Says It All

Occasionally, This Job IS Fun

Just received an email from one of my clients, asking me to edit the foreword to a coming volume. Author is a very well-known economist, named a few times to Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.

Six hundred basically well-written words; I like to think I made them even better. Hope I did anyway. We'll see what the client thinks, or what eventually appears in print.

Given that so much of what I work on (and that so many of the authors whose books I work on) will languish in academic obscurity -- for better or worse -- I'm still a child enough to get a charge out of editing the words of semifamous individuals. If that makes me an immature idiot, I can live with that. I've probably been called worse, and for better reasons.

A Tense Few Hours

Taking a page from the Tylenol playbook, in which I air the dirty laundry. Sometimes this isn't all fun and games:

I spent the last few days working on a rush-rush job from an author whose PhD dissertation I edited a few years back. Nice person, interesting topic. Author contacted me a week or so ago to edit a book covering generally the same ground as the dissertation.

Without giving too much away, the author has some difficulties with the processing of the written word, and that's not a knock or a snide comment. The author is brilliant, top-notch education, and severely dyslexic. Obviously, writing, editing, revisions, etc., take great effort, and even then a lot gets by.

So mostly what I'm hired to do is to make sure that the manuscript is free of the kinds of errors a person with dyslexia might miss or institute in the composition of the manuscript. Spelling, word order . . . The author is not concerned with the writing itself. Quite the contrary, as I came to find out the hard way.

Still, I'm a copyeditor, and since this book is destined for the kinds of publishers I typically work for, I have a passing idea of the ways such books should read and, for example, be punctuated.

I was about three quarters of the way through the editing, trading some emails with the author, and in one short email the author makes the statement:

Make sure to use your eyes, not just spell check, as i have words in the wrong place, etc.

Nonplussed, that prompted a hasty response from me:

If I was just using spell check, it would have been done three days ago.

Tonight, I've completed the book, spending half an hour on the phone with the author to go over queries because the author can't really deal well with queries and keying in changes in response to them, especially when a clean version of the book is supposed to be going off to an acquiring editor tomorrow. We're talking, and I'm going through the questions, and the author seems quite pleased with some of the inconsistencies I've found. I also mention in passing that I cleaned up some of the grammar, removing unnecessary commas, and generally making for a smoother-flowing read.

We get off the phone, and I guess the author got to thinking. I received the following email (which I've cleaned up, because I don't want to give the impression that I fault the author for misspellings):

hey Bob, how long would it take to reinstitute my short sentences?

I actually fancy myself a stylist when it comes to this, and if they're not incorrect, want them the way I very carefully polished them to sound (however crazy I may be).

I could do this, but would take me tons of time probably.

If the answer is yes, then I'd only want you to do it if you could still get it to me by the am. Otherwise I'll just send it in, and work it out later. but my dyslexia's not so good on the back and forth thing.

In other words, dear friends, "Go back over the last three days of work you've done and strip out any place where you might have brought any higher-level editorial thinking or experience to pesky issues such as sentence structure, grammar, word order . . . because, well, I am quite enamored of my own writing style, and you're not going to change it."

My response follows, which probably could have been worded better, but, hey:

Not sure what you mean. I didn't really change much of your writing, and certainly didn't make short sentences longer. If I did, it was for clarity rather than trying to cramp your style.

Mostly what I did was take some commas out to improve syntax and ease of reading. I don't think (I might be wrong) it changed the style of your prose. As far as whether the original text was correct or incorrect, that's sometimes not quite black-and-white. Commas can be used to allow readers a pause where the grammar might not necessitate it -- and maybe that's what you're thinking about -- but overused the drawbacks for the readers might outweigh the author's desire to see a certain style in print. Even though the book is written as a narrative, we're not dealing with a book where readers would expect to encounter many literary devices. Readers want a smooth read, without speed bumps.

In a few places (probably half a dozen), I changed passive voice to active voice, because I thought the text would be clearer as a result.

