wrapping up 2009

Seems like I was going into the end of the year with some things on my mind I wanted to dump on the blog and get them out of my head. Maybe I'll remember most of them.

A couple of individual author stories. I edited and proofread a book for a previously published author who definitely had per own way of wanting things done. I think I covered some of this under a blog post titled (new pet peeve of mine: titled vs. entitled; I don't care if "entitled" might be correct. If it's referring to the title of a work, the landondemand creed mandates "titled" rather than "entitled") "Remind Me Why You Hired Me Again." As I've said, it doesn't matter to me what you do with my suggestions or changes once it's off my desk, but please don't ask me to do the work, then second-guess everything I do, particularly if you're not in the publishing field.

(I do have one client who second-guesses--or tries to argue me out of--most things I do, but it's kind of a running joke at this point. And I like per too much to fire per, anyway.)

So, after I'm done with the proofread of the author's book, per sends me the jacket copy for a copyedit. (Another growing pet peeve: I think I'm done with a project and then comes, "Oh, would you mind looking at the promotional copy?") I tell per, "I don't think I should copyedit this because the bulleted lists don't start off with parallel words and very few of the bulleted items on why someone should purchase this book flow logically from the lead-in to the list."

Per responds (paraphrasing), "Thanks anyway. I'm going to leave it the way it is, because I like it that way, and I don't think we need to hold up the jacket copy to the same editorial standards as the inside text."

Excuse me?

I just responded with an "OK, thanks. Nice working with you. Keep me in mind for the next book." I mean, how do you respond to that? You've got the jacket copy, where you're trying to sell the book, and you don't want it to make sense? You want the first thing people read to leave them scratching their heads wondering if the inside of the book is going to contain the same type of editorial problems?

But I knew the author well enough at that point that when per said, "I've decided to keep it the way it is," that was it. I suspect per paid someone to write the copy and didn't want someone else changing it. Just a guess.

But we parted on good terms. No harm, no foul. Per did keep me on the phone a long time over the course of the project, but whatchoo gonna do?

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Author 2. This is from a project for which I've been hired, although I've not yet received the final draft of the manuscript. I need to be a little careful here because per checked out my blog before contacting me. Never know when per might check in again.

Per and I are trading emails laying down the ground rules for what I would do and charge, etc. Then per lays this one on me:

I would also like some sort of quality control/warranty statement. Hypothetically, what if I paid a copy editor to do this, then the MS goes to the publisher and they reject it and tell me that it is loaded with typos and misplaced periods. I’d have to re-copy edit because the guy who did the copy editing the first time did a sloppy quick job. Am I paranoid or is that a real possibility?

My cordial response:

Nothing wrong with a touch of paranoia, but hopefully in my case a sloppy quick job is not a real possibility. I cannot guarantee that any publisher will accept your work after I copyedit it, though. Remember, too, that copyediting is just the first quality control step, and no copyeditor is going to catch 100 percent of errors, and then there's the keying-in process, too -- during which the random error may be missed or instituted. That's why the book is proofread as well -- still not a guarantee of perfection, as any honest author/publisher/editor will tell you. But loaded with typos and misplaced periods? I hope that's not what you'd find with me. If it were, I wouldn't have publishers who've been using me as a copyeditor for years and years, and dozens and dozens of projects. Again, I can give you plenty of references if you have any doubts. But guarantees about pubiisher's acceptances, I can't make.

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I got fired in 2009. That's always fun. Here's the post I wrote at the time, but which I never published. Might as well do so now, just to clear the conscience:

I'm going to take a page from one of the most offensive yet most popular Internet sites, the Drudge Report, and break the news here. Anytime someone tries to put out some dirt on Drudge, he immediately posts the article on his own site, as if to say, "I got nothing to hide." This is another way of saying, "The best defense is a good offense." Yes, indeedy, folks. Far and away my most bizarre client has given me the heave-ho. I'm not going to get into too many details, to preserve per's anonymity (I am fair, after all) and thus to preserve my own hide. Let's just say this: Per is a Bible-thumping prophet (like an apocalyptic, see-the-future type) and an America-loathing rabble-rouser. Per foresees the end of America as we know it unless we all come to Christ and change our ways. I can go on and on about per, as I have come to know per over the last year or so, but I will let the slightly edited correspondence speak for itself.

