deborahjross | Entries tagged with editors

Once upon a time, editors were the gold standard of book midwifery. Editors loved books and had the time to not discover budding authors, who received nurture and guidance for their entire careers. The best editors took the “long view” and invested patience in allowing “their” authors time to develop, find their audiences, and achieve their full potential. If a single book didn’t do well, author and editor soldiered on; this loyalty and refusal to give up on the partnership encouraged authors to try new and challenging projects. Editors understood that not every book will be a best-seller and that new writers need time to find the true power of their voices.

( Read more... )

As much as we love to complain about how hard it is to get an agent to read your material or, worse yet, an editor to consider it, the alternative may be worse for our long-term writing growth.

There is a joke that frustrated writers tell about publishers and agents. They say editors separate the wheat from the chaff and publish the chaff. They can be a frustrating barrier to entry, and they are not always right. More often than not, I am afraid to say, they are.

Getting a novel right is a long term proposition. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Someone once wrote (I say it this way not because it was someone eminent, but because I can’t remember who it was) that runners do not have Boston Marathons in them waiting to get out. A novel, like the marathon, is a peak experience that comes as the result of lots of tedious work. In the case of the novel, that means lots of tedious rethinking and revision when you thought it was all done.

To jump to yet another metaphor (really where are those editors when you need them?): As stones are polished by the friction of ocean waves, novels are polished through resistance.

Read the rest -- and it's well worth reading -- here:

Resistance is Vital or When is it Time to Self-Publish? | Author Laura Lee

Special thanks to Patricia Burrroughs for pointing to this post.

Current Mood: accomplished

One of the tragedies of the explosion of electronic publication is that so much of it is self-published and therefore unedited. Even seasoned professional writers need editors. I don't care how many stories you've sold or that you got an A in freshman English composition, you have blind spots. I have blind spots. We all see what we intended to write and not what's actually on the page. We gloss over details that we think are right. A good editor is not only a friend and advocate of the story, but our safety net against public idiocy.

Here's a fascinating discussion between author and editor. First, Theodora Goss. If you haven't read her work, run out and get it immediately. She's amazing, lyrical, edgy, mind-bending. http://theodoragoss.com/2010/12/22/writers-and-copyeditors/

And here's what her editor has to say: http://martyhalpern.blogspot.com/2010/12/writing-with-style-sheets-that-is.html

From Ingrid Sundberg's blog: Let’s Make a Deal: An Editor/Agent Mock Negotiation

MONDAY:

The Agent: Submits a client’s book to a variety of appropriate editors around town.

The Editor: Is excited to see a submission from this agent in her mail box. She’s a good agent and often sends great work! She decides to read it as soon as she can.

WEDNESDAY:

The Editor: Reads the book and gets very excited about it. She’s so excited about it that she calls the agent and lets her know that she is putting together an offer!

The Agent: Calls all of the other editors she’s submitted the manuscript to and lets them know that she has an offer coming in on said book, but she would still like to give the other editors a chance to take a look at the work and see if they are interested.

The Editor: Takes the book to an editorial meeting and shares it with the team. They discuss the viability of the book. This is a first time author, but she thinks they should put together a competitive but modest offer for the book. The editor then runs a profit and loss statement on the book to find out the numbers. In the profit and loss statement they estimate that the book will sell between 2000 and 5000 hard cover copies, and 5000 to 8000 paperback copies. With those kind of numbers the editor knows that the highest advance she could offer is about $17,500, but she’d rather start low – somewhere around $12,000, hoping after they negotiate they will land in the ball park of $15,000.

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Deborah's Journal

A safe & friendly place to talk about writing and life

Entries tagged with editors

Midwifing A Story: Editors

Laura Lee on Resistance is Vital or When is it Time to Self-Publish?

Why Do We Need Copy Editors?

Agent-Editor Negotiations

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November 2020

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