Are You Out There?

Our third entry in the DE History Project raises an intriguing question. Like many of us, Amy “fell into editing” after initially aspiring to a tenured professorship in English. What’s unusual about her story is that she’s created a niche for herself on the campus of a well-respected university promoting the goals of developmental editing among scholarly writers.

At the University of California Press, we are finding that changes in the nature of book publishing are giving rise to new experiments in the writing, editing, and publication of scholarship. Research projects that formerly would have “self-published” the results of their labors are now partnering with us to reach larger audiences. Tenure committees are becoming more open than ever to dissertations that have been written with an eye toward publication as books. Debates about open access to electronically published scholarship are raging, and libraries and presses are collaborating to make scholarship available online.

My question: Are there other DEs out there in academia, like Amy, who are forging new relationships between scholarship and publishing? If so, I’d love to hear from you: please send your story to dehandbook@comcast.net.

DE for a Copyeditor’s Pay

Our first two contributions to the DE History Project share a major theme. Anonymous tells of her relationship with a small medically oriented academic press, which she once served as managing editor and retains as a freelance client. Nancy, also a freelancer, focuses on her work with a mid-sized publisher of how-to books in arts and crafts. Both editors report their clients’ general lack of awareness of what developmental editing is and how much their projects need it. These editors find themselves doing developmental editing for a copyeditor’s pay because their professional training emphasized “sense, organization, and content cohesiveness” as “vital aspects of ‘just’ editing,” and because they feel “as much responsibility to the reader” as to the author and publisher.

In my handbook, I advise freelancers to be clear with clients about the difference between copyediting and developmental editing and to charge a higher rate for the latter. This is easier said than done. Freelancers are understandably loath to turn away projects that ensure income; their major clients are often former employers with whom they have close and complicated relationships; and the line between heavy line-editing and developmental editing can be fuzzy. With a steady client, the freelancer may need to educate the publisher by summarizing the developmental work she’s done on each project as she returns it completed. Over time, she may be able to shift toward expressing separate copyediting and developmental components in her initial bids.

A freelancer may start by charging her developmental rate only on projects for new or “one-off” clients: the risk of financial loss is smaller should a client reject the bid. Once she’s been paid her developmental rate a few times, the freelancer should create a formal rate sheet, along with a list of books she’s edited that distinguishes the developmental jobs from the straight editing jobs. She’ll then have that material handy when new clients call.

As a former freelancer, I realize that self promotion does not come naturally to most of us. We editors are modest types who would prefer that our employers notice our fine work without our having to point it out—and remunerate accordingly. But publishers are struggling to cut costs and will pay as little as they can. So long as we keep the exchange upbeat in tone and constructive in nature, we should look for opportunities to introduce the subject of a developmental pay rate.

The Tao of DE

According to Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher and author of the Tao Te Ching (or Way of Ways), inaction can be as powerful as action. Experienced editors know this to be true. Copyeditors asked to give a manuscript a “light edit” must notice all of the language problems that they would if assigned a “heavy edit.” When encountering a infelicity of diction, for example, the editor asks herself, Is this really a problem worth fixing? Her considered decision to leave alone, or “stet,” the author’s phrase may be as much an exercise of editorial skill as a deft rewrite.

Many editors resist “light edit” assignments, arguing that it takes longer to decide not to make a change than simply to go ahead and make it. This stance seems sensible if one considers only the initial editing pass. But it doesn’t take into account subsequent stages of editing: a proposed change may prompt a further authorial revision, which itself may need editing, which in turn requires further review by the author. This iterative tying up of loose ends can fatten a cleanup budget and cause schedule delays. Often, these complications are unseen by the freelance copyeditor because an inhouse production editor handles the mopping up.

Therefore, the most experienced copyeditors are those who are mindful of the cascade of events that each delete mark and insertion can unleash. This principle is all the more true for developmental editors. We must “pick our battles” sentence by sentence, page by page. This restraint can mean replacing an elaborate reorganization plan with a simpler one, or developing only the opening and closing chapters, or developing only opening passages of each chapter. In an age of shrinking freelance budgets, DEs must be ever more strategic in their interventions, doing what is necessary, avoiding what is not. And knowing that they are better editors for their discretion.

The Cloak of Invisibility

It is natural for editors to feel unappreciated. When done well, our work is invisible, and authors have a vested interest in keeping our contribution hush hush. In my experience, it is the authors who have needed my assistance least who are most effusive in their praise on the acknowledgments page, while those whose carcasses I’ve hauled out of the fire say nary a word of thanks. DEs, in particular, may feel as though they have been thrust unwillingly under Harry Potter’s mantle of invisibility.

At these times, a DE must ask herself about her own motivations. If she is in the DE business for praise and appreciation, she should probably find another calling. If, however, she enjoys the intellectual puzzle that a disorganized manuscript presents and wants to spend her work hours with her mind fully and creatively engaged, then she should accept her invisibility as a gift, a kind of superpower. After all, developmental editing offers the thrill of creativity without the very real burdens that go with authorship: the birthing of the central concept, the risk of one’s reputation, the uncertainty of income.

For an honest and entertaining account of a ghost writer negotiating the fluid border between editorship and authorship, I recommend Jennie Erdal’s Ghosting: A Double Life.

Willful Misreading

A good DE is an active listener. Rather than cite rules of grammar or style, the DE tries to show the author how her text’s message can be misheard: “This is what this paragraph says to me…” Often, the DE is so close to the text that she understands what the author is trying to say but realizes that most readers will not. In those cases, the DE must engage in “willful misreading.” If an author hears that her own editor is getting a different message than the one she intends, she will usually be “scared straight” and try a fresh approach.

Blog as Brainstorm

The fact that I find myself writing a blog is ironic. I have never commented on a post in another blog, and I have greeted the advent of this new form with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm. After all, blogs often exhibit the flaws of manuscripts that require developmental editing: they tend to lack organizational structure, offer opinions without supportive evidence, and reduce complex topics to sound bytes.

Recently, I aired these prejudices before a class of aspiring DEs. One of the students, herself a professional teacher of writing, set me straight. She described how her blog engages her students in brainstorming for writing topics. Doh! My DE handbook often advises the DE and author to brainstorm for key elements of the revision plan: main thesis statements, working titles, narrative strategies, expository strategies, and so on. Thanks to Leslie, I have seen the light.

DE as Coach

“If an author doesn’t know how to write, there’s nothing that an editor can do to help.” I’ve heard this opinion expressed by colleagues whose editorial judgment I deeply respect. It is true that a manuscript aspiring to literary heights cannot be lifted there by editing. But most authors of nonfiction wish only to communicate clearly, and an editor can certainly help a willing author to improve those skills. The DE is the author’s public speaking coach; her podium, the printed page.

Those Who Can't Write, Edit

For many of us, editing is a vocation in its own right, not a fallback career. The assertion “Those who can’t write, edit” is as false as “Those who can’t do, teach.” Like teachers, we editors have a special calling to bring out the best in others, to facilitate their growth and productivity. We master a complex set of skills over many years, adhere to a well-defined set of ethical standards, and provide services crucial to the success of our industry.

Stop Editing Me

“Stop editing me, please.” This statement, phrased in various ways, has punctuated the history of my personal relationships. My good-natured life partner—who equates my editing fervor with my housekeeping mania —leaves the premises when I begin cleaning so that he won’t “get swept up and left out on the curb.” For better or worse, editing is more than a profession—it is a personal disposition, a compulsive desire for order, a need to find patterns of meaning in a random world.