Well, I'm All Better

 What a difference a year makes, in lots of ways.

Haven't Been Here in a While

In the words of Warren Zevon in his own version of "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me," "I don't wanna talk about it." I will say that things are a whole lot different now than they were just prior to my 59th birthday, the dateline of the prior post. Yow.

The hands-down best part of the changes is that I recently became a first-time grandfather, so wonderful things do happen. Our son and daughter-in-law have decided that once our granddaughter has a recognizable face, she will also have no social media presence. They won't be posting pictures for public viewing, and I'm sure it'll be a long time before their child does. And my kids are not Luddites by any means, DIL included. Nor do they particularly put themselves out there, at least via the only medium that I very, very occasionally access: the much-dreaded Rat's Nest; both sons have abandoned it, and our daughter-in-law might post twice or thrice a year. I think they do Instagram stuff, but I don't really know (or know what that is) nor do I care. All three can stare into their phones for hours with the best of them, although the new parents now have a better way to spend their time.

And no photo of my most brilliant and beautiful granddaughter will appear here, because it wouldn't last long anyway. Scroll down a little and you'll see that Blogger has scrubbed the picture of the mascot and me, for godsake. I'm not sure which of us triggered the facial recognition bots. Google years ago wiped out from this blog the photo of the czarina and me with John Cale . . . and also wiped out, at least on my side, the same photo as an attachment to an email to an author in Israel, for whom I was writing an index. Thankfully the author did receive the email and the photo deletion didn't until occur until sometime down the line. But it still makes you go hmmm, as some long-forgotten sort-of comic would say.

Just got through the leanest month in the modern history of LandonDemand. September's already looking better, which isn't saying much, unless folks bail on me. It's happened before. Or something is moved to next season. Or a well-known university press gets a job back three weeks early—a true sign of my lack of stuff to do—but the Holy Grail known as the Purchase Order Number has not yet been assigned. And I start what becomes a string of worldwide emails to get one. I mean, talk about no good deed goes unpunished.

On the other hand, with this same press, I once filed an invoice on Thursday morning and was paid late that afternoon, direct depozick [sic]. So I can't really complain.

I just realized that the insomnia I've been battling for much of this year could have been spent right here. Anyone out there reading this is very, very lucky that I've not happened upon that notion before now. I've been unleashing the word horde (thanks, Wm. S. Burroughs) upon any poor soul who'll stand still long enough. (See paragraph 1.)

And no more comments. Sorry. The spammers are getting past the meager defense that Blogger provides. I'm always available via landondemand@gmail.com, often too much so. Write me, especially if I don't know you.

Production Editors and Expectations of Copyeditors

Correspondence sent recently to a managing editor

I'm not holding this against you, although you can hold against me the lateness of the project, because it's ultimately my fault. But please, never again tell me a project is in good shape unless you know it firsthand from reading it cover to cover—and if that is never destined to happen, that's perfectly fine by me. I'd just as soon go into a project blind as with wrong expectations, because it then messes up my schedule and the publisher's schedule when the assessment of the manuscript is incorrect. I've got literally seven different projects in various stages of completion, partially because this thing wasn't off my desk much sooner. Again, my fault entirely. I start feeling weird if I have two projects going simultaneously. And this one seems to get worse as it gets further; maybe it's just me.

Don't, however, cut this guy any slack. First-time published authors who aren't great writers and who construct a manuscript full of citations as if they're not familiar with the form shouldn't get to dictate how their manuscript appears with a publishing house of your stature. I don't care who this guy is. He should be happy y'all care enough to make him look better.

Balls

You know what? Don't come to me with a job on a hellish schedule and ask for a sample of what I'm doing, especially when it's proofing and copyediting. "You're an unknown; you came from a recommendation."

"Look, I don't know the author either. I might be unknown to her, but if she wants references at Oxford, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Westminster John Knox, I'm happy to provide."

Love dropping names. Authors, frankly, don't generally impress me. If Gary Dorrien called me, though, I'd probably be thrilled. Then again, I was told to leave his stuff alone. Those types of folks love proofreaders being paid not to produce.

