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.

the query letter

The Query Letter

When you query a publisher you may get a faster response as opposed to a full proposal or manuscript but not necessarily a favorable one.

There is such a thing a giving too much information, but query letters tend to provide too little information…you want to include enough to get the editor’s attention – The query should not be too broad ranging or brief. The sort of thing, “I grew up in the former Yugoslavia and I’ve written a book about it…” is not going to pass muster. You need something more solid than this.

As an editor, you’re looking for a writer who is authoritative, has the personal experience if this is a personal story, has a style, which will even show in the letter, and a story that has a real hook. It should be one of the more fascinating letters you read in your life, not just another “I want to write a book about Boston because it’s great…” or some such, but a letter that has some potential at the other end of the line…. overall, there are too many query letters, I think, and most of them are bad. It has become a lazy way out with people writing a one page letter that is milque toast bland.

Your author should, if they are smart, provide a good bio of themselves (third person) with their credentials, a few sample pages perhaps, a rough outline or table of contents doesn't hurt, and the letter itself is a writing sample, so pay attention to how that is written as well, because if the author did not, then that's important too.

how to edit |

Can you really improve upon the sentence or paragraph; can you really make the book better? Keep these simple, basic rules in mind while working and use them when you edit during class (and afterward in your career).

What we want to see are how well you apply what you have learned ... that is the objective of this assignment.

Remember the following:

Do no harm – do not try to change the author’s meaning of voice – (whatever voice means these days) keep it in character and tone. Do not be a butcher, but a surgeon if you are to edit. Think of your hands as such… these are your instruments; these and your red pencil or pen. Treat them well.

Economy of Language – no where is this more important in prose or prose-poetry. You do not want a manuscript that repeats a word over and over again, that’s important. I had one that used the word “moon” constantly, but the writer didn’t notice it – writer-blind – I had to edit out many moons.

Change as Little as Possible - Do not rewrite sentences – that’s cheating – but instead try to find the author’s original intent and meaning and stick to this. You should never change the author’s intent. If the author intended to make a character unscrupulous, then don’t try to make the character someone with scruples. It simply follows… And with smaller details query also if you don’t think something makes sense, but in Following Claire several people queried was it possible for the sick narrator to get to the basement to lift the boxes of Claire’s notes – good question; to query that did not change the author’s intent, but helped clarify only what his character creation was capable of doing. So fair enough. To change a character – unless this is biography and truth – then no. You should not try to do that.

Overediting – this is something that young editors and even experienced editors do - ; you need to be careful of this, there’s a fine line. You want to query your author but you don’t want to change the story either or the intent of the author’s story, as I said, you want to change as little as possible but get to the gem of the story or the heart. That said, some pieces DO require a lot of editing – so there is or will be some contradiction here. You may find this in some exercises

Don’t change an author’s style – don’t change an author’s voice. This is their style and trademark. IT would be like changing Jack Kerouac or Marguerite Duras or Shakespeare or Lewis Carroll all of whom who had a particular style of writing, like most writers… or take Annie Proulx whose characters all tend to have unusual names – it would be like changing their names to names that were more ordinary because you felt they didn’t make sense. Think of writing then as music in a way – would you change the composition of a piece of music – rearrange the notes in such a way that the song was totally a different piece?

You may change a piece or a song let’s say – a partita so that it flowed better – take a note out here or there or transpose something or query the author “did you intend this note – it doesn’t seem to fit with the style of the piece because it’s a g. flat in a g. major piece then that would make more sense – and would be a good query. But to take out the actual meaning of the piece would be wrong.

For example, and there are some good ones I can think of; Marguerite Duras’s book The Lover is about a young girl who is not of age and is only fourteen and yet is the lover of an older Chinese man. We may call this statutory rape, and it may be, and we may not like it, but it’s one of the best selling and most famous books or well-known books. If we changed the title to “Statutory” it would put a whole different spin on a highly erotic book – one that the author intended to be a highly erotic book.

