What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 022629997X ISBN 13: 9780226299976

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Editing is an invisible art where the very best work goes undetected. Editors strive to create books that are enlightening, seamless, and pleasurable to read, all while giving credit to the author. This makes it all the more difficult to truly understand the range of roles they inhabit while shepherding a project from concept to publication.

In What Editors Do, Peter Ginna gathers essays from twenty-seven leading figures in book publishing about their work. Representing both large houses and small, and encompassing trade, textbook, academic, and children’s publishing, the contributors make the case for why editing remains a vital function to writers—and readers—everywhere.

Ironically for an industry built on words, there has been a scarcity of written guidance on how to actually approach the work of editing. This book will serve as a compendium of professional advice and will be a resource both for those entering the profession (or already in it) and for those outside publishing who seek an understanding of it. It sheds light on how editors acquire books, what constitutes a strong author-editor relationship, and the editor’s vital role at each stage of the publishing process—a role that extends far beyond marking up the author’s text.

This collection treats editing as both art and craft, and also as a career. It explores how editors balance passion against the economic realities of publishing. What Editors Do shows why, in the face of a rapidly changing publishing landscape, editors are more important than ever.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Peter Ginna was most recently publisher and editorial director at Bloomsbury Press; before that he held editorial positions at Oxford University Press, Crown Publishers, St. Martin’s Press, and Persea Books. He has taught editing in New York University’s publishing program, and comments on editing, books, and publishing at the blog Doctor Syntax and on Twitter at @DoctorSyntax.

Peter Ginna was most recently publisher and editorial director at Bloomsbury Press; before that he held editorial positions at Oxford University Press, Crown Publishers, St. Martin's Press, and Persea Books. He has taught editing in New York University's publishing program, and comments on editing, books, and publishing at the blog Doctor Syntax and on Twitter at @DoctorSyntax.

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What Editors Do

The Art, Craft, And Business Of Book Editing

By Peter Ginna

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2017 The University of Chicago
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-226-29997-6

Contents

INTRODUCTION. The Three Phases of Editing, 
PART I. ACQUISITION: FINDING THE BOOK, 
1 WHERE IT ALL BEGINS by Peter Ginna, 
2 THE ALCHEMY OF ACQUISITIONS: Twelve Rules for Trade Editors by Jonathan Karp, 
3 THINKING LIKE A SCHOLARLY EDITOR: The How and Why of Academic Publishing by Gregory M. Britton, 
4 THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINES: Acquiring College Textbooks by Peter Coveney, 
PART II. THE EDITING PROCESS: FROM PROPOSAL TO BOOK, 
5 THE BOOK'S JOURNEY by Nancy S. Miller, 
6 WHAT LOVE'S GOT TO DO WITH IT: The Author–Editor Relationship by Betsy Lerner, 
7 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DESK: What I Learned about Editing When I Became a Literary Agent by Susan Rabiner, 
8 OPEN-HEART SURGERY, OR JUST A NIP AND TUCK? Developmental Editing by Scott Norton, 
9 THIS NEEDS JUST A LITTLE WORK: On Line Editing by George Witte, 
10 TOWARD ACCURACY, CLARITY, AND CONSISTENCY: What Copyeditors Do by Carol Fisher Saller, 
PART III. PUBLICATION: BRINGING THE BOOK TO THE READER, 
11 THE FLIP SIDE OF THE PIZZA: The Editor as Manager by Michael Pietsch, 
12 START SPREADING THE NEWS: The Editor as Evangelist by Calvert D. Morgan Jr., 
13 THE HALF-OPEN DOOR: Independent Publishing and Community by Jeff Shotts, 
PART IV. FROM MYSTERY TO MEMOIR: CATEGORIES AND CASE STUDIES, 
14 LISTENING TO THE MUSIC: Editing Literary Fiction by Erika Goldman, 
15 DUKES, DEATHS, AND DRAGONS: Editing Genre Fiction by Diana Gill, 
16 MARGINALIA: On Editing General Nonfiction by Matt Weiland, 
17 ONCE UPON A TIME LASTS FOREVER: Editing Books for Children by Nancy Siscoe, 
18 LIVES THAT MATTER: Editing Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir by Wendy Wolf, 
19 OF MONOGRAPHS AND MAGNUM OPUSES: Editing Works of Scholarship by Susan Ferber, 
20 RELIABLE SOURCES: Reference Editing and Publishing by Anne Savarese, 
21 THE PINK SHOULD BE A SURPRISE: Creating Illustrated Books by Deb Aaronson, 
PART V. PURSUING A PUBLISHING CAREER: VARIETIES OF EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE, 
22 WIDENING THE GATES: Why Publishing Needs Diversity by Chris Jackson, 
23 THE APPRENTICE: On Being an Editorial Assistant by Katie Henderson Adams, 
24 THIS PENCIL FOR HIRE: Making a Career as a Freelance Editor by Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, 
25 THE SELF-PUBLISHER AS SELF-EDITOR by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry, 
26 A NEW AGE OF DISCOVERY: The Editor's Role in a Changing Publishing Industry by Jane Friedman, 
CONCLUSION. AS TIME GOES BY: The Past and Future of Editing, 
Acknowledgments, 
Glossary, 
Further Resources, 
About the Editor, 
Index, 
Footnotes, 

CHAPTER 1

WHERE IT ALL BEGINS

PETER GINNA

Every acquiring editor knows the feeling: I call it the spark. You're reading a manuscript or book proposal, and something about it quickens your pulse, makes you turn the pages a little more eagerly: this is the real thing. Whether you're looking for picture books for children, self-help, scholarly monographs, or poetry, you've found a work that catches your attention. And when you turn the last page you think, I can't wait to tell someone about this.

The power of that feeling is something outsiders often don't understand. Critics of traditional publishing, who include, understandably, many rejected authors, focus much disapproving attention on the editor's function of "gatekeeping," with its image of turning authors away like a surly bouncer at a club. But editors don't live to turn books down. They live to find books they believe in and to bring them to readers. Simply put: it is acquisition, not rejection, that drives the engine of publishing.

Acquisitions is the primum mobile, the activity from which every other task in publishing springs. New books are the lifeblood of a publishing house, and finding new titles that the house can publish successfully is the most important task anyone in it can have. To be a brilliant manuscript editor or a genius at marketing — these skills are invaluable, without doubt. But in purely pragmatic terms, the ability to find books worth publishing — new voices, provocative arguments, captivating original stories or old ones freshly told — is prized above all, because without new projects to fill its pipeline, a publishing company withers away.

This was a lesson that I, for one, took far too long to learn as I made my way in my career. Like many eager new recruits, I imagined I would move up the career ladder as I demonstrated my ability with my editorial pencil. In fact, when it comes to advancement (and salary), nothing counts as much for the editor as an acquisitions track record. Just as law firms reward the "rainmaker" partners who bring in the biggest clients, publishers are quickest to hand promotions and raises to the editors who bring in successful authors.

Even in houses that are not primarily commercial, editors are measured on their acquisitions. University presses and other not-for-profit firms need new titles just as much as big trade houses. In many houses, editors will have explicit "signing goals" — sometimes a specific number of titles acquired per year, more often a minimum dollar value of projected sales for the titles signed. In others the target is left vague, but you can be sure someone in management is keeping track. When I worked at Crown Publishers, a division of Random House, I was never given a signing goal, but I remember the head of another division remarking, "A senior editor at this place has to bring in a million dollars a year to pay the rent." That was in the 1990s; the number may be higher now.

In the aggregate, acquisition is important because it determines the success of a publisher's list. No matter what magic its editors can work on manuscripts, they must first find books to publish that will fulfill the house's mission — and please an audience. Alas, no amount of brilliant editing can turn an unsalable book into a winner. My former boss and mentor, Tom McCormack of St. Martin's Press, liked to quote a line from the film Chariots of Fire, where a canny veteran track coach says to a would-be Olympic sprinter, "I can find you two steps in the hundred." Two steps in the hundred is often all that editing can add to a manuscript. The valuable editor is one who builds a stable of Olympic-caliber writers.

Acquisitions also determine the identity of a publisher's list — or in market terms, its brand. Some houses are known for bestselling commercial fiction (Putnam, for instance); some for high-quality literature (FSG, Knopf, and indies like Coffee House and Graywolf); some for elegantly produced lifestyle and cooking books (Clarkson Potter). University presses tend to have strengths in certain disciplines. Repeated success in a category has multiple benefits for a firm. It builds up the house's skill sets for publishing in that area — its knowledge of what works and doesn't, and its relationship with that community of readers. And this success burnishes the house's reputation for such books with media, booksellers, and consumers. Thus begins a virtuous cycle, attracting more submissions from authors and agents in the same field.

At the other end of the scale, one single title can change the fortunes of a company. Bloomsbury was a respected but small...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 022629997X
• ISBN 13: 9780226299976
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 318
• Herausgeber: Ginna Peter
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar