The Perfect Editor

I once had an author who railed at me for not finding an “appropriate” copyeditor for her manuscript. Her book explored how to interpret Latin American political history using game theory. She expressed dismay that her copyeditor was not an expert in these two fields, and moreover had no Portuguese and only rudimentary Spanish. I explained to her, as tactfully as possible, that a person with mastery of those four domains was not likely to choose freelance copyediting as a career.

Authors, the perfect editor is not necessarily one who shares all of your interests and enthusiasms. An editor who is a carbon copy of yourself is useful if you are interested in preaching only to the converted. If you hope to change minds about your subject, or to reach an audience unfamiliar with it, a generalist editor will be of greater service. The perfect editor is not the closest colleague in your field but a person who keeps in mind the concerns of the full breadth of your potential readership.

A Primordial Muddle

The advent of DNA technology has radically changed how scientists perceive the evolutionary relationships of the plants and animals on our planet. Species thought to be closely related turn out to be distant relatives, and vice versa. These new discoveries have demolished the old-fashioned edifice of taxonomical hierarchy, which conveniently placed each species in a genus, each genus in a family, and so on. This hierarchy was a useful way to organize field guides and reference works. Nowadays, authors are loath to organize their texts in this manner—doing so, they fear, implies that they are oblivious to the paradigm shift that has occurred in their field. But science has yet to settle on a new set of conventions for organizing taxonomical information in text, and the result is that many manuscripts are coming to publishers in a primordial muddle.

Science authors, don’t abandon the use of taxonomical hierarchy in your texts just yet. It remains a useful tool for readers’ navigation of your books. The taxo hierarchy readily converts into a typographical hierarchy, which is what allows readers to keep track of their position in your material. All books contain such arbitrary schemes: a memoirist narrates her life in chapters, but her experiences weren’t so tidily organized. Remember that your primary purpose in writing a book is to communicate effectively, not to mirror the messy complexity of life.

Authors Editing Themselves

I remember how once a large publisher decided its copyediting staff was expendable. A cost-benefit analysis had concluded that no fewer titles would be sold if they went unedited, so dozens of in-house copyeditors were laid off, and staff authors were charged with “editing themselves.” Within a year, many of the copyeditors had been hired back as freelance consultants, sitting in their old cubicle spaces. It turned out that only they knew how to keep the flow of production going from raw manuscript to published title. A jaded editor might be forgiven for suspecting that the publisher knew all along it would rehire the copyeditors and was simply maneuvering to strip them of their benefits packages.

Spousal Support

When an author balks at an editorial suggestion I’ve made, it is not uncommon for her to cite the opinion of her spouse or colleagues. We publishers get this unsolicited “survey” feedback all the time. An author will say, “I showed your cover design to everyone in my office and we all agree that it’s an ugly shade of blue.” The very fact that you’ve approached a colleague with the cover implies that you’re unhappy with it, and she will probably respond by telling you what you want to hear. Your spouse has even more to lose by disagreeing. This is called tainting the jury pool. Authors, think twice before discounting your publisher’s decisions in favor of those of your friends and loved ones.