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Being Boring (or: what they pay me for)

It's 3pm on a Saturday afternoon and I'm taking a break from work for a few hours.

Writing fiction for a living is an odd occupation. Before you get around to hitting the keyboard, you spend a lot of time staring out of the window, playing Solitaire (well, not me: but it's the principle that counts), and daydreaming. This is, in actual fact, an essential part of the job — letting your introspection off the leash with the fruit of your imagination. If you don't get your random daydreaming time in, the product is poor.

But that's only part of the story. Elsewhere in the process, after you do the keyboard thing, there's a chunk of office admin work, and the drudgery of proofreading. Proofreading is this: you have a chunk of dead tree, imprinted with laser toner in the exact pattern that will (in a couple of months) be replicated by offset-litho press several thousand times over in book format. Your job is to scour the page proofs for errors — typos and layout problems at this stage, not infelicities of grammar and phrasing or holes in the plot — and mark them up for the typesetters. It's pretty difficult to spot spelling errors in your own writing: by definition, you thought you'd spelled it right the first time round. But you have to try, because no matter how many times you read over the proofs you'll spot something new. It's also boring: you've already read this book several times — you wrote the thing!

Now picture this: you've got a stack of books to proofread. In fact, you've got three of the things, totalling just under 1000 pages between them. Because your two major US publishers decided they wanted the proofs checking in time for the same deadline. (Never mind that the books are being published over a 3 month time span — just don't go there, okay?)

Back when I worked in a software company's technical publications arm, we used to work on the principle that you could proofread fifty pages a day properly. I've got two weeks to do a thousand pages and ship them back to New York. And while I've gotten off to a good start (one book down in four days!) I've got a load more work to do, going forward.

Which should explain why I'm working over the weekend, and this may be my last blog posting for a little while ...

50 Comments

1:

Isn't there such a thing as external/professional proofreaders?

300 pages = 6 days work = 60 hours ... about 600 pound - I guess a lot of students would do it, provided they can take the time off (dunno when lectures start in Scotland, we've got another 2 weeks off here). Otherwise it would get a bit more expensive. Disclosure could also be a problem ...

Btw: Do you have a moon on a stick for me?

2:

tp1024: yes, and the publishers use them. Nevertheless, the author gets the final say (and can spot mistakes that external proofreaders miss).

Oh yeah, your moon on a stick is: I'm working over the mass market proofs to "The Revolution Business" (which, BTW, is long-listed for the Prometheus award for best libertarian fiction of 2009) and "The Trade of Queens", which wraps the first (and so far, only) series of the Merchant Princes; and "The Jennifer Morgue" (which will show up in mass market paperback around January).

If I get through this lot there will also be an unscheduled surprise Laundry short. And then I can get back to writing "Rule 34", aka the sequel to "Halting State" ...

3:

"which, BTW, is long-listed for the Prometheus award for best libertarian fiction of 2009"

That's adorable.

4:

A tip from an academic editor friend: proofread by reading the sentences backwards from the end of the piece. That way, you don't get caught up in the story or article, and can concentrate on spelling and grammatical errors.

5:

The "Halting State" sequel is now "Rule 34" ?

I know what that means and I'm very afraid. When's it coming out ?

6:

I proof for Distributed Proofreaders. When I work at it for ten hours or so, I can do 300+ easy to average pages.

I can't proof that fast on works like the Baburnama, with lots of references and footnotes and italics and words in Turki and Persian. I'm helping with that book now. But I do think that I could do more than 50 pages of the Baburnama in one day if I were being paid to do it. And the average IT text isn't as difficult as the Baburnama.

Or are you talking about proofing code?

7:

I sympathise with the work overload problem, but sincerely wish I and one whom I hold dear had the same problem. Consider me the slave whispering in your ear, 'Thou, too, art damned lucky to be able to make a living at this.'

But good luck, and I'm sorry that it's not a good enough living that you could afford to out-source it to a professional of your own, or, alternately, that the non-editorial tech. in Asimov's Galley Slave had panned out.

8:

Good Luck Charlie! To bad there isn't a software agent to do proof reading. Context is where it'd break down I guess,maybe that would be a better standard for the Turing Test? If I was a writer I'ld be in trouble-I'm compulsive enough to want to "tweak" everything not just spelling :(

9:

Jim: yes, I know these tricks. Been in the biz for close to 20 years, thanks (modulo 6 years programming full-time).

Michael: "Rule 34" is due out in July 2011.

Zora: I've noticed that DP is optimized for speed, and indeed competes on that metric -- I'm not convinced this is a good thing. (Also: 8 hours to do 50 pages is in a corporate environment, doing hardcore technical documentation, and with other activities, e.g. team meetings and lunch, taking up chunks of time.)

10:

We need to find a way around you doing this type of work, ever, Charlie. Why? You could be doing more of what we want you to be doing: writing more books. I'm thinking that someone needs to set up a donation site so that we can fund a "Charlie Clone" and then you could use the clone to proof these books over and over. Or you and your clone can divide the proofing and then both of you could write more fiction. The clone could write fantasy books and spend his time comong up with epic trilogies concerning Pixie Dust and magical artifacts.

Just an idea anyway.

11:

Feorag isn't as involved in DP these days; she was active in the old days, when we only had two rounds, and some people were doing incredibly sloppy proofing in pursuit of high rank. Now we have three rounds of proofing and two of formatting, and one has to pass a test to qualify for the higher rounds. A human-graded test, with judges poring over diffs from qualifying texts. (I think Feorag is only doing content-providing these days, ne? Shepherding old vegetarian cookbooks through the system?)

I can do 300+ pages in round 3 in one day if I'm working on something like a 1920s detective novel or an 1870s sensation novel. Non-fiction moves more slowly; scholarly work is the slowest I've done. If I were one of the TeX team, working on old math texts, I suppose I might be even slower.

You're also right that the working day in the usual office tends to feature meetings and other interruptions, so that 50 pages might not be unreasonable in that environment.

12:

"But good luck, and I'm sorry that it's not a good enough living that you could afford to out-source it to a professional of your own"

You're missing the point: manuscripts are already copyedited by the copyeditor, and then galleys are printed out, and proofed by the publisher's freelance proofreader. Authors need to also do their own pass, as Charlie already explained: "the author gets the final say (and can spot mistakes that external proofreaders miss)."

An author can just decide not to care, of course, but simply hiring someone else to do another pass of external proofing wouldn't be a replacement for authorial proof-checking. Similarly, Charlie could theoretically hire someone else to do his writing, but the problem there might be clearer to you.

For what it's worth, it's also true that a good professional proofreader will pick up lots of, or some, errors that the author will miss, because the writer always has mental blocks at picking up on some errors since writers know in their head what they meant the copy to be, and will sometimes "see" what's in their mind, rather than what's on the page.

Also, of course, some writers are simply much better at proofreading than others; similarly, some professional writers are actually poor spellers; some are even dyslexic, such as Chip Delany. This makes his manuscripts work-intensive for all concerned, but goes to the point that being a brilliant writer doesn't correlate with spelling ability, or proofreading ability.

13:

This problem ought to be better-known to SF fandom. We've been exchanging poctsards on the typo problem since the first fanzine.

And it's the big barrier on PoD self-publishing, which you can see as a sort of fanzine.

Of course, some very successful books depend on the author skating at high speed over thin ice (films too), and I've been finding that the writing is such a different pace to the reading that I have time to notice the weaknesses. I don't think I could write a book with a plot like Where Eagles Dare. The plot-hat has to be pre-loaded with a stack of rabbits, and I'd know they were there.

It's not the same as the usual in-clueing of SF and fantasy, and it's not the same as Chekov's Gun, which also implies that you should be setting things up from the start. Where Eagles Dare has a bunch of characters rushed into a dumb scheme, and never really explains why so many of the characters accepted it.

