I have to love some of my friends. I have a professional editor friend
Tiffany Davis who edits for a couple publishing houses. I was bored today and asked her what she hates about publishing.

Editing for publishers can be difficult. At the publishing level, publishers are often concerned with quick turnaround, deadlines, and the bottom line; sometimes edits are sacrificed to make deadlines, especially if a major rewrite is needed. At the author level, there are quite a few authors who just want to receive their royalties. Those are the ones who do not want to make suggested edits,

 “Those are the ones who do not want to make suggested edits, particularly if it involves a rewrite!!”

You can always identify a professional editor when they even chat on IM in good grammar. I’ve asked her to send me some anecdotes. There are some funny stories.

I remember one person I edited for. They just couldn’t ‘get it’ that it wasn’t my job to make the changes, it was hers. She kept saying ‘I approve’ for about 2 weeks. Finally, I convinced her that I don’t make the changes. If she wants changes made she must hire a ghostwriter. Well, I think the woman was old because she sent me a long email explaining that I wasn’t a real editor or I would know that her book had nothing to do with ghosts - she doesn’t believe in ghosts -and she doesn’t want to work with someone who is superstitious.

Do you have any funny stories?

« Great News for Candace
Friends in England »


This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 9:33 pm and is filed under Author Friends, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.