I've Been in a Mood

I'd say it started about two weeks ago. The czarina had gone off to Atlanta to stay with friends in their recently rebuilt home in what used to be a fear zone close to downtown. When our friend moved there 25 years ago, Domino's wouldn't deliver. Now, it's great. The czarina left essentially to lay eyes on our older son, who was there to be in a wedding of some people he'd met while acting. We hadn't seen him since, uh, July, and before that it was way back in, uh, June. Yeah, well, whatever. 

A hurricane was moving through Atlanta, so the wedding was moved across the street. It was supposed to be where the czarina and I were hitched, oddly enough. Our son was going to be a groosman at the same place. They still dressed there, and the restaurant, now under a different name, had at least one Thornton Dial on the wall, as well as some other cool stuff. Mitchell had everyone talking about the art.

I was here in Bristol, baby, with the shedding menagerie. My father's eighty-fifth birthday would have been the seventh of the month; my work game has been off; the electronic gig had backed up two weeks of work into about four days, on top of the usual Lucy and the chocolates; mid-October was coming; eating, sleeping, basic maintenance, all shot to hell . . . I'm down to 177, and the last time I saw that, I was on my way to 145. Couple years after my mother died. "Lotta ins and outs. Lotta what-have-yous."

So—how much you getting paid for this?—I just sent off an index for a book to a company that has certainly in some way affected your life in a significant way (this readership's life) with ramifications, published by a university you know, by some coeditors who are or were the equivalent of C-suite gentlemen in this particular field. "Not exactly lightweights," judging from their bios. 

I'm feeling a little better having accomplished something, and I guess I was feeling my oats. This was after asking the receiver of the invoice if I could send and he could process speedy delivery. I've never worked with the guy or any of these people before, except the press, which won't be involved until I send the index to them author-approved.

Nine hours after the fact, I'm rereading the email I sent them. I guess it's professional enough. The letter is verbatim from Gmail. I love it because I can use it again and again. Absolutely generic, except I did take out the name of the university. It's somewhere east of the Mississippi, I'm pretty certain.

A peek behind the curtain. The underlying tone is, "I really hope you leave this thing alone." I'm almost scared to send off an index anymore. It's also coming up on the one-year anniversary of that experience. I'm not sure I ever addressed that incident in this space. Lordy. Pathetic. Talk about some horseshit scholarship. 

+++

Hi, all. First, thanks again for your patience, and apologies for the earlier bait-and-switch.

I've attached the index manuscript as well as a marked-up PDF noting some things I saw along the way. You've probably already caught most of these issues while reviewing the page proofs.

From looking at your distinguished bios, I'm guessing y'all have been to this rodeo before, but a few notes:

* Multiauthor books present a challenge in that different chapters, especially if they've been printed elsewhere before, might refer to the same concepts using slightly different language. I've tried to consolidate different terminology here, so please keep an eye out for where I may have misinterpreted. I've also presented a lot of cross-references but may have missed opportunities for additional ones. Feel free to add.

* Another challenge with this type of book is avoiding the rabbit hole of trying to present data in the index in addition to the conceptual items. Of course, with an index, a guide to the book's data is not desired. The index would become unwieldy very quickly, and it's also against standard indexing practices, as XXUP's guidelines aver.

* If you want to make or handle any changes on your side, please do so, although track the changes so that I can see what you've done, to ensure that the index still adheres to standard protocols.

The deadline for the press is Monday, 10/23. Hopefully you'll find the index to your liking and any back-and-forth will be brief (although, of course, the index needs to satisfy the authors, within reasonable constraints). I do have a few very minor queries in the index. If you could address to those, I'd appreciate it. They may result in no changes at all.

If you have any questions, let me know. Thanks for an interesting read.

George McGovern, RIP, and Other Stuff

Of all the tomes I read in my younger days, I'd say that none politicized me like Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 -- not for forming my political opinions, but for raising my interest in the political process. And that was an interesting year, given that two years later, both the elected vice president and president who trounced McGovern would be gone from office in separate scandals. As I saw McGovern quoted in one of his obituaries, "We'd have had a better chance two years later." Indeed.

