.

Profitability is only indirectly related to sales. Danielle Steel's next bestseller will be a money-loser if net sales don't exceed the author's huge advance and promotional costs. Thus an editor can take a smaller risk with an unknown author and small initial print-run--but it is still a risk, and it still must be justified financially.

As described in the last section, editors find manuscripts in many places, and sometimes they originate the idea and find an author to flesh it out. Once they're interested in a proposal or manuscript, their first job is to "sell" it to the marketing and sales people in their own house. The next step is to negotiate a contract with the author or her agent. Then the actual editing begins.

Developmental Editing

As the term would imply, developmental editing begins at the idea or proposal stage, and involves the editor's collaboration as the book develops. The idea can originate with either the author or editor, and the collaboration can result from preference (mutual regard) or necessity (an inexperienced or troubled author). In any case, developmental editing is the closest working relationship an editor can have with an author. It requires time, vision, patience, and diplomacy--on both sides, but arguably more on the editor's. The editor generally enjoys the security of employment and has less of her ego invested in the writing; also, her role is more analytical and reactive, while the author's is more creative.

Comprehensive Editing

This term refers to the thorough editing of a completed manuscript. The extent and depth of editing, as well as the number of revisions, vary widely, depending on both author and editor. At one extreme, an editor can compile dozens of pages of notes and cover the text with copyediting marks. At the other, he can scribble "good!" and "tighten this" in the margins a few times and rely on the copyeditor to polish the prose.

As mentioned earlier, the number of editors who are willing and able to do close editing (or "line editing") seems to be diminishing. The fast pace and lack of job security in publishing today are certainly causing editors to favor manuscripts that require less editing--some would say these factors are simply causing them to skimp on editing. In any case, once this stage of editing is over--once the author has revised and rewritten to the editor's satisfaction--the manuscript goes to the copyeditor.

Copyediting

Copyeditors are a special breed: hypercritical, meticulous, underpaid, unsung, and indispensable. An abiding love of the written language and devotion to authors and books is all that can explain their continued existence. A copyeditor's work includes the following:

  • Correcting errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage.
  • Finding and fixing inconsistencies in all of the above, plus tone, style, and narrative detail.
  • To varied extents, checking the validity of factual assertions, dates, titles, etc.
  • By means of queries and (gentle) suggestions, improving the clarity and consistency of the author's writing, sentence by sentence.
The copyeditor receives a clean copy of the manuscript from the editor, preferably with a cover letter listing special problems or considerations. She proceeds, using reference guides such as the Chicago Manual of Style and a recent, authoritative dictionary, to make corrections and suggested changes directly in the text. Queries to the author (e.g., "did you mean the War of 1812?") are either written on post-it notes attached to the pages or compiled in a separate list.

The author is then asked to review and approve all changes and answer the queries. The copyeditor (or another employee) then enters all the changes in the digital file, and the manuscript is ready for layout.

Fact-Checking

For certain non-fiction books, at certain publishers, fact-checkers are employed. These tireless pursuers of truth and accuracy document every statement of fact in the text that it is possible to document, and call to the editor's attention those that are not. Their arsenal includes the telephone, a small reference library, the public library, the Internet (though in many instances information found on the Web is considered suspect), and the author's notes and references. Fact-checkers are employed not only to insure a book's truthfulness and accuracy, but also to thereby reduce the possibility of libel suits and other legal actions.

The job requires a disciplined mind, unusual persistence and resourcefulness, and the knack of asking niggling questions of strangers without annoying them (too much). Usually fact-checkers start as early in the process as possible, so as to avoid delaying production.

Proofreading

Once the book has "gone into pages" (been laid out or typeset), a printed copy goes to both the author and a proofreader for a final edit. This edit is the most minute and delimited of all edits. Proofreaders look for errors in the layout elements (such as font size, headings, margins, etc.) and grammar, punctuation, and spelling. The author is generally charged for changes beyond a word here or there, and the proofreader is expected to bring up issues at the sentence level only if necessary. Many proofreaders, in fact, work backwards, so that their vigilance is not compromised by actual reading.

Once the proofreader and author have returned their "proofs," final changes are made, and the editing process is over.


 

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