Land on Demand Editing Proofreading Indexing: Still waiting

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My name is Bob Land. I am a full-time freelance editor and proofreader, and occasional indexer. This blog is my website.

You'll find my rate sheet and client list here, as well as musings on the life of a freelancer; editing, proofreading, and indexing concerns and issues; my ongoing battles with books and production; and the occasional personal revelation.

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

Still waiting

Some folks shouldn't try to think too much. I'm probably one of them.

I'm working on the third edition of a book. The second edition had a timeline dating from 6000 BCE to 2006. For the third edition, a new group of editors swooped in at the last moment and made some updates. The headline for the new timeline reads "6000 BCE to ACE 2008."

Ummm . . . what?

A few different thought processes went into this.

1. "Well, we said BCE, so we need to set it off with whatever its parallel would be."

2. "We are aware enough that if we were to use 'AD,' it would precede the date rather than follow it." (For this I give them two points.)

3. "If BCE appends the first number, then it would make sense that ACE would append the second number."

Well intentioned, huh?

I asked the in-house managing editor about this when I saw it, and per told me, "Before the Common Era and After . . ."

I'm ashamed to say I didn't let per finish the thought before "No, no, no" came out of my mouth. Can I occasionally be a jerk? Yes, indeed.

If you're new to all this, BCE/CE is for folks who want to deChristianize our modern Western calendar system. Instead of BC (before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord), you use BCE and CE (for Before the Common Era and the Common Era). How this helps, I've never really understood, because you're still defining the "Common Era" by the singular event of Jesus of Nazareth's birth, which isn't universally heralded, to say the least.

Once we get past the general confusion about Jesus perhaps actually being born in 4 or 6 BC, which I'm not even sure the calendar shifts can account for, we can begin to wonder about what "After the Common Era" might mean. I'll give you a minute or so to ponder this phrase.

. . .

Anyone want to venture a guess when the Common Era might have come to a close? Elvis on Ed Sullivan? Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis reunited on the Labor Day Telethon? Hendrix playing the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock? Any freaking minute now?

Has anyone else ever seen ACE? Have I totally missed the boat? I've been corrected before, so I'll take my lumps again.

But wait. I just found this. There appears to be some slight precedent, but at least one person agrees with me. See post 5 of 19 and the replies.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6130_102-0.html?forumID=50&threadID=314855&messageID=2900335

Would someone with some sense chime in here? Moi? Don? Chip, you ever seen this?

==========

PS: One of my favorite jokes. You might need to live in a relatively large population center to understand it. I'm not sure it would get many chuckles here in Bristol:

The Jewish calendar is now at 5769. The Chinese calendar is at 4706. What did Jews do for 1063 years without Chinese food?

6 comments:

czar said...: Don:

Thanks for the confirmation. I'd hate to see this creep into usage, simply because it is prima facie absurd. What actually makes more sense, in some twisted way, would be ABCE (After Before the Common Era). If, in the parlance of the times, the Common Era had already ended, I suspect my cat would have been raptured by now.; January 11, 2009 at 3:02 PM
moi said...: Why the fork do we want to de-Christianize ourselves anyway? Believe. Don't believe. I don't care. But you can't deny that the Judeo-Christian tradition and the assumed divinity of Jesus Christ largely defines who we are in the West. Deal with it, people. And keep AD and BC and quit fiddling with everything.

Same goes for this abbreviating shit. Although I must admit a genuine luv for WTF because it keeps me from using the F-word in all it's potentially insulting glory (nonetheless, sniff, a mighty fine word), pretty soon, we won't need words at all. We'll just grunt and point and text.; January 12, 2009 at 10:14 AM
moi said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; January 12, 2009 at 10:14 AM
czar said...: Moi:

When I think of what largely defines us in the West, I think back on the book I read about missionaries in some Asian islands backwater. They'd been there for some years, doing their good works, and time came to see if their efforts had resulted in their charges receiving the good news. So, essentially, the missionaries ask the assembled what's the most important thing in life and what are the missionaries' lives based on. The answer they got: money. That's the example the missionaries had been setting and that's where their focus had been. And these weren't even the colonializing types of missionaries. Needless to say, the missionaries received quite a wakeup call that day.