Overall, I think you have a very engaging style of writing. For a book of nonfiction on a potentially dry topic (and I think I mentioned this with your dissertation), I find myself caring very much for the people you write about, and that's no easy trick to pull off -- especially with an incredibly jaded reader such as myself, who is often as not just focused on payday.

I've attached the tracked and clean versions of the document. I hope you'll agree that the work done was not counterproductive to your intent in sending it to me. If the ultimate desire is to place it in front of readers (and a blind reviewer or two who first have to pass judgment on it), I'd like to think that I've added value here, and increased the possibility of a positive review, rather than negated it.

Pleasure talking with you on the phone tonight. And remember those author/date citations in the last note.

Thanks.
Bob

Responses, sent over a few emails:

Okay, I'll read. You said on the phone you made some shorter sentences into longer ones. Maybe I misheard. I like my sentence style, and have worked super hard on it, and have strong opinions on it (for myself only). It's a literary thing, for me, as long as it's clean grammatically. Anyway, that's why I asked you to focus on bugs, not style- should have clarified ahead of time. And this will be on a trade [publisher's name here], not pure academic. Anyway, I must send this off right now, and will redo the other things when I can breathe. Sorry if I sound irritated, I'm not. I'm grateful, but wish I was somehow more clear about what the precise thing I needed was. Would have saved a bit of time!
———
My final point is here "ease of reading" is a subjective thing. Lots of great writers, in my book, write in ways that catch you in a particular way, sometimes not so easy. My sentences if you read them out loud have a very particular rhythm to them, and it's very intentional. Intentionally rhythmic, and percussive. Thus sometimes short sentences. Not that you have to like it :)

peace!
———
yea, this will take dozens of hours, really, for me to put back the way I want it, in terms of non error changes you've made. Bob, I asked you for an edit to catch errors: I said type-o's bad spelling, misplaced word, wrong grammar. mistakes. i said it like three times over. you've done all that very well, but you've also done a stylistic edit, which i know you meant well to do, and which we could argue over, but which i did not want, did not ask for, and really cannot have. Its up to me to decide my style, and I like it the way it is.

I need to give this to my editor, who likes my style, tomorrow, and am not sure what I should do. I cannot give it to him with so many stylistic changes, which I worked very very hard to craft. Actually I don't see how i can even do this, as its not clear to me where your edits are stylistic vs,. grammatical.

tell me what to do.

———

From me:

Give me an example of what you consider a stylistic change, and I'll go back through the document and undo 'em all. I didn't make that many changes, and I can probably have it back to you in two hours.

———

Thanks, Bob, both for the willingness to tweak, and for putting up with me. It's been a long day around here.

———

We will see where all this ends up. I can argue my case here, but unpacking this phrase gets down to the root of the issue: "it's not clear to me where your edits are stylistic vs,. grammatical."

Dear readers, in your mind, is this not an admission that part of the writer's style indeed flies in the face of standard grammar? And as copyeditor, am I not tasked with fixing it? And if the publishing house looking at your book happens to be the same university press that puts out the premier style guide in the book publishing industry, might not attention to grammatical conventions be a good idea?

Another thought: even in a late-night follow-up phone conversation, the author talked about the effect of the writing style when the book is read aloud. Practical? A good way to approach the written word when it's not poetry/screenplay/script?

This might be the rare case in which proofreading a manuscript was actually in order.

After all this, the author and I will likely still be on friendly terms. I hope so. Hopefully the author doesn't read blogs.

(R) and TM

Been so long since I've actually posted about a real-live editorial issue from here in the bunker, I hardly know what to do.

I was called in to proofread a corporate history recently. I've done plenty of them, but this was for a new client, so that's nice. After sending the pages back, the project manager sent me this note:

XYZ Inc. is asking why we didn't use copyright [sic] or TM signs in our narrative - it's mostly on items in chapters 7 & 8. Is there some reason we didn't?

Answer:

First, in classic freelance CYA mode, that's not something I figured as a proofreader I'd be looking for or making decisions about. That would be a question for the writer and XYZ's legal and marketing teams.