One of the lines that Thompson quotes -- I believe from Jeremiah -- is "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."

Of course, I'm prone to misinterpretation and plucking quotes out of context, but I feel like my harvest just past with one of the most ridiculous work stretches I've ever encountered. The red leaves tell me summer has ended. Salvation? Don't get me started.

Just finished a mildly interesting book on the mutual dialogue ("trialogue") of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The Jews don't have much to say about the afterlife. What happens now is what counts.

One of the chapter's authors brings up the interesting point, though, that a religion that excludes people in its afterlife necessarily is saying something about how the religion will treat those excluded people in this life.

I've found myself giving rather specific advice to a couple of editorial newcomers lately -- as far as mapping out a freelance career and how to approach editorial changes. I enjoy doing that, and I hope they get something out of it. Some folks helped me along the way.

I'm enjoying a moment of relative calm. One of the hardest things about being a freelancer is making yourself work when you'd really rather not. It's been months and months since I've felt like I should be doing anything with my waking hours but working, so that I've not even had to face the choice. I have nothing due in the morning, and my world's not going to fold like a napkin if I don't work to exhaustion. It's a nice feeling.

Updates on Some Old Stories

Back on September 26, I wrote the following:

Do you think the fun ends there? Looking down the road, I am scheduled to receive the book for proofreading on October 17. The book will need to be read/marked up and FedEx'd back to the publisher. And when do you think the book is due back with them? October 19? October 18?

Stop it, you're killing me.

October 17.

Well, I guess the joke was on me, because I wrote the publisher around November 17 to find out about this and another job scheduled to come in at the same time. Both were under time constraints and went to press without proofreading -- at least not proofreading by me.

Gulp.

Not much I can do about that. But hearing about it from the publisher would have been nice, without having to track it down.

Here's the thing: I actually waited a month before contacting the publisher, because I've waited that long on earlier projects with this company . . . but the jobs always eventually showed up.

Any other publishers, I call the day after I'm supposed to receive something, and they are apologetic, not just for the lateness, but the lack of notice.

I suppose I can be thankful that not everyone does the lack-of-communication thing. Sometimes small projects from independent authors or occasional publishers can run late, but companies that are full-time in the publishing business are usually pretty good about keeping freelancers informed.

Usually.

====

A young woman who worked with me as an intern some years back accepted a job last week as production editor with a large religious publishing house, of all things. Yes, English majors, jobs do exist. She also had an MA, though, which she earned after her time in the LandonDemand bunker. Production editor . . . that's sometimes the title of a person who hires freelancers. Hmm. How provident.

Another intern is working with me now, and I am thinking of having her do a guest editorial for the blog. Maybe what she thought editing was going to be about vs. what it actually is, or whether editing still holds any attraction for her after being exposed to three to four months of it. Any ideas?

Newsworthy Comments from a Co-Vendor

It's frustrating as hell to expect something at a certain time, open a hole for it, arrange your life and work around it, and have it not show. It impacts cash flow. What are we to do: sell other orders, and once knee deep in that, drop it?

Guest Posting 1: Magazine Editing

I have encouraged friends of mine who read this blog and those who don't to send me their publishing horror stories, and I'd print them as guest postings. Sort of a gift of therapy for my embattled peers laboring in the ditches.

Forthwith, a posting from one of my nonreaders.

Enjoy. Or at least commiserate.

---

I edit a lifestyle magazine that covers life, work, and recreation -- about a half dozen little villages/communities.

All editorial was due to me by October 7 for copy editing/review, in order to make deadline for a November 1 publication date.

I woke up this morning to an email from a writer saying she sent her piece to the two folks she interviewed to check facts. I ALWAYS discourage writers from doing this. We are not an advertorial magazine and it’s my job to check facts, dates, spellings, etc. You know the score . . .

Anyway, she says to me that George was fine with it but Ringo basically rewrote it with more information and sent to her. Since she “liked” his version better, she decided to send it to me and hopes that’s okay.