But you don't have the time to think it over, reading the book or watching the film, not in the way an author does. And that can feel terrible.

I wonder if Lionel Fanthorpe had these problems.

14:

You could be doing more of what we want you to be doing: writing more books.

Marcus: I am not your bitch.

Long form: Neil Gaiman explains why George R. R. Martin is not your bitch (and the same goes for other writers).

I'll write precisely as many books as I feel like, thank you very much (inputs to said decision process including my need to earn a living, how creative I'm feeling, how burned-out I'm feeling, the phase of the moon, the cats, etc etc).

This isn't a vent at you, personally: it's just that you pushed a hot button. I've been doing an average of two books a year and blogging/emailing the equivalent of another two books a year since, ooh, 2001. Moreover, the books are sufficiently polished and/or popular to keep getting on the award shortlists -- I'm trying to push my limits, stay original, and break new ground. It'd be very easy to descend into method-driven hackwork, or simply to take the easy options -- I've got an audience now, why should I bother varying a successful formula? But I don't want to write for predictable security, I want to do new and innovative stuff. Which is hard work. I've just written six Hugo nominated novels in six consecutive years -- and an epic series on the side (One that gets its own series of second-rank award nominations -- and wins.) But it comes at a price -- I've come pretty close to burn-out.

This next year I'm writing just one novel -- but I'm going to try and get it right. I could probably write two in the same time ... but they wouldn't come up to standard.

(The alternative is to save up for a 12 month sabbatical to recharge my batteries. And I'm not ruling that out, either. But that kind of thing costs money, and nobody's paying me for time I'm not working.)

Gary Farber, meanwhile, draws a lucid and extremely clear diagram of the problem. Thanks, Gary!

15:

What little proof reading I do (internal technical documents and papers) is, I find, impossible. I seem to have some sort of reading blindness -- I can only ever read what I wanted to write and not what I actually wrote. Sadly those two things diverge badly. Still, from time to time, it gives my co-workers occasion for mirth.

(Oh, and I'll trade two good books from you for one excellent one. Not that you've made a rod for your own back or anything....)

16:

OT, but follow-up on the Arctic Sea, by the way.

Dave Bell: "We've been exchanging poctsards on the typo problem since the first fanzine."

"Poctsarcds," actually.

"POCTSARCD"

"Sometimes known as the little typo that made good. Walt Willis made it and Lee Hoffman elevated it to fannish fame. Walt and LeeH were initially engaged in a correspondence which was fast and furious, long letters supplemented by shorter ones that passed each other in the mail, and in turn were added to by postcards. Then, when there hadn't been any mail from LeeH in a while, Walt dashed off a postscript to one of his letters that asked, "What, no poctsarcds?" LeeH replied that, alas, there were no poctsarcds to be had in her area – not even pitcuer poctsarcds. And from that time onward, at least for a few years, no one in fandom ever used a postcard again. Willis, tickled, used his press to run off some poctsarcds, so labeled. He also supplied the definition: While postcards have the space for the message printed on one side and the space for the address on the other, with poctsarcds it's done precisely the other way around."

And some of them/us (not me) have been filksinging. Which has to be the most influencial typo to ever come out of sf fandom.

Thanks for the kind words, Charlie; I figured I'd try to help lift your burden of having to explain. It. Very. Slowly.

Again.

As a general observation, some of us seem to be wired, or have wired ourselves, neurologically, to compulsively proofread, whereas most people have not.

It's as much or more a curse as a blessing, because for some of us -- as applied mostly to the writing of others! -- it's a true compulsion.

It's truly somewhere on the continuum of between annoyingly strong habit, up to Obssesive-Compulsive Disorder. A bit of OCD is something that can be helpful to anyone who proofreads or copyedits professionally.

It can also make them somewhere from faintly annoying, to infuriating, if they can't learn to keep their mouths shut and hands away from the keyboard, when others, particularly the parties who have written, don't want to hear it, and haven't asked for advice.

I am, of course, in no way referring to myself in any way here. No, sirree. Not one bit.