When it comes to AD/BC, as a non-Christian, it doesn't particularly bother me, but if you're just gonna use the same damn numbers with BCE and CE, then what really has been achieved? All you're doing is acknowledging the obvious, which you point out. It's like saying, "Don't think of blue!"; January 12, 2009 at 10:28 AM
h said...: I thought the joke was pretty funny.; January 15, 2009 at 3:08 PM
czar said...: Troll:

Thanks for checking in. But trust me on this one: not everyone would get it. I live in an area where I was once asked to explain Judaism (well, as best I could) to a class of eighth-graders, and one of the questions was, "Could my son still have children because he'd been circumcised?"

The concept that most Chinese restaurants in MSAs of over 1 million people would shut down without the support of the local Jews is as foreign to many as Judaism itself.

Maybe if I'm still sucking air by September, I'll post my favorite (and perhaps world's only) Rosh Hashanah joke. I've got one about mohels too, and that's the end of my shtick.; January 15, 2009 at 3:22 PM

Rate Sheet

Bob Land's Rate Sheet

Note: Different rates may apply for self-publishing or overseas authors.

Copyediting—Take the word count of your manuscript and divide it by 265. That's a billable page. Remember to include footnotes/endnotes in the word count.

Electronic edit—edited files returned to publisher/author: $5+/page

Marked-up manuscript returned to publisher/author for keying changes—$5.25+/page

Typical turnaround time: 3–4 weeks from receipt of manuscript

Substantive editing—See above for determining page count.

Electronic edit—edited files returned to publisher/author—$6.25+/page

Marked-up manuscript returned to publisher/author for keying changes—$8+/page

Typical turnaround time: 3–4 weeks from receipt of manuscript

Higher editing rates apply for material that requires extensive rewriting or that includes complicating elements, such as massive reworking or cross-checking of documentation. Technical manuscripts (legal, medical, etc.) also subject to higher rates.

Contact me for bids on work if English is not your primary written language.

Indexing—Based on a 6x9 page; other page sizes adjusted proportionately

$5+/indexable page

$6+/indexable page for biographies and military histories

Typical turnaround time: 3–4 weeks from receipt of page proofs

Proofreading—based on a 6x9, one-column page; other page sizes and formats adjusted accordingly

Cold read—$2+/book page

Read against manuscript—$3+/book page

Typical turnaround time: 14 days from receipt of page proofs

Rush fees

Editing 25 percent surcharge for 8- to 14-day turnaround; 50 percent surcharge for 7-day turnaround

Indexing 25 percent surcharge for 7-day turnaround; 50 percent surcharge for 4- to 6-day turnaround

Proofreading 50 percent surcharge for 5- to 7-day turnaround; 100 percent surcharge for 3- to 4-day turnaround; if you need it faster than that, we can talk

I can accept hard copy sent to the address below, or PDF or Word files emailed to address below.

Copying fee (for example, if you want me to keep a copy of work that I’m sending): $.06/standard page.

Shipping charges paid by publisher/author. Preferred method is for publisher/author to provide shipping account number (FedEx or UPS); alternate: billed with final invoice.

All invoices payable upon receipt. 30 percent payable at start of project/task for new clients or self-publishing authors.

