assignment for april 1st - reading | line editing.

Please read for next week the following essay:

Line Editing: Drawing Out the Best Book Possible on page 153 in Editors on Editing.

This is a good exercise for us right now as it deals with heavy line-editing, which we have been doing a lot of lately and speaks to the craft of line-editing, not simply the mechanics of it, but how to make a book the most aesthetically pleasing book in terms of language - for we all know that language can, or cannot be, beautiful. Our goal then is to try to make the book the best possible book that it can be.

It may not always be possible to take a book and make it a thing of beauty if you have poor raw material to work with. That said, you can still carve out something that is worthwhile, regardless of the book IF you set your mind to it.

This may seem very difficult with the project we are working on now given the many, myriad issues we have all noted and note more as we move along in our problem sheets. Still, given that, it is regardless our job to continue working on the book as if we do care, because you will be given books like this. This is not an "off the wall" example by any means. This is exactly the sort of book a publisher might throw at you, or an agent, and say, "Here - work on this." (unfortunate tho that may be, it's the truth).

Certainly, I would not acquire this book and I doubt any of you would either, or maybe I'm wrong. But our job as editors is to make it so that even if we would not buy it as a manuscript, to craft it so that someone, the reading public or a subsection thereof, will buy it as a book that they wish to read. It may not appeal to us, but it should and ought appeal to a particular niche - so it's your job to kind of get into the right frame of mind given your audience and give them the best possible work in that niche. I hope this makes sense to you. If it does not, please see me, although I think this is pretty self-evident.

We will continue with our manuscript - frustrating tho it may be, but it's important that you not get lazy or give up on it, because that will not, and is not, an option at a publishing house or agency and this class is being ran like a real world publishing house - not an academic class room because you don't really learn much from that. You learn from real-world experience and I am trying to make this as real-world as possible.

If you have comments, do leave them here. You may also find the following link useful, so do check it out. Click here for information on line editing and cliches, etc.

I look forward to your comments on the reading.

s.r.p.

problem sheet - listing of manuscript problems

• The biggest problem is tense change and constant shifting
• We do not know the Why of the book even though we are several chapters in.
• The characters are faceless to us - they have no clear personality or image,
  save for a few who have some (the gay teacher, for example) but other than that
  few have "faces". So far, the Mother seems to have the most personality
• Trying to be Holden Caufield, yet his story meanders too much and unlike Holden,
  it's unclear what journey he is on. Which passage is he going through? Is he changing
  or going through a catharsis of some kind that makes sense or is clear?

Since all of you are keeping problem sheets, i expect you to add some of the problems you have found with the manuscript that we have discussed in glass. I don't expect you to share your entire problem sheet (because it is part of your final grade, so understood you wouldn't want to share it all,) but this said, I would want and do want you to list several problems that you have noted with the manuscript, so please write these in the comments section and be sure to sign your name.

We will keep an ongoing problem sheet on this blog as we go on...

Thanks all, and I look forward to your contributions.

S.R.P.

reading assignment due for contracts week

Please read for next week, that is, this tuesday

The Editor as Negotiator, p. 110 - Editors on Editing.

Thank you...

different genres | class. 02-.03

the more genres you can fit your book into, the better chance it has of selling in a bookstore because now, bookstores are divided into sections - which wasn't always the case. Now that they are, it behooves you to have more than one section for your book to give it the most "saleability'. Here are some genres for you. If you think of others, write them in the comments section;

• women's literature
• philosophy
• theology
• judaica (why is this separate from other theology?)
• poetry
• religion in general
• general non-fiction
• general fiction
• mystery
• mass-market
• romance
• horror
• science fiction
• childrens
• young adult - y/a
• how to
• self-help
• comic/illustrated books
• illustrated | art books
• coffee table books
• psychology | psychiatry
• occult
• crafts
• biography
• sports
• cooking
• foreign | translation
• lifestyle
• memoir
• business
• audio and e-books
  

That was what I came up with. Can you think of others? Go to Barnes and Noble and see what categories you find and what types of books are in those sections and check the back of the book to see what genres are listed. As an experiment, you might want to see if the book is stocked in all three genres, though I would doubt it. The chain factor tells me it is likely stored in only one and the primary section.

reading assingment due january 29th

The Art of Literary Publishing - through page 12.
Are Editors Necessary by Richard Curtis in Editors on Editing (pgs. 30-39)
Chapter One of Schiffrin, The Business of Books
Chapter One of Epstein, The Book Business

Please come prepared to discuss what you have read...

manuscripts | separating the dreck from the good

The manuscript can be delivered in its whole, or as part of a proposal or query as above. If an author submits a straight manuscript, chances are that it will come through an agent although a lot of good work can come in over the transom and you just don’t know who you’ll discover in the slush pile… Think Joyce or Fitzgerald that came in through the slush pile, essentially. A good editor will be able to separate the "dreck" from the good.

Today, most manuscripts that come in have already been edited by their agent as the agent takes on more and more the role of editor helping shape and mold the manuscript and point the author in the right direction. Chances are, that so much of what you get these days will not need as much editing as it would have about ten years ago . Things have changed with the advent of agents.

Most of the best work will arrive through agents but don't dismiss other works that come in over the transom - as noted above, some of the best work may come in over the transom. The difference between a work that comes in on its own verus an agented book is not the quality of the manuscript, by any means - only that one author was savvy enough to get representation, but it may have little or nothing to do with talent. This is for you and you only to judge as you evaluate work, tho note that it is interns who evaluate much of the slush.

There are ways to determine if there is anything good in the slush pile:

1. have interns write a brief paragraph about what the manuscript is about.
2. whether or not they would publish it and why.

They should do this for virtually every manuscript, barring the real losers, and hand this to the editor with their note. This was a practice used at The Atlantic Monthly and it worked extremely well and we found a lot of work through the slush pile using this method.

the proposal | a brief outline

The first thing you want to look at is how many copies the book can sell and how – so if you’re doing a book on Shakespeare, you’ll want right up front how often he is quoted each year, how many copies sell of his or her collected works, etc etc why he or she is big in the collective conscious or unconscious. This is really the first part of the proposal where the author should persuade you with every marketing reason why you should publish this book and stay in the black if you do so; simply saying it's a "good book" is not enough.

• 
  A marketing section to detail the B&N ranking you expect – where you will help promote this book, which areas you feel you can sell it in, amazon sales ranking, websites that the book can be marketed to, stores, people the author knows who can blurb or help – this sort of thing is important.
• 
  A table of contents with each chapter and what it will be called (rough title) and a synopsis of that chapter.
• 
  Production: your author should have information such as how many pages they expect the book to have, how many illustrations, the sort of rights and permissions they anticipate for images in the book (because as the publisher, you will be the one responsible for paying for this.) The author needs to, as much as possible, realistically assess what they expect the rights for any images in the book.
  
  A full bio, third person, complete with publications and any awards etc.
• 
  
• A complete outline of the book with chapter heads and a synopsis of each chapter - so you're looking at the book as the author expects it to play out. Each chapter should be no more than two or three sentences long and indicate where illustrations will possibly go or if appropriate, any sidebars and the like.
• 
  
• Finally, you want to give the publisher:
• a total estimate of page-count
• number of illustrations
• due date when you think the book will be done etc.
• word count (which should be part of your page count)
• categories this book might fit into - which genre
• names of authors (generally well-known and and with authority, who would back this book by giving a blurb for the back-ad.) This helps more than you know in terms of lending legitimacy to a book.
  
• 
  
• This is what you are looking for in a proposal.