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Yes Bob I will send the western union today although I am not going to pay you for re-editing your own work in chapter 26. The other day when you ask me, where did I get this copy from. . . I got it from you. That is the reason why I run everything through you before including it in the manuscript, so the entire manuscript will have to be re-edited because it is my opinion you either farmed it out originally or you did not do such a good job that you have found your own work to be problematic with errors. I know you by now (not using any gifts of foresight) that you are not going to re-edit this entire manuscript again, and do it right at no charge, but in my opinion you should because I have already paid you for it, and even if you did go through it, it is further my opinion you would not go through it with a fine tooth comb, so my only option at this point is to hunt for a new editor and wish you the best. I will send you some money but frankly in my opinion, I have wasted about [dollar figure here] and the manuscript is not ready to go to press. Goodbye Bob.

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Isn't this fun? Here's the response I wanted to send. Special blog exclusive.

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First, when I asked, "Where did this come from?" I'm certain I was referring to a specific piece of text, not an entire chapter, and how it fit into the surrounding text. I'd need to see the context for the statement.

On to larger matters:

You've received all the tracked versions of every document you've sent me (all of which I've kept), so you've seen exactly what I've done along the way -- no portion at all of which has been farmed out. I don't farm out my work any more than you farm out your prophecies.

You've had no complaint about the work until now. You've had scores of opportunities to say that you didn't think my work was up to snuff and to end our relationship based on the quality of the work you were receiving from me. I've never heard a single word from you along those lines -- even though you claim that you've been rereading and rereading the manuscript. If there were really something seriously wrong, you would have noticed it long before now, and you would have terminated the relationship long ago. You obviously felt comfortable enough with my work to continue to send me regular updates for nine months after editing the original manuscript, and to send me emails asking for advice, which have always been answered. Along the way, you'd mentioned at least twice all the money you'd be sending me once the book came out because you treat well those people who treat you right. Those aren't the actions or words of an author who is unhappy with the editing.

I can guess at any number of reasons you now no longer want me to work for you, but I'm not going to try to get into your head.

Every person who is in publishing full time will tell you that copyediting is part of a process, which includes proofreading as well, and proofreaders often catch what a copyeditor has missed, especially in a manuscript that at this point is being slapped together totally haphazardly, with a sentence here and a sentence there out of context going out for editing. If the manuscript overall is now not reading the way you want it to, it's largely because of the process you've undertaken since last November.

I've been getting emails since last November with documents titled things like, "last change before typesetting" and "one last thing." You can attribute it to [ . . . ] or your desire to have this book be its best, but I've worked with any number of folks who also have issues with [ . . . ] and who want the best for their publication, but who also intuitively understand what it takes to make a publication its best and how to work with an editor to bring that about. Your approach to the text of the book at this point is akin to a dog who keeps digging up a bone and looking for somewhere else to bury it. You just can't leave it alone, and confusion is the inevitable result. If you want to blame me for that, that's your decision. The corrections you've been sending my way have resulted from your claims that you had a better way to say something, or you've been adding new material (election, Michael Jackson, new interactions at churches), or you've been qualifying your experiences in [ . . . ] to make sure you don't land in additional legal trouble. Never have you said, "I didn't like the way you did this. Please review." Never. Not once. And that you kept sending me material clearly showed you thought I was doing something right.

According to your own account, you've gone through photographers, web designers, cover designers, and editors before me -- blaming them for all the problems and their inability to do what you want them to do. I'm now added to the list. Without the gift of foresight, I suspect the pattern will continue with typesetters, proofreaders, indexers, printers, distributors, bookstore owners, publicity people, and so on. When I read in your book that you'd been in 20 car wrecks, 19 of which were not your fault, that about summed it up. And when I read repeatedly in your book about your lack of faith in the United States and the American judicial system, yet when I look online and see that you are constantly in court, asking that very same American judicial system to clear up your problems for you, I see that I've been dealing with a bundle of contradictions all the way along.