My response:

Please don’t allow the interview subject(s) to guide your writing. IF we agree to send them a piece to review, it is to proof for factual information only, not word use, writing style, or what to include or leave out. You are responsible for those decisions, not Ringo, because you are the one being paid, not him. The only other person who can mess with your work is your editor, the person who guides the angle of the article and the content of the magazine’s editorial. In this case, me. And I’ve always been happy with your work. I’ve never had to bump anything back to you because it was incomplete or poorly written. Word limits mean just that: there is a limit to what we can write on any given subject, and you as the writer and I as the editor have to make choices about that. This topic could be a BOOK, I’m sure, but that’s not what we’re doing here.

I cannot tell from the piece you just sent me which work is yours and which is Ringo’s, so I can’t make any decisions about how to handle this. If you believe that some of his additional information is imperative to the piece, then by all means amend YOUR original article and send it along, using your own words to interpret Ringo’s, just like you would do if he had said this to you in an interview. If you don’t have time to do that by mid-today, then send me your original piece, as written.

---

My pal closed the missive to me with a number of expletives. Can you blame?

Feel free to send me your stories. The blog needs different perspectives. 

Especially you managing editors out there. I'd love a post on what a pain it is to deal with freelancers. I'll even allow stories about myself . . . as long as they end up with the necessary spin that will not scare off potential clients. I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid.
 

This Stuff Writes Itself

The previous post dealt with timing on deliveries of jobs from a particular client with a history of somewhat late communications on changing deadlines, not to mention the occasional expectation that I should drop everything I'm doing and read its stuff. I received the following note today from the same client:

Hi Bob, I don't know if you know about the ST job since it's not one we are using the Web for. It's on a very fast track. According to the schedule, you should have copyedited it and had it back to us yesterday.

So given this parameter, when do you think we could have it back? As always send us a clean copy and one with track changes.

Dear readers, I've been freelancing one way or the other since 1986 -- a quarter of a century, roughly half my life. This memo is without precedent. Never before have I been late on a job that, not only had I not received it, but the client never even made me aware of it.

I finally became privy to the original production schedule, which called for me to receive the book for editing on Saturday, September 24, and to return it on Sunday, September 25.

Do you think the fun ends there? Looking down the road, I am scheduled to receive the book for proofreading on October 17. The book will need to be read/marked up and FedEx'd back to the publisher. And when do you think the book is due back with them? October 19? October 18?

Stop it, you're killing me.

October 17.

PS: In all fairness, I do love this client, whom I made aware of the previous post. S/he got a kick out of it. I think.

Making It Worthwhile: A Client with a Sense of Humor

In response to a message in which I requested some vigilance about informing me of changes in schedule:


See if this helps: all text from us, henceforth and forever after, will be late by a factor of 29 percent, except when it's late by 153 percent. Late text does not mean final text. It just means what we're submitting is late but there's still more to come. Which will  be even later. There is, naturally, an inverse proportion of the percent of lateness to the amount of time the various vendors who come afterwards have to complete their job. The later we are, the less time you have. It's the way the word world works -- sadly. However, work being done in a rush by our vendors earns the vendor battle pay, which is really pretty much what you'd normally get, but you can brag about it to the literary set at the Dunk 'n' Dine. Except that you won't actually have money to spend at the Dunk 'n' Dine because your battle pay was late. Had you not been in battle, perhaps you would have seen that memo. When you finish editing our copy, you get what the poor SOB got when he finished stuffing envelopes -- more envelopes. And more copy. Yes, it's a vicious mother****ing cycle, but it beats (we hope) saying, "You want fries with that?" Maybe.

Feel better? Am logging off for the night and will be back in the morning to be late some more. And by the way, thank you always and with considerable gratitude for putting up with our messy, late ways. Which I'm late in saying.

gall

I have a client who has a client.

The company I work for handles production on an outsourcing basis for one of the world's biggest publishers. I've railed about this publisher before on any number of accounts: pay, turnaround time, demands, etc.