Brushes with Fame

1. An old friend had to remind me of this one, because he remembers more about my life than I do. When I was a youngster, I threw up on Johnny Carson in an NYC theatre. Would have been in the early 1960s. I have no recollection of the event, but from what my mother said, he apparently handled it well.
2. The family went down to Plains, GA, maybe around 2004 to sit in on Jimmy Carter's Sunday school class. Afterward people could line up for a photo op with the president and Mrs. Carter. As we were in line, Tere (my wife) said, "I'm going to give him a kiss." I responded, "Wonderful. I'll catch up with you after Secret Service breaks your kneecaps." As we stepped up to pose with the Carters, my darling wife, never a wallflower, leans over and pecks him on the cheek. He just smiled and said, "Right on!"
3. Backstage with Stanley Clarke, after Return to Forever performance, Atlanta, 8/2/2008. See photo below.
4. Internationally acclaimed artist Thornton Dial was bribed fifty dollars to let our family give him a ride home; Birmingham to Bessemer, AL. Dial is justifiably suspicious of white folks he doesn't know; actually, I might have to say that's one thing we have in common. I'm always happy when going to a party to see a good dog to engage in proper conversation.
5. Gave a very drunk John Fahey a ride to an Atlanta airport hotel after a depressing performance, during which he became progressively more wasted on stage and basically just babbled more than playing guitar. Among his comments were that his father-in-law offered to give Fahey some money if his wife (the guy's daughter) would lose some weight. The sight of seeing the slump-shouldered Fahey shuffling into the hotel carrying his guitars haunts me still.
6. Lunch with Jane Fonda at Bulloch House, Warm Springs, GA, the morning after she filed for divorce from Massa Ted. The first time I saw her was when she stepped out of the back of the car she was sleeping in at the home of a folk artist we were both going to see: the Prophet Jesse Marshall. (She had apparently been up all night.) Bulloch House is a southern-style buffet, which La Jane took to right away. No healthy eating there. She was quite angered when they removed her plate from the table while she had stepped away before she had a chance to finish what she'd put on there to begin with. After spending some time with our two boys, she offered to adopt them if ever anything happened to my wife and me.
7. Garrison Keillor rode in my car; spoke with him later at apres-performance dessert party, Abingdon, VA. Keillor was invited (paid) to give a fundraising performance at Barter Theatre, the state theatre of Virginia, where my wife works. They needed a big vehicle to pick up Keillor, so they borrowed my Chevy Tahoe. Quite tall Keillor apparently sat in the way back and spoke on the cell phone the entire time (I was not invited to be in the car to pick him up). For a while we could say that our car had his DNA in it, but then we traded it in on a Prius, which gets 48 miles a gallon -- a whole lot better value than having a car where Garrison Keillor once sat. He was very nice after his performance, though -- apparently totally against type. I told him that A Prairie Home Companion used to save my Saturday nights in the early '80s when I was working at the printing plant.
8. Physically bumped into Jack Nicholson upstairs at Sardi's -- the famous Broadway theatre district bar -- 1977; the occasion was an "audition" (that is, a fundraiser) for a play that some folks were trying to get produced. The playwright and composer and two of the leads they had cast were there performing all the songs. Maybe 20 people were there, sitting in folding chairs gathered around the piano. One of the songs was a little ditty called "Tomorrow." The play ended up being Annie. Why, as a 17-year-old, I was invited to this gig is far less interesting, but one of the oddities of my life.
9. A very slight brush. Back around 1978 when I was in college, some friends and I traveled from Atlanta to Huntsville, AL, because, before transferring to school in Atlanta, one of my friends had been instrumental in arranging for Hunter S. Thompson to give a talk at the University of Alabama at Huntsville campus. Because of my friend’s remaining connections at the UAH campus, we knew when Thompson’s plane would be arriving, so we prepared ourselves properly to meet him at the airport—kind of the unofficial welcoming party. So we are positioned in the concourse and see Dr. Thompson’s unique stride coming toward us (along with the official welcoming party of two or three students). There are three or four of us unofficial types—longhaired, eyes glazed, and mostly in awe. My friend says in his most cultured tone, “Ah, Dr. Thompson,” at which point we begin genteel applause, as if we are at a ladies’ tea party or piano recital. Thompson takes one frightened look at us and darts into the airport bar. We follow, and take up our spots at the table next to him and his minders, trying to glean what we can from the conversation, which is virtually impossible, because even at his best, Thompson speech is mostly incomprehensible. After about 15 or 20 minutes, Thompson gets up to leave, stops by our table, and says, “Sorry. I thought you were some of Wallace’s boys,” referring to former governor, presidential candidate, and opportunistic segregationist George Wallace. Looking at us, you would have hardly associated us with Wallace supporters, but we were happy for the moment of attention and humor from the good doctor. When we saw him the next day giving his talk for the students, I’m not sure I understood one of every 10 words he said, but as a brush with fame goes, the trip was well worth it.
10. Added starter: Once when I was ushering at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta (early 1980s), I heard the Grateful Dead perform "Let It Be" for their sound check. Deadheads who've listened to thousands of hours of bootleg tapes assure me that the band never played that song. Well, maybe not during a concert, but I know what I saw and heard, performed for about 30 ushers and the guys at the sound board, who seemed to be more occupied with the lines of coke in front of them. Jerry Garcia and Donna Godchaux singing, if you're keeping score at home.