You are certainly correct that I would not reedit the manuscript again at no charge. And I'd be wary of vendors who give you rock-bottom rates and claim decades of experience. I don't think you'll ultimately be happy with their work either, or you'll find that they'll start charging you for continually making changes and adjustments (as they should), which will make their original low price end up not so low in the long run.

You say that this book will come out on God's time and according to God's plan; if that's the case, then your dealings with me have just been part of a grander scheme in which you claim to have complete trust. Or maybe it's like the judicial system: it's something you fall back on when it suits your purposes.

I wish you the best of luck with the book.

Bob

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Well, now that's off my chest. And needless to say, he never sent me the final check.

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Clients came and went in 2009 -- mostly went. I managed to keep my head above water, well, most of it. It's like they say, when you're up to your chin in water, it only takes one big wave to drown you. Knock on wood, things are holding together, but some significant income producers in 2008 and years past sent me nothing or next to nothing in 2009. On the other hand, some folks who were relatively small potatoes in prior years really stepped it up last year. And I received this nice note from a client after Christmas:

"We at [publisher] wish you a very merry Christmas. Thank you for all your great work this year. We look forward to working with you much more in 2010."

That's what I call good news. And I'm hoping that the economy turns around enough that some of the regulars get on their feet again and start sending out books. My guess is that the freelance pool is somewhat fluid -- that in the big markets where full-timers were laid off, there are a lot of freelancers looking for work, but on the other hand, people who might have been freelancing part-time and for whom the work has dried up . . . they might go try to find real jobs (if such are to be had), thus taking them out of the freelance pool. One of my clients used to say, "I need you to stay busy as a freelancer or you might have to find something else to do."

As I've said before, at this point in my life I am otherwise unemployable, so this is all I got. If you've read this far and you're looking for someone to proofread, copyedit, or index your book, I'm not going anywhere. People around the country will vouch for my work, and I'm confident enough to let you know when I get fired, even if it's by someone who might be a taco short of a combination plate (smart individual, though -- per's wires are just a bit crossed).

Well, this has probably gone on way too long.

Your humble and obedient servant,

Geo. Washington

Proofreaders in history, and a lesson

Readers: Chime in with your own lesson from the story below, and -- without looking it up on the series of tubes -- who can name famous people who used to be proofreaders?

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Value Line’s Sam Eisenstadt Says He Was Fired After 63 Years

By Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Samuel Eisenstadt, the research chairman of Value Line Inc., said he was fired from the investment advisory firm where he worked since 1946.

Chief Executive Officer Howard Brecher informed him on Dec. 4 that his services were no longer required, Eisenstadt, 87, said in an interview. Brecher took over as acting chairman and CEO last month after the New York-based firm agreed to pay $43 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that its mutual funds charged investors “phantom” trading fees.

“There was no explanation,” said Eisenstadt, who was not involved or implicated in the SEC settlement. “I’m not retiring. That would imply that I’m ready to leave the business, which I am not.”

Eisenstadt helped develop Value Line’s quantitative models that provide independent stock evaluations and recommendations to individuals and other investors. Value Line, whose predecessor was formed in 1931, sold its recommendations by subscription to investors and became a household name in the 1970s and 1980s. The flagship Value Line Investment Survey covers about 1,700 stocks, according to the company’s Web site.

Value Line spokesman William McBride said the company does not comment on personnel matters.

SEC Charges

Apart from selling investment research, Value Line also managed mutual funds. Last month, the SEC said Value Line improperly billed investors for trading services. As part of the settlement, Value Line’s Chief Executive Officer Jean Bernhard Buttner and Chief Compliance Officer David Henigson were barred from the industry.

Buttner became Value Line president in 1985 and took over as chief executive officer in 1988 after the death of her father, Arnold Bernhard. Bernhard, who founded Value Line’s predecessor in 1931, hired Eisenstadt 63 years ago as a proofreader. He rose through the ranks, and became research chairman in 1987.

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Sam, welcome to the world of freelancing. I suspect someone else will snatch you up in no time. According to the actuarial tables, at 87, you've got years of productivity still left in you.