I receive the following message today from my client about a job I'd gotten wind of a week or so ago, with very little firm in the way of deadlines, length, expectations, etc.:

Pages are supposed to be ready for me to download tomorrow. They want the proofreading back in 3 batches--the first one due 9/24 so I need it here on the 23rd. Is this going to be okay?

I respond:

I'm sorry, but I can't do it. Aside from the fact that I didn't know when they'd be coming in, if the pages are ready for you to download tomorrow, and then you ship them here, then they're getting here on the 19th (Friday), and I would have to send them back to you on the 22nd (Monday). I know [XXX is] opposed to rush charges, but to ask someone to drop everything and work over the weekend for a four-day turnaround with no incentive to do so on what is probably a messy project . . . geez.

Now, between you and me I work weekends anyway, so that's not really an issue (although I always get my hackles up a little when publishers make that presumption). More to the point is that we are going away from Friday to Sunday, so even if I had nothing else to do, I wouldn't be able to do this because I will be away from my office.

I apologize for what might seem like a bait-and-switch, and I'm not blaming you for this, but it seems that [XXX] is operating in a world that is somewhat separated from reality. I have a feeling this is not exactly news to you.

I don't blame my client, because they are just passing the word along. But come on.

Fault is all mine

Sometimes I'm just too smart for my own good.

I'm working on this nutbuster of an editing job. Very difficult subject matter and a complex manuscript, but at least it's not an index. The writing is fine, but the manuscript is about one-third notes and bibliography. Out of a 450-page m/s, 300 pages are text; the rest is documentation. Yuck.

So it's taking me forever to plow through this thing because of having to stop and check the notes and check them against the bibliography, and the days are ticking away . . . days when I should be moving on to something else.

Bright idea: just read the text, then go back and do the notes and bibliography.

This particular publisher, which seems only to send me nearly impossible projects (I'm getting tired of it), has given me a new press style sheet for each of the last three jobs. This is also an incredible pain, because minor things change from one to the next . . . not that I can keep up with the style desires of my stable of publishers anyway, but eventually when I'm into a project I remember the quirks. Called out for particular importance on this new style sheet is that it's very important that scriptural citations match the NRSV, because the publisher has a rights arrangement with them . . . unless the author explains otherwise or cites the different translation.

OK. Fine. So in the chapter where I decide to forgo the notes, all of a sudden there are many more scriptural citations than before. So I dutifully begin checking against NRSV, and probably spend three hours making changes word-by-word, changes that really don't matter much to the translation and that have no effect on the subsequent narrative. This is nothing new. Authors often use a translation that the press doesn't want used, and it falls to the copyeditor to make the changes.

So, what's the problem? I finish the text quickly, then turn to the notes. Note number 16: "Biblical translations are the author's," which means he's gone back to the Greek and Hebrew and done his own translation, which is perfectly legit and doesn't need to be altered.

I've wasted three hours changing the text, and then I spent literally an hour and a half with a Pink Pearl eraser removing my acres of pencil markings.

Who do I blame for all this? Who else can I blame? All my fault. How could I have avoided this? I should have checked the note accompanying the first biblical excerpt to see if there was an explanation. Woulda shoulda coulda. You can add to "editor indexer proofreader" occasional dumbass.

And now I'm so tired of the project that it's hard to get back to it. I've got about 60 pages of notes and the accompanying 30 pages of bibliography to go through, and then some searches that won't take long, but the notes and bibliography itself I'll be lucky if I can get through at 5 pages an hour. In my business and with my self-imposed demands, not only is that frustrating, but it's essentially a money-losing proposition.

But it's gotta get done. I suspect I have some clients who are wondering why the last year seems to have degenerated into one creative excuse after another. While they keep coming back, it's beginning to wear on me a little. Although the folks on the receiving end, I feel, probably operate somewhat the same way I do. If they want something back from me on x date, they probably get around to it on x date plus 3 days. But their job is to keep things moving, as is mine. That's the theory anyway.

And when things don't move quickly enough, I tend to get testy.