But as an editor, here's what I'd say. TMs and (R)s are not required in running text. Typically they'd only be used in display copy -- heads and perhaps jacket copy and such. Even so, it really comes down to how much XYZ feels the need to aggressively protect its own trademarks and on what turf.

As an editor, if I received the manuscript from XYZ, I'd presume that XYZ would know which terms were trademarked and that the terms were in the manuscript as the company wanted them. I would not presume to question or change, under the assumption that the manuscript had already cleared all the internal legal hurdles. That's ultimately XYZ's responsibility because they have the answers; neither the publisher nor the editor can presume to know where those marks go. That's my two cents, anyway.

Too, given that this book is largely going to be for internal distribution, I'd think -- and presumably also for sale at the Visitor Center -- it's going out to a friendly crowd. And it may be that's a moot point, but companies tend to be less fussy when the stakes aren't as high. (R)s and TMs have a way of junking up otherwise nice-looking text.

For companies that do want to insert those pesky beasts in running text, some will do it on every instance, which looks like hell. Some will do it only on the first mention on a page or spread, which seems arbitrary. Basically it's the call of the legal beagles and how much they want to assert their authority.

So, class, did I handle it correctly?

My Favorite Epigraph

Take time to familiarize yourself with this manual. The slightest deviation from the style described herein will lead directly to the collapse of our carefully constructed editorial house of cards, economic upheaval, spiritual and moral chaos, and the end of civilization as we know it.

—APWA Style Guide, 2nd ed., American Public Welfare Association, 1995

Someone's About to Make a Lot of Money, $99 at a Time

from Publishers Weekly email, August 12, 2010

Bowker Starts Manuscript Submission Web Site

Bowker is the latest company to try to use technology to match publishers and authors, launching an automated manuscript submission process for the general trade. BowkerManuscriptSubmissions.com is an online service that lets authors post their work for publishers to read. Authors pay to present their book proposals to publishers via the service, and acquisitions editors can use the site's various tools to sort and read them. Cost for writers is $99 to post a sample chapter and description of their work for six months.

Bowker modeled its site on ChristianManuscriptSubmissions.com, which is managed by and in cooperation with the Christian publishers association ECPA and which has been in operation for nearly 10 years. Bowker v-p of publishing services Kelly Gallagher said the site will alleviate the "time-consuming and frustrating" traditional process of matching authors with publishers. "BowkerManuscriptSubmission.com applies a proven model . . . allowing authors and publishers to find each other very efficiently."

The site lists resources for outside editing services, agents, self-publishing, and writers' conferences. Publishers can sort submitted manuscript proposals by genre, audience, author, and date of entry. There is no charge for publishers, and Bowker is asking publishers to register at the site.

Acronym of the Day

I just wish the content were juicier:

New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD)

All kinds of great image content comes to mind that I dare not post here.

Notable Quotes

I spoke with a first-time unpublished novelist today (working on the first book), who--upon finding out what I do--had a few questions for me.

1. "How do I copyright the book?" A common enough question: I explained that there's no real formal procedure for copyrighting a book. You just put the copyright symbol on the manuscript with your name and date, and that's done.

2. "What do I do after I get it wrote?"

==========

Received in an email yesterday from a new client this amusing little aside:

"Our scholarly material may, at times, be more dense than your usual fare."

If he only knew.

Index Entry of the Day

Dear, John, 328n34

And for the newcomers to the wacky world of indexing, that means note 34 on page 328. Some style guides would have an indexer write that as 328 n. 34. LandonDemand doesn't do some style guides, and a number of my publishers prefer the set-tight, no-punctuation approach. If nothing else, there's no chance of the page-number entry breaking across lines:

328
n. 34

or

328 n.
34

Today's Fun Typo

Unpublished, fortunately, but caught by some sharp-eyed editor:

How to Make a Drapery for a Large Triangular Widow

I don't think I can call up an image through the google that would do justice here. But if any of my sharp-eyed readers can do so, I'd be happy to post it.