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Another Sam:

Mark Twain's comments on proofreaders:

"Yesterday Mr. Hall wrote that the printer's proof-reader was improving my punctuation for me, & I telegraphed orders to have him shot without giving him time to pray." - 1889

"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made proof-readers."- 1893

That notwithstanding, perhaps my favorite Twain quote comes from his impressions on first seeing the Atlantic Ocean. His companion asked, "What do you think?" Twain's response: "It appears to be a success."

Open for Global Business: International Clients Welcomed for Editing, Proofreading, Indexing

I'm working on a book from an Australian author who is doing a postdoctoral fellowship in Sweden and publishing with an outfit in London. He somehow found this blog on the series of tubes, emailed me, and here I am a few weeks later proofreading his book. I'm almost to the end of it, and I must say that it might be the best written, best edited, and best typeset book I have ever seen. And I work on 100-plus books a year. I've not yet told him my impressions of the work, so as not to jinx it in case the situation turns south on me, and no offense intended to the publishers who've been keeping the family fed and housed and educated for the last number of years.

The book is set all in British style, of course -- different spellings, which I can handle, and a punctuation system that has always given me fits. But I can tell at least that it's consistent.

Same type of scholarly tome that I'm accustomed to, but written in such a fashion that you don't even know you're reading an academic book. I really can't say enough about it. Oh, one more thing: it's actually interesting.

Why, among other reasons, do I bring all this up? Well, first off, except for Demand Studios, this work is the first that I remember that results directly from someone (who didn't know me before or was referred to me) finding the blog and contacting me. If it's happened before, I don't recall. And the Demand Studios deal was more a tale of my encouraging them to consider employing me, and that story in this forum resulted in the hire. 'Nuff said about that incident. So, this blog finally paid off in the book publishing field -- my usual realm of opportunity -- albeit in a small way (it's not a big book).

But I was speaking with a neighbor the other day, a retired military meteorologist who does some traveling. He just got back from Morocco and Spain and was railing about how this country is different than it was 50 years ago, and it's going to hell, and we're no better than a developing nation and on and on. And, oh, by the way, the dollar's in the toilet.

I've been wondering why this previously published Australian scholar with a British publishing house went trolling the Internets to find a proofreader (and Paul, you might be reading this; please don't take any of this the wrong way). And I'm not saying this is what happened, but it occurred to me this morning:

My labor is cheap.

Yes, perhaps after generations of conquest and colonialism and feeling like we had the moral imperative to tell the world how to act (when we ourselves were no paradigm for morality [oooh, watch out . . . keep it apolitical]), because of the situation with the dollar, American labor in certain respects might become a bargain.

In the case of Land on Demand editing indexing proofreading, all I can say is, "Bring it on."

Authors and publishers from Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America: I am open for business. Send your manuscripts and PDFs right here. I accept payments by PayPal. Get that cheap American labor while the dollar is low. Don't waste those precious Euros or rupees or francs, or whatever your local currency of choice is. My rates remain the same, and they're probably looking better to you all the time in comparison to what your local labor charges. For now anyway, my dollar is spending just fine right here, and I'm making no international travel plans anytime soon.

Live outside the United States? Need an American editor, an American proofreader, an American indexer? Drop me a line. Great editorial services cheap. What more can you ask for?

Rogue indeed

Ripped from the headlines:

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Palin in book: McCain aides kept me 'bottled up'
By RICHARD T. PIENCIAK (AP) – 44 minutes ago

NEW YORK — The rumors are true, according to Sarah Palin: The McCain-Palin campaign was not a happy family. In Palin's new memoir, "Going Rogue," she confirms reports of tension between her aides and those of the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain. The vice presidential candidate confirms that she had wanted to speak on election night, but was denied the chance and says she was kept "bottled up" from reporters during the campaign.

Palin also writes harshly of CBS anchor Katie Couric, whom she describes as "badgering" and biased. Palin's series of interviews with Couric were widely regarded as disastrous, leaving the impression of an ill-informed candidate who was unsuited for the job.

The 413-page book with 16 pages of color photos but no index comes out Tuesday, Nov. 17. The Associated Press purchased a copy Thursday. "Going Rogue," with a first printing of 1.5 million copies, has been at or near the top of Amazon.com and other best-seller lists for weeks, ever since publisher HarperCollins announced that the book had been completed quickly and the release date was being moved up from next spring.

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More proof that the big publishers don't really care about quality. No publisher in the Land on Demand stable would think for a minute about putting out a book like this without an index. Why would a company publish a first-person memoir from a person of significant public interest without an index? The reasons are numerous, none of them admirable. I don't think for a minute it has to do with time or money or lack of resources. I personally believe that it's an intentional move on the part of the author and her handlers to hinder research and to keep the dreaded media from easy access to discovering what's in the book in advance of the first blitz of her media tour. I could rant, but I've tried so far to keep this blog apolitical.

What's the keyboarding equivalent of biting one's tongue?

If any readers out there want an index for this book, send me a copy and a check for $1,600 . . . a number that I hope is never again associated with this woman.

Quality: editing and proofreading

Good books are good for a number of reasons. The writing is just one aspect of it.

If you go to a movie in which the acting is fine and the story is interesting, would you be able to ignore dialogue that two characters repeat 10 minutes apart, as if it had never happened before? What about the watch one of the charioteers is wearing in Ben-Hur? Maybe you can see the reflection of the camera in a store window. Does that not bother you?

My wife's a huge Al Green fan. He came out with an autobiography a few Christmases ago, and I bought her a copy, as did one of her friends. She could barely get through it because of all the typos. Might have been Random House that published that one . . . one of the big boys.

As a self-publishing author, you owe it to your potential audience to put out the best book you can. Editing and proofreading are essential elements of quality control. You, as an author, are hopefully a wonderful storyteller or a great researcher, or you can write about complex subject matter in a fashion that a layperson can enjoy and learn from it.

I'll be the first to say that I can do none of those things. I can't write stories at all, I have no subject I'm interested enough in to research, and I certainly have no command of any complex subject matter.

But what I can do is make your writing a lot better. You have your area of expertise, and I have mine.

One of my goals as an editor (and as a proofreader, for that matter) is to ensure that no speed bumps appear in the text. That is, the reader should never get hung up on a certain sentence, wondering what that meant or trying to determine how the sentence is supposed to read so that it makes sense. It's awfully hard to produce a page-turner if your reader is constantly saying, "Wait . . . what?" Or, as in the case of my wife, your reader is so distracted by the mistakes that enjoyment of the content is severely diminished, which is a shame.

If you are self-publishing and you want your readers to have a pleasant experience (and to buy your next book), hire an editor before the book is typeset. Hire a proofreader after the book is typeset. Employ a professional so that the book which will forever have your name on it is something you can look back at with pride.

Just a thought, and more to come.

Self-Publishing Editor. Self-Publishing Proofreader. Self-Publishing Indexer.

Do you need a professional editor if you are self-publishing?
Do you need a professional proofreader if you are self-publishing?
Do you need a professional indexer if you are self-publishing?

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

And in the next post or two, I will give the reasons. In the meantime, you can take a look at my client list and get a feel for my background and why you should consider giving me a call.

Tell Me Again Why I Hired You

Just got off the phone with an author whose book I copyedited. Author is meticulous, professional, and experienced.

We are reviewing the Contents. Per asks if I would recommend using B-level heads in some chapters and not others. I say no. Per says she'll likely override my recommendation.

Per mentions in passing that all instances of the word "percent" when accompanying a number will be changed to "%." Chicago, AP, and every style manual I know recommends otherwise in running text. But per says that most of the readers of this book are also readers of the Wall Street Journal, and since the WSJ does it that way, so will per. Whatever.

Per also mentions that since receiving my copyedits, per has made quite a number of changes to the book. I'll also be proofing this book, and I told the author about problems with noncopyedited copy. To per's credit, I'll receive sections of the manuscript that have been rewritten before receiving the proofs to give them the once-over. Or per will pay me at proofreading stage for any text that needs copyediting. I wish some publishers, who should know better, would be so enlightened.