Some days . . . I'd really like to chuck it all. As much theology as I read, I don't really have a theology of my own. But in some vague way, I don't think this life is all there is . . . so the fact that I've given up some hope on much changing about the way I operate in this go-round is mitigated by the fact that things might be different if and when I'm given another chance. But this is all a topic for a different blog: the antitheology of the theology editor. I was once asked by a pastor friend of mine what type of immunity I had that I could read this stuff day after day, year after year, and it didn't affect me -- that is, cause me to become religious, specifically Christian. I used to say that I could accept the New Testament, but I'd have to first accept the Old Testament. Now, quite frankly, it's one of the topics that really doesn't matter to me whatsoever. A friend a few weeks back recommended prayer to me . . . a specific type of prayer done at a specific time. I took him up on it for a few weeks. Ended up doubled over in pain and panic. Not that there's a cause and effect, but maybe it's just another thing that I managed to screw up.

Damn. If you've gotten here, you deserve a prize. So, here you go. I'd like to be able to dance like this guy for just one second. My dancing style makes Al Gore look loosey-goosey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ib2b4BOZIQ

Split decision

I've got to watch it here, because I'm trying to circulate knowledge of this blog through, if nothing else, including it on my email signature. Maybe someone other than Moi will read it. If you're out there, anybody, throw me a bone, willya?

Today's thought comes from a book designer that Moi and I work with: "Lack of planning on your part does not create an emergency on my end." Good thing to remember, but then there's the customer service side of the business which recognizes that things happen. But imagine this.

I heard a few weeks ago from a freelance book packager/editor who used to call me occasionally on behalf of a particular Well-Known Publisher for whom she labored. I say "well-known" not to boast, because it's really nothing to boast about, but if you've looked at my client list, let's just say that the names are not ones that readers in nonacademic fields have heard of.

(Side note: my wife looked at my client list on a little marketing piece I had created recently and said, "Industrial Hydro-Blast?")

So, anyway, now this book packager is an off-site full-time employee of this same publisher, and she emails with a possible job. The publisher has a 2000-page book/manual on psychology that's coming in for proofreading. They have 2 weeks to get it all read and ready. In order to get the work done, they are splitting up the work among 4 different proofreaders, 500 pages per head.

The only way a 2000-page book must be read in 2 weeks is that someone up the line fell down on the job -- author, in-house editor, etc. Certainly no publisher plans for that. And the later you get in the production cycle, the more someone's going to have to step up and bail someone else's butt out of hot water.

Or in this case, four people.

And naturally, I feel that this is an unfortunate maneuver. Splitting up a function like this isn't as bad as splitting up a copyediting job among two or more people, because hopefully all the proofreaders are of a similar skill set and will be catching the same types of errors. Not too many judgment calls at the proofreading stage. But still. And I fear that such a job will be accompanied by style sheets galore. I have discussed in earlier posts my disdain for style sheets.

And imagine yourself as the typesetter, dealing with four sets of handwriting, proofing symbols (standardized, of course, but everyone's got their own quirky way of doing things), and style.

Another curiosity is that the job is being paid by the hour. Would be interesting to see on the back end if there is a wide variety of hours submitted, and also correlating that to quality of work done.

At least it should be interesting, being about psychology. At least it's not theology . . . not that there's anything wrong with that.

Well, dear reader(s), it's time to go to bed. It's almost Wednesday. So far this week, beginning Sunday morning, I slept from 12 noon to 2pm Monday and from 12:30am to 6:30am today. Which means I've gotten 7 hours of sleep in the last 67; is that math right? I'm amazed I'm still at it. I've done an index on St. Francis of Assisi, copyedited most of a book on being a Buff Dad (don't even ask), mowed the lawn, and maybe done one or two other productive things.

Going to Connecticut next week to see our younger son, and thence to Vermont for a few days. I'm trying to line up some work to take, to kill time in airports and also to read while on break, because then we come back and after a day or two go to Chattanooga to watch our older son play the lead in The Man Who Came to Dinner. Neither son has expressed an interest in entering the family business. For that matter, neither did I, but that was when the family business was being a car dealer.

Fading fast.