Self-Publishing Made Simple

From The Network Is Your Customer (Rogers, Yale University Press, forthcoming [2010]):

An even greater impact on the book industry may come from the arrival of custom-printing kiosks, such as the Espresso. This “ATM for books” can print a hundred pages a minute and bind the pages into a finished book on a machine that will fit in the corner of a local bookstore. The first Espresso in Europe appeared in the famed Blackwell’s bookshop in central London, where it expanded the bookstore’s famously large selection with an additional half-million titles, ready to print from digital files. A customer coming in to find Charles Darwin’s out-of-print book on earthworms was able to print a copy in minutes for about twenty dollars (instead of paying a thousand dollars on the secondhand market for rare books). The first Espresso in the United States was in the homey Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont. The store found that many aspiring authors came in to print short runs of their own unpublished books once they found out they no longer needed an established publisher to accept their manuscript. As its digital library expands, the Espresso will allow small, local bookstores like Northshire to offer just as many niche books as an online powerhouse like Amazon.

========

http://www.ondemandbooks.com/home.htm

========

What great news for authors. And what's great news for authors should be great news for authors who want to put out quality books. Are you an author wanting to self-publish? Don't forget quality control. Have the book copyedited. Pay a professional to proofread it. Are you putting out a family history or a work of nonfiction? For your readers' benefit, the book needs an index. Whether you come to me or someone else, do your audience a favor and make the book the best it can be. Your future readership will grow as a result, and you'll be prouder of your past output when you look back at it.

A word to the wise.

She's Gotta Not Have It, or No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Bob:

When you edited chapter two of [a book on leadership], you changed his to the word her in the following sentence:

A sage leader learns to delegate her time wisely and finds a sense of balance in life.

Some of our writers might feel that we are trying to impose political correctness on them if we make changes like this. So for future reference, you can leave it as is (his) or change it to something like this:

A sage leader learns to delegate his or her time wisely and finds a sense of balance in life.

Thank you.

XXX

==================

XXX: I wouldn't call it imposing political correctness as much as living in the 21st century and not offending half of the potential readership. Don't these folks want to sell books? Does the writer not think there are women leaders?

I alternated "his" and "her" through the book rather than the rather clunky "his or her," which gets cumbersome after a while.

I'll do whatever you want me to do, though.

Bob

==================================

Funny thing is, the CEO of this publishing house (not listed in my client list) is a woman.

In my mind, gender inclusiveness in a business title is not PC. It's common sense. When I read a book on leadership and every single pronoun reference is male, I'm wondering why the company has decided to reprint a Sputnik-era volume. In this day and age, if I'm a woman reading a book on leadership traits and no generic leader in the book is portrayed as a woman -- and when that's the case, I don't think it's writer laziness as much as a conscious decision -- I'm putting the book down, if not using it as a fire starter when wintertime comes.

Grrrr.

Retraction of Prior Post

Hi Bob,

We were about to contact all of our freelancers about the press's welcome packet, but looks like you received the package first. You can ignore the background check part of the application; the press needs the updated W-9 form only. There won't be any major changes to the way we process checks; you'll still submit the invoices to the in-house editor, and your invoice will be processed the following week.

Not-So-Brave New World

First, kudos to Moi for the title inspiration.

Some management changes have resulted in new procedures at one of the presses listed to the right. I received a package today with about eight forms to fill out, and almost in passing one of these sheets states that as part of the new order, all vendors must pass a background check (no drug dealing, child molestation, or felonies allowed, among others, I'm sure), and because I'm a freelancer, I must pony up the $55 for my own background check.

Speechless.

I can actually pass this background check without any difficulty. Not the problem. But a background check for someone who proofs and indexes their books? Is that really necessary? And that I have to pay for it? I'd love to hear from those who occasionally check in here who are freelancers. Ever heard of something like this?

At the very least, I'd like to see the background check report. Maybe someone has stolen my identity and at some point has done something interesting in my name.

Geez Louise.