Really, though, it doesn't matter to me what an author ultimately does to any book after I copyedit, unless it's a book I particularly care about. Well, I care about them all--in my own mercenary way--but, no offense to this author, this title isn't one that hits close to the heart. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's not that kind of book.

An editor's stock-in-trade is consistency. The variation in presentation of different levels of heads in the Contents is misleading to a reader, because it gives the impression that some chapters have a level of detail that others don't. I explained this perspective to the author. Once. I just hope I remember come proofreading time that all this had been ironed out beforehand.

hello again

I knew it had been awhile since the last post. Almost two months is unconscionable. From mid-August to about now is always busy with chilluns going back to school out of town. Our younger son has a parents weekend at his school that turns into a week, and we just returned from that. All of this contributes to compressed work schedules. Nothing like trying to do four weeks of work in three weeks, not to mention that I really have to do five weeks of work in three weeks to make up not only for lost work time, but money spent traveling. It's a double hit, and usually by now I'm both out of money and behind on monthly work quotas. This year is no different.

Workwise it's been up and down the last few months. The schedule always manages to fill in somehow or another, but it's not always with the premium jobs, or maybe -- as happened this summer -- I get a lot of good-paying work from a slow-paying client. Not that my many creditors seem to care; their bills are due regardless of the status of my receivables.

One outfit that I do some work for flew me out to Santa Monica, CA, for a few days last month--plane fare, food, hotel room all covered. Hotel was a very nice property essentially on the Pacific Ocean. I can go on and on about that trip, but suffice it to say that it's rare that a freelancer like me is ever given this type of ride. And I can absolutely say that the trip never would have taken place were it not for this blog. Met some wonderful people, saw a part of the world I'd never seen. As I say, I could go on.

As part of the aforementioned long weekend at our son's school, we spent a few days in the Berkshires earlier this week. It already seems like weeks ago. And our older son is home for the weekend. We've seen him about four days since mid-June. He turned 20 years old in the interim. How did that happen?

I've got emails to answer from weeks ago, a bunch of work to do, and it's 1:20am. I was planning on working tonight (why is this night different from all other nights?), but ended up going to see a play at the theatre where my wife works. A wonderful production. While we were up at the theatre's offices, I was helping her with some of her work, and a friend dropped in and said that I hadn't posted to my blog in a while. Peter, this one's for you. I had no idea you were out there.

I'll try to post a little more than I have been. But work seems like it's ticking up, and my managing editor gig is about to start up (I hope) with the book series I work for, so time will get even tighter. Beats the alternative.

Sydney or the Bush

September, where are you?

not back yet

Thanks to you regular and not-so-regular readers for checking in every once in a while. As Frank Zappa once said -- and it applies to this blog -- "Jazz is not dead. It just smells funny."

When I think work can't get any busier, it does. And then there's that little Internet matter for which I am under contract. It's not the worst gig in the world, but it does take up time that I already didn't have. And I'm not used to the contract aspect of it. Funny, just as both of my syndicated columnists' work stopped coming in (one retired, one leaves his editing to the paper that is now syndicating his column), thus freeing up not necessarily time but the only persistent obligation I had hanging over my head every week (aside from the usual production line), this Internet thing started in earnest. So I traded about an hour a week for about 15 hours a week.

So, in a cratering/cratered/struggling/down economy, I'm working, well, you don't really want to know how many hours a week. But think of holding down two full-time jobs . . . and then add your part-time gig on top of that. And I actually have turned down work in the last few months because occasionally I realize there are only so many hours in a day, or a month.

Having said all that, if you're a potentially new client, email me, because it takes all cylinders pumping to keep it up. Off the top of my head, I can think of easily into the five figures worth of work that I had from clients last year that have not and likely will not contact me this year. A freelancer never knows when today's best client becomes, six months down the line, "What ever happened to them?"

And, not so metaphorically, baby needs shoes. Even if said babies are 19 and 16.

I am thankful for too much work in these times.

I am thankful for my not awful health, and that I'm not putting in all these hours in a coal mine.

I am thankful for an understanding spouse and children who share living space under the same roof, but who never see me.