The same would be true of any number of books, and I’m sure you can think of a few yourselves. Think, for example of a famous one, such as The Da Vinci Code; what if it were called, The Da Vinci Mystery – wouldn’t that put a whole different spin on it and classify as a whole different genre, and yet there have been editor’s who have done this and changed whole titles of books – so you don’t want to do this.

TACT – As an editor, you will use all of your diplomatic skills, which goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of the semester when we spoke about author/ editor relations.

Remember, this is someone’s ‘baby’ and although this may be a book that was assigned to you, or maybe even one you acquired, it’s something they’ve been working on for years and now, something you and the author are going to spend the next several years working on together, so you’ll want to get along during this process….

Queries – clear, concise, respectful nonjudgmental. Before you zero in on the negative, try to find something positive to say; Use your common sense, and I think most of you already know this, or all of you actually, but instead of just “cut” say “maybe cut” – so you’re phrasing is everything and this is where your tact and diplomacy come into play. Essentially, all of your editing skills are an amalgam, but it’s important to cover them all…

Keep your queries simple, neat and in the margin and don’t expect the author to agree with everything you say – at the end of the day, it is his or her name, not your name that goes on the book. You have to respect that.

When you query, don’t just query, but be prepared to offer an alternative or option – so what would YOU do in the situation – you’re the editor, so what would your edit then be?

Keep within tone: if something sounds off of tone, then don’t be afraid to say so, For example, a sentence like, And then it occurred to him as he pondered the matter deeply that he really ought to cut the crap… The last part of the sentence is obviously out of character with the first part, so that’s the sort of thing you would query your author on but you don’t want to be obnoxious, so how would you query this?

(This seems out of character for him here… is this correct? STET? or change? Doesn’t seem to fit with the rest).

You'll get a better sense as you go along, but just stick with it and follow simple guidelines and you'll get there.

It's confusing at first especially, but in due course, you will find it easier to edit if you keep in mind a simple checklist - a mental checklist - of what to do and what not to do. What is your goal? This is the real question.

finding your niche | how to establish yourself

Language, love of language and a feel and a natural skill, a writer or a poet’s eye – a rare thing – all of these things come into play when you look for a job and not just the first time, but I think every time. You have to ask yourself whether or not this job can offer you that love of words that you’re looking for or the love of the printed page if that’s what you want – but you have to sometimes compromise this to get to the next step in your career;

Here, the author says that your skills are transferable, but transferring yourself can be another matter and that publishing tends to pigeonhole people early in their careers.

I think this is true to some extent. You need to establish who you are – what you are going to BE with that big capital B. It’s scary because you don’t know until you’ve really tried and I’ve known many editors who have changed careers or moved to different areas, including myself…

I’ve worked in trade publishing- which means the books you see in Barnes and Noble or even now on Amazon or any number of stores or read about in PW for most of my career. This led me a long way, but I started out in fashion –because it was a foot in the door, but boy, those months I was in the Vogue Features department, working for Amy Gross and typing between those non-repro blue lines on an old IBM Selectric, even at fifteen, as nerve-wracking as it was (the pressure of no computer then, to not make a mistake, to type exactly between the lines – for I was essentially the proofreader and typesetter and reader of slush), but the pressure was great to get it Right, just as it would be anywhere only now, the technology is easier so it’s less of a deal if you make a typo because spell-check will likely catch it whereas we had to rely on our own eyes and the eye, in a way, visually corrects what is wrong – we skip over typos, we skip over errors and we ‘fix’ them in our mind so that they do not exist, hence, they do not exist for us, particularly if we ourselves wrote the piece or are editing the piece.

The salient factor here is that since then, it’s true that I’ve worked most of my life in Trade Publishing – both books and well-known magazines- because that’s where I started and got an established reputation.

Despite that, I have written entire web-sites for e-commerce sites, and books to go along with the product that they made. I have written to Mass General Hospital’s Neurology Department, and biggest of all, I was asked by Harvard University Publishing to write several main sections of www.intelihealth.com which was owned by Harvard and is now owned by Aetna, so that’s a huge client even though it does not really jibe with the bulk of my writing or what i really do and wish to do, as a writer or editor, you can or may take on jobs to learn, to pay the bills (because jobs like this tend to pay more than traditional publishing jobs, and more, it is more editing experience. Period.)

I’ve also done a lot of legal writing for Hill & Barlow, now part of Palmer and Dodge – which has had a literary agency for years. I freelanced for Hill and Barlow for ten years and for each of those ten years, and this is while I was working in publishing at Godine and then Lumen fulltime, so this was my ‘free time’ job, I would average just from the Hill Barlow work alone about 60-90 K on any average year and it was work that any of you could do already in this class, I strongly feel, using the skills from your InDesign class and your editing skills from here – you could do this because it is like a whole book, just in-depth.
It’s book-editing lite in a sense and for that, you don’t need a full-class (and we’re halfway through), so you’re already in a position to go after such work.

How do you get this work when you don’t have experience? Friends. Friends at law firms, other publishers, people you know, professors, speakers, anyone you can think of, tap into your resources – people sometimes think this sounds Machiavellian, but I’ve said this before, I think you can apply Machiavelli to bad or good and it’s all in how you go about it. I’m not saying slit the throat of the person in front of you to get what you want, but if you have to glad-hand a bit so get where you want to get, then you should not hesitate, unless it is really hurting someone else or their career. But to further advance your own career through hard work and through determination.... nobody can fault you for this. Drive is good.

* * *

You can sneak in the back way, as I said above – start reviewing books in the niche you want to publish. Start copyediting. I know publishers and at least one agency that are always looking for good, cheap, labor. I’m not insulting you here. You need a way in: this is a way in. You get in the door, you prove yourself, and then you can raise your rate when the time comes.

For now, if you want to edit encyclopedias or reference works let’s say, my advice would be to contact the editor who handles this at a press that prints a fair amount of reference works like Blackwell Scientific or Continuum, which is a trade house but has done several TRADE encyclopedias which is a good cross-over market and doesn’t limit you – contact the head editor there or get to know the EA. Be persistent, and get yourself a copy editing job.

Now, after all that effort to get the job, once you get it, you’re not going to be able to turn down the job for what they want to pay you – which may or may not be fair… it will probably be fair enough, though if they suck, slightly less because they’re testing you for the first time.

Book reviews: so many places are dumped on with books that you can easily find a place to review books for if you are a good writer and have some clips and a good education, which I think you have. Also, you’ve had this class and I’ll write a letter of recommendation for those of you who need it for the right job or reviewing position.

To get into medical writing, I reviewed all of the technical and medical books for the Boston Globe Sunday Arts Section that nobody else wanted to review. I did the same thing for Publisher’s Weekly with the same tactic in mind which was that if a writing job opened up in biotech, or editing job – that I would take it and would be able to say I know something of the market.

It was not just that I had experience reading and reviewing med. tech. books. It’s that I also had experience at Harvard and Trade publishing and had done a few freelance jobs here and there for the money. As such, I became a sort of "expert" and began getting more work from more places as word spread - excellent income, even though it is or was not what I want to do in the final account.

You can establish yourself as an 'expert or known in the field.' This, again, is where you want to look at the editing that is being done at agents today, not at publishing houses ~ so you're better off being an editor, at least initially, at an agency.

letter to an unpublished writer by Jonathan Farrar - what we can learn | March 20th notes, class no 7

Never hand-deliver a manuscript unless there is some compelling reason to do so, which had better be pretty compelling, but rather, mail it or have it messengered or sent by your agent or these days, most or many manuscripts are sent electronically via email to editors at large houses, particularly the larger houses who print out a few pages and if intrigued, print more or the whole thing. Some may read a few pages on screen if the title doesn’t grab them or the subject matter, but that’s it. These are the ways you communicate with an editor today. Simple, neat, clean. It is an unwritten, unspoken rule of publishing.

And this rule works in reverse. What Farrar has done here in this long letter is prove his point by writing a long-winded letter to an author who has done everything wrong;

1. she has made it personal
2. she has made personal telephone calls
3. she has shown up at the office and made appointments much to the dismay of his secretary who is now becoming upset (you never want to upset the Editor’s EA because he or she is the turn-key to the Editor; the gate-keeper.

One rule of publishing (there are many, but to stick to one), just as in Publicity that you very quickly learn if you are savvy is that to get to the Editor, you must become friends with the secretary or admin or editorial assistant.

The friendlier you are, the more likely you are to get in the door, get read, get seen, esp. in the case of publicity as I told you the story of me and Chip Mc Grath at the New York Times Book Review at the time and his admin and how I was able to get in. This isn't bribery, this is doing your job and getting to know people so that they get to like you and are willing to and gosh, maybe even want to help you in your endeavor to see your books reviewed. This works and you can do it at a very grass-roots level. For those of you interested in non-profit, then you understand how much can come of a grass-roots effort, i would think, or anyone who has been at a start-up.

Keep your rejection, acceptance letters simple, to the point, and never offer editorial or other advice. It's in your and the writer's best interest that you do not.

Exercise on this topic in next week's class - note this is a graded exercise.

small publishing & piecework reading for next week , march 29th

"Small Publishing - Is It Beautiful" by Bessie pg. 106-end
&
"Piecework" by Lenn Fulton & Ellen Ferber p. 163 - end

From the Art of Literary Publishing

example of an edited page

An example of an edited manuscript. This is particularly messy, and has clearly gone through several hands and likely several drafts, but it gives you some idea of the work that goes into real line-editing.

Your work, of course, is expected to be readable, neat, clean, but again, don't be afraid to not only query the author, but make changes where they need to be made. However, do not make changes simply for the sake of making changes. If a manuscript is fine as it is, then let it STET. This is but one example. I'll post a cleaner example as well.

more on the Galassi | the yin & yang of publishing in the literary house

• Galassi reading, The Double Agent: The Role of the Literary Editor in the Commercial Publishing House. P. 79 The Art of Literary Publishing.
  
  1. An effective editor, according to Galassi, is someone who has all the good virtues of;
  Humor, tact, courage etc , what he says, “the primary requirement seems to me to be an eductated and well-defined taste.”
• 
  2. An editor should always have ideas of his own –
  shining light where none has shone before like Verba Mundi,
  and should know about his own culture, but about other cultures as well.
  
  3. What Galassi tells us, and I agree, is that often working for a big conglomerate and publishing trade literature (that is books that are often perceived as Editor’s Books, no necessarily immediate ‘sure things’) is like infiltrating for a purpose – almost a David and Goliath struggle between the Publishing House and the Editor who wants to publish his or her own books.
  
  4. The truth is, you will have to publish other books to support your literary trade books.
  
  a. You’ll have to publish books that, as he says, “pass” for literature –
  b. but when you find a book you TRULY believe in, be prepared to act – we spoke about this before –
  c. Having to fight for your book – at Ed. Board meetings, with the Publisher and so on. You’ll have to prove that the book is worth at least a chance and in doing this, you’ll have to ask yourself seriously how much of your own reputation are you willing to stake on this.
  

galassi's yin theory of publishing - from The Art of Literary Publishing - the yang theory

(above: chinese illustration of yin and yang relationship)


Galassi's YANG theory of the Author Editor relationship

a. This is the active side of the Editor’s role.

It means to reconcile and work the book to fit the reader’s needs and expectations, but mostly, their perceived needs.

To do this you need to clarify the writer’s intentions and get to the HEART OF THE MATTER , that inner core of the manuscript, the zeitgeist, the jewel of it, you want to give it the spit and polish and this is your job.

• 
  To do this well, you MUST inspire confidence in your Author – which is but one part of Author relations – your Author must trust you. They must trust you because you are to be their Editor, and in this way, you are essentially taking their ‘baby’ and reworking it. Remember that for each book, each Author, the book is incredibly close to the Author’s very being (usually). The Author is vested in his or her work in a major way. So this confindence in you is key.
  

galassi's yin theory of publishing - from The Art of Literary Publishing

Galassi and the Author - The Double Agent: The Role of the Literary Editor in Commercial Publishing, p. 79, The Art of Literary Publishing.

YIN

a. An equation of factors that combined equal critical empathy for the book and the Author.

For this you need to know:

• 
  How it feels to the writer (the book)
  How it is experienced by the reader
  Essentially you’re looking at the intent of the Author and how this is parlayed to the reader. As the Editor, it’s your job to make sure the message comes through the way the Author intended.

b. To achieve what he calls Critical Empathy (which are all of these things combined) you need to have a dispassionate distance. In short, you need to be able to work both at a remove as well as be able to put yourself entirely in the project.

• This Critical Empathy – just think of the work empathy – is an empathy and understanding of Author, Book, Intent, What the reader would expect given what the Author is trying for and it is your job to get the manuscript there.

contracts | help! - clauses for agents and authors

I know contracts can be hard - to that end, it may help to read a bit before you negotiate certain rights next week to really understand the author/editor relationship and bargaining lecture and review your notes afterward. More, I will make myself available both by email and telephone for any questions that you may have and you can set up an appointment to come and see me during office hours between five and six p.m. Remember, you can negotiate as much of the contract as you wish. The more you negotiate the better - but some of you may only negotiate subrights. Just be forewarned that although this is important, the rest of the contract is important as well - so don't ignore it and if you have questions, ask me. I will also be available during the class if you have questions.

As to contracts, I realize it may seem difficult or futile, but it is part and parcel of book-editing in that it is something book Editors do, or likely will do at some point in his or her career, unless you have the luxury of working for an extremely large house with a large legal department and even then, as a senior Editor or an Editorial Director, you will likely be expected to negotiate your own books with Agents and/or Authors.

More, every intern i placed last semester was asked if they knew how to negotiate a contract and knew subrights - so this is important and when you are looking for a job, you'll be glad you know this.....

For your next in-class exercise, here is what you should know, and this is important;

The contract is between you and your Author. You and the Author should feel free, MUST feel free, to edit as much of the contract as possible. The contract may be standard boiler plate, but that does NOT mean that you can't totally change it if you want to. Why not? It's your contract, make it work for you... and I say that to both parties here.

Since you have not negotiated contracts before, I would suggest some research, but I'll give you some pointers as well:

• 2.b - anywhere it says "At Author's Expense" if you are the agent, you want to define a limit to this amount or, try to get the publisher to cover the cost over all.
  
• When is the manuscript due? Set a reasonable date - usually a couple of years is fair. (clause 4) - look at all clauses in 4 - every clause in class 4 is important if you are the agent - and if you are the publisher, then you should really pay attention to clause four.
• 5- legal review: who pays for this?
• clause 7 - "style and manner" (clause a). Does the Author have any input? Do they get to see the cover etc before publication? This would be important to me anyway...
• clause 8 - when is the advance due?
• clause 9 - all royalty rates are negotiable within a reasonable fee; don't go crazy trying to get insane deep discounts or more money; be fair.
  
• When changes are made in galleys to the manuscript, the author pays for this generally.
• Who is paying for the illustrations, how much is the budget?
• Clause g in 4 - is only when you don't understand each other; let's assume that won't happen, but you prob. should negotiate on the off-chance. What if? Then who deals with the book? Decide what happens next if the company is bought out.
• (f) Edits - the Editor may make edits.
• Clause 6 - The Author's responsibilty. Is there a penalty if they don't keep up their end? What if you don't keep up your end of any part of the contract, by the way?
• Clause 7 - does your Author agree with everything in clause 7? Really?
• Clause 8 - Advance: you've decided this. Fill this in.
• Clause 9 - Royalties: negotiate.
• Clause 10 - Subrights: negotiate as you see fit. The subrights have a "split" in terms of percentages. Also, the Publisher may want to retain e-book rights in this day and age, etc - who knows - just remember that what you keep, you'll have to negotiate for it...
  
• Clause 11 - This is about Royalty Statements, accounting statements, when they are due and is pretty standard language. Negotiate if you see fit.
• Clause 12 - Author copies: how many copies of the book does the author get? Absolutely negotiable. These are free of charge copies.
• Clause 13 - Read this - you'll sort it out. It's an agree / disagree deal-breaker thing.
• Clause 14 a. - Termination: what if after publishing the book, the publisher decides there isn't really a market after all and wants to dispose of all copies? Do you want to keep this clause in?
• Clause 14 - The rest is technical and standard, but you can look it over and negotiate if you want to. This is harder.
• Clause 15 - Option: option on the author's next work for publication if they have faith in the author. This means the author cannot sell their next book to another publisher.
• Clause 16 - Competing Works: I have explained this to you. If you are still unclear, read the language again and if still unclear, please call me or email me.
• Clause 17 - Name & Likeness: obvious clause.

There are many other clauses - all clauses - but off the top of my head, these are some of the ones that are most often overlooked by students, so pay special attention to them, but again, the entire contract is important.

You should find the rest of the contract pretty standard and have no problems. I would fill it in as best as you can and read it through, but above are the key points. This is what you should be looking at.

I hope this helps. Again, I am available for all and any questions.

s.r.p.

how books are chosen | editor's books

illustration: Jack Kerouac's manuscript for On The Road
which he set as one long taped together manuscript
which he wrote on his typewriter. He said he taped
the pages together because he did not want to
interupt the flow of his writing and his thoughts.
This is just a small section of the manuscript. An original of Ulysses, 2nd pic.



How books are chosen will be a constant running theme of this course because it is a part and parcel of books that we edit. It is what we choose to edit, and for this reason, we learn how to not only edit and line-edit books, but really select books for publication, turn-down other manuscripts and query letters, read proposals and evaluate them, negotiate contracts as will perhaps likely be one day part of our job and also, I hope, participate in this course in a very active way, no matter how shy you may be (I too am shy, yet have to over-come this every week I speak before you and every time I go to an ed. board meeting). You have to stand up as an Editor or even as a Professor to convince, to at the end of the day, hopefully, inspire others to move into the field that you have chosen. Editing, in this way, is as I and others have said, an almost calling or faith. We do this on a wish and a prayer, but with a solid background. That is our goal here. Moving on... and keeping this in mind...

There are “Editor’s Books” – books that “move us”. What is your instinct and your passion? What tells you that a book is truly unique and you should publish it. Some people are sure that no manuscript that is truly great will go "undiscovered." Maybe the are right is right, maybe they are wrong wrong. Many factors come into play as we discussed. Keep those in mind as you write up your weekly e-mail. For class discussion, what do you think about books that are truly great not being discovered? Do you believe that a truly great book will be discovered eventually?

In your career as an editor, there is no doubt you are going to have to publish a lot of books that the publisher wants you to publish and that do you want to publish yourself. Books that you personally would not publish but have no choice in this case. If this happens, then you just have to suck it up like anyone and do it because this is what keeps the house the running.

Editors Books - Your Intuition & Instinct & How This Comes into Play...
But every now and then, once you have proven yourself a good worker in some way or a good editor, you may come across something truly unique. It may just be a “voice” and by voice I shouldn’t say “just” for discovering a new “voice” is wonderful thing – it’s a new way of telling a story and a new way of writing information that makes it different from any other writing. In a sense, that is an Editor’s Book.

But a true Editor’s Book is a book that does something that has never been done before. Authors who truly revolutionized writing; authors like;

Paul Bowles
John Barth
Jack Kerouac
Marguerite Duras
Georges Perec
Harry Mathews
William Gass
Nicholson Baker
David Foster Wallace
Zadie Smith
John Irving
William Faulkner... to name but a few.

We don’t have to like all of these authors, but they are more contemporary authors and this is why I chose them. We also have chosen Joyce who is also an Editor’s Author to be sure, but these authors’ are more than just contemporary. They give us, have given history, something that no other author has given us, and this is what we look for. If you can think of others authors who fit the bill and who have truly changed the face of writing, great. Again, even I don’t like the work of all of these authors, but their work is exceptional in some way and that is what counts the most. It is not about having a "voice", it is about changing how writing is written. It may even take us a while to get used to the style of writing. These writers first books may not do so well, but in due course, they will succeed, and that is what is the true test here. This is where an Editor succeeds.

Think of the Oulipo school of writers – the French school of writers who play word games (see link or Google the word) – in a sense they revolutionized and revolutionize (though I am not sure how active they are now) writing during their time and today. Harry Mathews is an Oulipo writer, so is Georges Perec who wrote the book A Void, entirely without the letter "e", and even more amazing, the book was translated into English, also without the letter "e". Another writer, a French writer is Jean Echenoz, but he is only available in French for the most part - he too could be considered an Editor's Author because he just won Le Prix Goncourt for his unique style of writing (this is like winning the Pulitzer).

We spoke about the history of Ulysses by Joyce: - first published by Sylvia Beach at Shakespeare and Company after it had been serialized in magazines. She published it in 1822. It was banned in the United States as pornography and if you were caught bringing it out or in then you could be prosecuted for distributing pornography.

Finally, Bennet Serf, one of the co-founders of Random House (he Donald Klopefer formed the house in the 1920s). Serf felt so passionately about the book that he took it before Judge Woolsey and won and Ulysses was granted to be published in the United States on December 6th, 1933. It was published by Random House in 1934. Random House got its name because according to Serf, books were published "at random" - just books they liked or felt moved to published - hence the name of the house.

A Cuban author, Raul Rivero, noted for his political writings (though not connected to Joyce,) said something that was quite notable and humorous, “It’s a very special book because it was edited by the police.”

Hopefully, this will not happen to your Editor’s Books – a book you truly love and is your "baby" as you shepherd it through the editorial process...That said, your ultimate goal is to publish a book thtat has the lasting power of a book like Uylesses and it is possible. Classics are built through the years and you may not even know you have published a classic until many years later - or even after you are dead! A classic is a book that does not have a short half-life, but instead, never dies.

editor as negotiator | contract information as negotiator

The Editor as Negotiator ~ Diplomacy

Editing contracts may or may not be part of your job as an editor at a publishing house. No doubt initially it will not be or in the very least you will be expected to know what a contract is and particularly subrights. That said, it’s good to know what a contact is, what will come of it should you work you way up the ladder at some point because you will be negotiating if you do become an editor or an editorial director.

There were several points of note in the reading that stood out: the first was style, the different ways in which editors will develop their own personal styles for negotiating a contract as they move through their career. Ideally, you do not want to come away from it by being an aggressive bulldog, though this is the approach some people do take. Your goal should be to get the best deal possible for your publishing house (this is your primary obligation as you know by know; whatever your job is, it’s always first and foremost to your publishing house, so we don’t need to say that again.). After this, your ethics are divided, once the contract is negotiated – your obligation is to stand by the promises you have made to your author and the promises made to your house. It’s a balance.