Rather Prescient

Media of Social Communication

Among the major changes of our times, we do not wish to forget to emphasize the growing role being assumed by the media of social communication and their influence on the transformation of mentalities, of knowledge, of organizations, and of society itself. Certainly they have many positive aspects. Thanks to them news from the entire world reaches us practically in an instant, establishing contacts which supersede distances and creating elements of unity among all men. A greater spread of education and culture is becoming possible. Nevertheless, by their very action the media of social communication are reaching the point of representing as it were a new power. One cannot but ask about those who really hold this power, the aims that they pursue and the means they use, and finally, about the effect of their activity on the exercise of individual liberty, both in the political and ideological spheres and in social, economic, and cultural life. The men who hold this power have a grave moral responsibility with respect to the truth of the information that they spread, the needs and the reactions that they generate, and the values which they put forward. In the case of television, moreover, what is coming into being is an original mode of knowledge and a new civilization: that of the image.

Naturally, the public authorities cannot ignore the growing power and influence of the media of social communication and the advantages and risks which their use involves for the civic community and for its development and real perfecting.

Consequently they are called upon to perform their own positive function for the common good by encouraging every constructive expression, by supporting individual citizens and groups in defending the fundamental values of the person and of human society, and also by taking suitable steps to prevent the spread of what would harm the common heritage of values on which orderly civil progress is based.

Paul VI, Octogesima Adveniens (1971)

Insurers don't give you credit for all the telephone poles you miss

Cook-book misprint costs Australian publishers dear

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8627335.stm

An Australian publisher has had to pulp and reprint a cook-book after one recipe listed "salt and freshly ground black people" instead of black pepper.

Penguin Group Australia had to reprint 7,000 copies of Pasta Bible last week, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported.

The reprint cost A$20,000 ($18,000; £12,000), but stock in bookshops will not be recalled as it is "extremely hard" to do so, Penguin said.

The recipe was for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto.

"We're mortified that this has become an issue of any kind, and why anyone would be offended, we don't know," head of publishing Bob Sessions is quoted as saying by the Sydney newspaper.

Penguin said almost every one of the more than 150 recipes in the book listed salt and freshly ground black pepper, but a misprint occurred on just one page.

"When it comes to the proofreader, of course they should have picked it up, but proofreading a cook-book is an extremely difficult task. I find that quite forgivable," Mr Sessions said.

If anyone complains about the "silly mistake," they will be given the new version, Penguin said.

Two more happy customers

Hi there

When I got my first glimpse of the index you wrote for The Cat and the Toaster [Wipf and Stock, 2010], I thought I should write and say thanks. I spent a half hour just reading it over. Later I found that Dr. Hall had done the same thing. And the other day someone else told me he was reading the book, and I asked how far he had gotten. "Well," he said, "actually, I started with the index."

Writing to you was one of those nice thoughts we have sometimes, and then ignore... But I just opened it again to track down a quote, and after finding it so easily, I told myself it is time to write to you!

Thanks, Bob. You did a masterful job with that index. Your work is a tremendous asset to the book.

You make us look good, and we are grateful for your help and your good work.

With appreciation,
Steve Daman
Emmanuel Gospel Center
Boston

=================

Dear Bob,

We had a meeting this week with our new publisher NYU Press, and the director of production was gushing about the high quality of the copyediting. So we told her why and she asked for your contact info.

[from the folks at the American Human Development Project]

What Would Grind Your Guts about the Following Response to an Email?

Bob,

I had to file personal bankruptcy due to the business failure. I'm unemployed currently and have no means to pay you or anyone else.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Give me about two and a half minutes

Sorry, folks. Been busy . . . too busy to post.

But I found this today. Turn that frown upside down.

Sometimes You Just Ask

Over on Moi's blog, one of her regular posters is, if I get it correctly, an artist who works in illustration and design. I forget if it was on Moi's blog or here that the topic turned to drumming up freelance work. I mentioned to K9 that sometimes it was just a matter of going back to clients you hadn't heard from in a while and mentioning, "Hey, I'm still here."