I am thankful for those of you who continue to check in here, even when I've got the Time Tunnel graphic up for weeks at a time.

I am thankful for the theatre where my wife works, providing me the occasional break from my tedium.

I am thankful for Bill Evans videos on youtube.

I am thankful for the local YMCA, where every so often I do the executive triathlon (sauna, steam, whirlpool) and attempt to take my mind off of everything else.

I am thankful for my dopey pets, and particularly my recently diagnosed FIV- (feline AIDS)-positive cat, who for a night a month or so ago was near death--absolutely out of nowhere--but who seems to have shaken it off entirely.

Anyway, back to work.

Get used to it

Meltdown for Some NY Freelancers

Moi: I'd suggest a few belts of tequila before you tackle this one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/nyregion/21about.html?_r=4&ref=nyregion

Quote of the Day

This is not going to become a regular feature, but I ran across this quote a few days ago (forget which book):

"A guy approached [C.S. Lewis] on the street one day and asked him if he could spare a few shillings. Jack immediately dove into his pocket and brought out all his change and handed it over to this beggar. The chap he was with—I think it was Tolkien—said, 'Jack, you shouldn't have given that fellow all that money, he'll just spend it on drink.' Jack said, 'Well if I had kept it, I would have only spent it on drink.'"

Quote of the Day

Those damn womenfolk.

From a book on religion and society in Latin America:

"In 1733, for example, the friar Diego Núñez accused his mulata slave of bewitching him, causing him to expel from his body human and animal hair, stones, wool, and a paintbrush."

I'm sure ER doctors hear this one all the time.

UPs

Not from the Good News Department. Better that I just keep working and avoid updates from the outside world.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jqpGXF8kW1UOrJfxyspSPQKKVwgwD98R8N1G0

Nice quote about linebackers, but it is true that most big southern universities (or their alumni supporters, anyway) are far more concerned with their standing in the AP polls than, well, just about anything else.

Ugh.

Ahem

This blog quoted on the editorial page of the Columbus (GA) Ledger-Inquirer.

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/178/story/732551.html

E-Publishing, Journals, Page Citations (or Lack Thereof): Yay or Meh?

Working on a book about Latino/a theology. One of the chapter authors quotes a journal that used to be in printed form, but now publishes only electronically. The citation is author, article title, journal name, and month/year. No page number, but a note from the chapter author indicates that no page number appears because the citation is from an electronic journal.

Hmm.

Different takes:

I suppose that if I'm looking up a quote from a journal article online, then I can just search for the term in the article. Good in theory, but half the time when I search for something on a Web page (using, for example, the "find on this page" feature), the search term doesn't appear. One is at the mercy of any number of things that I don't claim to understand. If I suspect that the search feature is not working properly, then I'll search for "the" or "and," and if the computer tells me "Search term not found," then I know that the search engine for that page is not working properly.

And what if it's not a direct quote, but the author is referring to a concept, though not necessarily by the exact name that the cited author uses? Then how is one to find it electronically among what might be thousands of words?

And why would it be so hard for a electronic book/page designer to put in faux numbers somehow so that a researcher could indeed look on a particular page for a concept? I think some forward-thinking designers do this.

Compared to Gutenberg, we're still pretty early in this e-publishing game. There are some quirks to be ironed out. But as a reader, I'd be a whole lot happier if I saw a citation that read something like:

Jim James, "Latinos/as and the Liberation Motif," Hispanic Theology Journal 4, no. 3 (December 2002): 36.

Yeah, I'd have to locate the issue, but I'd feel a whole lot more confident knowing that -- once I did -- I'd pretty quickly be able to find what I was looking for.

On Second Thought

For one of my copyediting clients, I edit the manuscript, using the Track Changes feature in Word, and then send the redlined printout to the author to review the changes. The author does per's review, answers my queries (in a perfect world), and returns the document to me. Then I make the author's changes, accept all the changes in Word, and send the marked-up, redlined proofs back to the press along with the cleaned-up files.

Sounds easy enough. The press pays me three-quarters of the fee when I send the document to the author, and the final 25 percent upon delivery of the final manuscript.

I just finished working on a book for this press, and the author made a whole lot more changes than is typically done -- line edits, reworking some material, adding and deleting sources . . . and the most puzzling: changing material in prose extracts. A prose extract, for you newbies, would be long sections of material quoted from other books.

In the parlance of the times, WTF?

One of at least two things happened here, none of which offer particularly satisfactory explanations.

1. The author misquoted material the first time around, which makes an editor worry and scratch one's head. Presumably the author is just keying in the material from the source.

2. The author was quoting dozens of sources from memory across multiple genres, and only later went back to check per's work.

Both seem most unlikely.

Why would an author be changing quoted material? Why, after the book has already been copyedited, would an author even go back to the source material to see if it was properly quoted?

More questions than answers were raised in my mind by this particular episode. And we are not talking about obscure works or works in translation, where the author might have found a passage phrased better by another translator. For the most part, these were all recognizable works of fiction or nonfiction or published screenplays.

I am puzzled.

Remember what Eliot wrote? "We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men," or maybe that was, "We're empty inside, we are filled with goo."

What Do Jay Leno and Land on Demand Have in Common?

From the AP story today about Jay Leno's final show as he moves from The Tonight Show to prime time:

There was a lengthy "Best of Jaywalking" segment, highlights of Leno asking people on the street questions about history and other topics. A sample: A woman correctly said the first man to land on the moon was Armstrong, but when asked his first name offered "Louie," not Neil.

From this blog:

http://boblandedits.blogspot.com/2008/11/catch-of-day.html

Dichotomy

I'd subscribe to Publishers Weekly if the subscription price was a lot less than the $200/year they charge. Not that I'd likely ever read the thing. My long-suffering spouse bought me a two-year subscription to the New Yorker for Christmas 2007, and I'll spend the rest of my life reading those 100 issues. The New Yorker is an amazing piece of work, but, well, reading's not high on my list of leisure activities for obvious reasons. Great cartoons, though.

But I did figure out recently what I should have known long ago: that Publishers Weekly has a daily email news thingy you can sign up for, as well as a weekly update on religious publishing, so for free, I'm pretty happy to find out daily publishing industry news. I'm not going to read the book reviews or want ads or other stuff in the magazine anyway. The only reason I'd read the book reviews -- required reading for librarians -- would be to see if they've reviewed anything from any of my clients.

So BEA is going on now, the big U.S. booksellers' convention, and today's religious publishing update comes in, and the lead story is that my biggest client has no presence at this year's BEA. Decided not to go. Couldn't get any of the big-name authors to commit to being there, so they decided to punt. I'm thinking, this ain't good.

About three hours later, I get a call from my managing editor pal at the publishing house, wanting to know if I'd take a proofreading job. The kicker is that I copyedited this book a few months back (and actually complained about it in this very space).

Now, folks, having the same person copyedit and proofread a book is virtually verboten in the publishing world. Separation of duties and all that. There's some accounting/auditing equivalent that I should remember from my days of writing accounting textbooks, but don't. But basically the division is put in place so that the proofreader doesn't just miss the same stuff per missed at the copyediting stage, or that per avoids marking stuff as a proofreader to keep per from looking like a bad copyeditor.

So I ask my pal, "Proofreading? I copyedited it. What's up?"

Pal says, "Everyone else is busy. We've got all our other copyeditor/proofreaders busy with other projects."

So on the one hand, they're not sending a soul to BEA; on the other hand, they're so busy that they are breaking one of the cardinal rules of print production.

Hell, maybe they don't need BEA this year, so why not save the money? How nice that must be.

I've long forgotten the details of this book anyway. And I won't mind pointing out my own errors. What good would it do me to cover up my copyediting errors with missing stuff as a proofreader?

So, here it comes back, one of the worst projects I've done this year. At least it's volume 2, which is shorter and not quite as obscure as volume 1. From what my pal told me, the indexer is complaining mightily about the book. I think I mentioned in this space that I told the managing editor back when I was copyediting it that there was no way I would index this book. No way in the world. And it probably would be about a $3500 paycheck. But for that $3500, it would have been about $100,000 worth of pain.