Be forward thinking – don’t just look at the “now”. Think four, ten, or more years into the future, especially with subrights. You never know what’s going to happen with your book. You don’t know if you are going to get offered a film deal four years down the road from the most ‘unexpected book’ or a translation offer, so your job would be to try to hold on to the highest percentage of translation rights as possible – all subrights, in fact. In short, as you go through your contract, you will be negotiating most of it – since this is graded – you will negotiate as much or as little of the contract as you want or see fit depending on how much of the contract you have come to understand. Some may negotiate more than others. It’s entirely up to you, but will be reflected – remember, in a real world situation, which this does mimic – this is not simply a futile exercise – you will be doing exactly what you are doing now with books you know little about based on proposals or worse, query letters – with authors you know very little about. The exercise you had was quite similar to a real-world experience of what you will be dealing with.

Look at Reversion Rights, Reprint Rights, Non-compete rights – works that compete with the existing work as we discussed. A book that the author wants to put out at the same time on the same topic. You must build in or have a clause that says something to the affect that they cannot do this within a reasonable amount of time so that you have time to sell your book. But REMEMBER, the entire contract is important and negotiable.

Treat your author or the agent you are negotiating with respect and take them seriously. This is a serious negotiating matter and you’ll want to factor that in – there can often be big money involved – if not to you what seems like a huge amount, imagine if you are an author living independently and this is your only source of income, ten-thousand dollars for one or two years work on a book is not a great deal of money when you think about it for the amount of work required. You’re not offering a lot for a lot of work. Conglomerates have changed this a great deal, I think, by paying bigger advances to certain authors and smaller houses paying smaller advances to lesser known authors, although don’t romanticize too much; first time authors have never been paid a great deal of money.

Almost all contracts are boilerplate within reason with small variations here and there, but they are standard with the standard clauses. Familiarize yourself with them. Even if you feel you will never have to use or negotiate a contract (you may have a legal department or a subrights department), as Editorial Director, I had to negotiate every contract that came for every book I bought and so far, every book that I have sold, I have negotiated directly, or my agent has, with the Editor him or herself.

Frankfurt Book Fair – You all know about this, but keep it in mind as a big money-maker for your company for the right kind of books. When you sign a book, think about how well it might do in another country in translation. When you prepare for Frankfurt, think about which books you are going to try to sell and to whom. Frankfurt is generally the first week in October and is the entire week long with almost no breaks from early morning until 7 or so at night. If you leave early or pack early on the last day, you are penalized a fee.

Your job will be to handle all of these things with diplomacy and skill and seeming ease. Confidence is key here. Whether or not you are actually feeling confident, as in the beginning you probably will not, you must learn to know your subject fully, but project a certain confidence so that others have confidence in you. At bookfairs you represent the entire house for which you work, so it is entirely up to you to be the public face of said house, whether you are the publicist or the editor or even the author, the onus is on you.

Contracts are important because you will need to negotiate (and remember that everyone should come away from a negotiation feeling good).

ethics | a reason to lie? | class notes

Is there ever a good reason to lie to an author?

No.

A big lie will always come and slap you in the face: you must never lie to an author about his or her work. As I said, they count on you. Your relationship with the Author is a symbiotic one.

BUT, what authors may not need to know:

However, there are a class of things that Authors do not need to know that do not relate to their book, and this is not lying, but these things are just not pertinent to the Author. Such things would be:

The everyday operations of the Publishing House (this information is proprietary information, unless it relates directly to the Author's book.)

How you conduct your business and how you acquire books.

Which other books your house has acquired of late - unless this information is already public - this is not up to you to necessarily share.

What the author DOES need to know is that you are an Ethical Editor and an Ethical publishing house with a good reputation and that information will ‘out’ pretty soon, or is already known. Most houses have established and known reputations and most Authors have agents to guide them as they negotiate the world of publishing as to the 'right' houses and Editors. You want to be one of those 'right' Editors... so build a reputation as an Ethical and fair editor.