K9's response was, "I wish it was that simple."

Sometimes it is.

As I've written before, clients come and go. If you'd have named for me a few years back the clients I'm surviving without now, I'd have asked you if you wanted to sit next to me at the Salvation Army for dinner tonight. But publishers and authors go, and others seem to take up the empty places right at the right time. My dear wife ascribes this to the presence of a deity. Maybe yes, maybe no. A lot of folks out there aren't doing so well these days, not to say that any deity is responsible for every little turn of events. I don't think the ways of the universe are conducted on such a micro level anyway; nor does my wife think that way, I don't believe. And theodicy's certainly not the subject of this post or this blog.

But I guess I could phrase as it as "Knock and the door will be opened to you; seek and you shall find."

Or that every invention is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.

A few publishers that I hadn't worked with lately popped into my head this week. I tracked one down, and it's now under the management of a larger group that handles a number of smaller imprints, all publishing in kinda the same field. The only contact person I could find on the new webpage was the president and publisher of the larger group. I'd forgotten the name of my old contact.

I emailed the president/publisher, telling per that I wanted to contact the press that was now part of per's larger company. I was a freelancer who wanted to reestablish contact with this press.

This was yesterday. Within an hour, I heard back from my old contact, asking for my most recent resume and rate sheet. Half an hour later, per said there might be some work for me.

I received news of a project today. I'll have it next week. A nice copyediting job.

Sometimes you just ask.

Publisher 2: I wrote my contact, whose name I remembered this time, and said, "Hey, haven't heard from you in a while. If you're still using freelancers, I'm still here."

Response: "Great to hear from you. We're still using freelancers, but just putting out fewer books. Will definitely keep you in mind."

Sometimes . . .

Back to publisher 1. I was put in touch with the graphic designer for the book I'll be copyediting. I did my A-student freelancer thing and said, "By the way, if you know of any publishers or authors looking for someone who does what I do, feel free to pass my name along, and I'll do the same for you." Per immediately wrote back with a contact at a press that labors in the same academic fields as most of the rest of my clients, and said, "Tell per I recommended you." I did so. Contact, if the widget is correct, was checking out the blog earlier tonight. I cannot assume, of course, this will turn out to be a good development, but it's a press that I would be very proud to put on the client list.

Sometimes . . .

I said this before also: if I had the nerve and the confidence in some regards at ages 14, 18, 22 that I do now, aspects of my life would have been totally different. Then again, there's no telling what bad roads such nerve and confidence might have taken me down then until now.

Agnosticism is a funny thing. I think everything is tied together. I think things move toward some conclusion that might not be revealed without the benefit of decades of hindsight. It just is so immaterial to me if someOne or someThing is tying that knot or moving things toward any conclusion. That's for the bigger brains to deal with.

It's too late at night for this. I belong in a dorm room at age 18, having serious discussions, although I don't really remember many serious dorm room discussions. A lot more laughing than pondering.

Bonnaroo lineup is out for 2010. It's tempting. Younger son and wife certainly want to go. Older son hasn't mentioned anything. Of course, being there represents heaven on earth to him, but hopefully he'll be busily and gainfully employed somewhere this summer in a pursuit that renders him unable to go . . . and that pursuit would likely not be in shouting distance to Manchester, TN. But knowing him, he'll try to figure out some way to game the whole deal so he can still do Bonnaroo. I like doing the tent thing. Mi esposa says she's over that and wants to do an RV. I just don't see it, but hell, I don't see a lot of things.

Side note, this from my Internet gig: Part of that gig, in addition to reviewing the work of about 100 other copyeditors, is answering the random questions that come in to a Help Desk from a cast of a few thousand writers of various levels of quality. I was dealing with one of the writers earlier this week and received this nice note:

---------

Bob,

You're awesome as always. I'd be lying if I said I'm thrilled when I'm told to take a different approach, but your advice is always specific and right on the mark so I am glad to have it.

Thanks again,

---------

Every so often, that craziness is worthwhile. As is this: