Editing, or the lack thereof

To fill the Succession hole in my Sunday night, I listened to an endless podcast about an instagram influencer with a terrible publishing story (It’s in 3 parts and requires much skimming). The terrible things the publishing industry did to this woman are not uncommon, and she is right to be upset; that said, she interprets why those things happened incorrectly almost as often. Everyone behaved badly! In her latest newsletter,

Anna Sproul-Latimer

sums up the saga and adds her opinion.

Editing—or the lack thereof—comes up often in this podcast, and incredulity about what book editors do or do not do also comes up often in my conversations with other authors. As someone who has written books, and thus had editors, as well as being a book editor myself, and a publisher supervising editors working with authors, I have experienced a gamut of editing styles and processing. (The editor in me is now asking the writer in me why I am leaning into all these long, clause-filled sentences today.)

It’s unwise and wrong to generalize about “editors” in “publishing,” though. Editors at academic presses have different expectations and job descriptions than ones at trade presses; indie press editors differ in their approach from corporate press editors. And of course editors within the same imprint will have vastly different styles. They are just people! People differ! Nor are all “books” the same. Editing an instructional how-to manual for how to build your own gas grill and editing an investigation into malfeasance by Big Pharma are scarcely the same thing. Nor is editing the fifth series in a Bridgerton knock-off the same as editing a Joycean debut novella.

But I do think there is one aspect of book editing that many first-time authors get wrong. It’s something I might have disagreed with myself on a decade or so ago, but now I have come around to it: book editors should not be expected to provide feedback for a book along the way—as it is being drafted—to the author.

This is not something many, many, authors who are frustrated or discouraged by the process after contract signing and before submission understand. But I do think it makes sense.

Here’s an example:

• a writer signs a contract, has a deadline, and sets up for herself a schedule for writing the book to meet the deadline. She plans to send her editor each chapter as she finishes it for feedback. (The editor does not ask for this). She does send those chapters, but the editor does not respond with edits. She’s frustrated and feels neglected.
  

If I had to choose a right and wrong person in this scenario, I would blame the writer, not the editor, for two main reasons.