17:

You could be doing more of what WE want you to be doing: writing more books.

No, Marcus. That is what you want. I am happy with CS's current output. Just imagine if he were to pump out 5-7 books a year. Even if you only buy paperbacks, that's about $8 American dollars per book, so I'd spend $40-$56 a year just on CS's books. Do you have any friends who read authors who produce that much material a year? They spend a decent amount on books a year.

Now, that's just the monetary cost, what about the cost in time. I don't really like to speed read Stross, I take my time; unfortunately I like to read his books in 1-2 sittings. This causes problems. For example, I spent a whole Saturday reading Saturn's Children when I should have been working on a column that was due Monday.

Still, I know where you are coming from Marcus. When you REALLY like an author you tend to want more material from them. I think you should pay attention to the last part of Charlie's reply:

"But I don't want to write for predictable security, I want to do new and innovative stuff. WHICH IS HARD WORK."

That's probably why you want more books from him. What you really want is for him to pump out more books while keeping his method and drive to create great fictions. That, my friend, is a paradox. On the upside, at least you get to read a blog from your favorite author.

Charlie don't change a thing (keep in mind your brought this type of fandom on yourself!).

18:

Editors frequently, in the wake of a book that sold well, tell authors "make me one just like the last, only different." And readers often tell me, "please write a sequel to $BOOK" (where $BOOK is my most recent novel).

But I figure what they're after isn't a sequel to $BOOK; what they want is a book that makes them feel the way they did while they were reading $BOOK for the first time. Which is something else. I could easily write a book "just like the last, only different", but it wouldn't feel like the last -- it'd be missing the shock of the new. And given what I do, that'd be the kiss of death.

Thoughts, anyone?

19:

Sorry Charlie, I thought I was making an off-hand comment that would probably not even be noticed, last night. Many of my desires are not reasonable. I do realize that my desire for you to write more books are unreasonable, especially since Erin is right and the reason I want more books from you is that they are high quality and very creative. And I do understand where you and Gaiman are coming from. Nevertheless, I still want what I want. Sorry Charlie! Anyway, buried in my unreasonable desire is a compliment. I hope you at least picked up on that.

And Charlie I think that you are right:

"But I figure what they're after isn't a sequel to $BOOK; what they want is a book that makes them feel the way they did while they were reading $BOOK for the first time."

Still, when you come up with a really creative setting, which you usually do, people can't help wanting to see more from that world. But I respect your ability to stand up to editors and fans, and write what you want to write.

20:

Don't write another Accelerando, ignore my pleading. :) Damn it, I loved that one.

But you're right, Accelerando was great because it was new and that is the kind of quality that is quite impossible copy.

The other quality I loved about it though (and that you said made it so hard to write) was the sheer density of new ideas - a new world every 3 pages - and even that went way down after the first 3 parts. (Not surprising, really. Though it's also because the first parts were much closer to our reality which makes it much easier to be shocking.)

I don't know. I'd love to read another book that grabs me in that kind of way (roughly in my own reality) and pulls me down the rabbit hole. I'll be patient and keep my eyes open to see other people's books as well.

21:

I can’t recall that I ever enjoyed a novel by an author I didn’t know at the time as much as Atrocity Archives (well, maybe Cryptonomicon, picked up because of its gold cover, comes close). Even knowing Charlie’s writing, Halting State also came close, because (having read the Merchant Princess series) I really didn’t know what to expect (certainly not being back in Colossal Cave – there is a shiny brass lamp nearby!)

I totally agree with Charlie that readers want to relive the feeling of enjoying a book immensely – and which place is better to get that than in a continuation of that beloved world. But this is where readers need to take chances (read the wasp factory!) – and not too many writers actually want that. So hats off to Charlie, your business model is probably more risky than it needs to be, but the more the better for it.

22:

Charlie @ 18:

Those are the two basic strategies for success in writing, AFAICT: find a book that a sufficiently large number of people will like reading over and over, and write it over and over¹, or find new things to write about with each book. Sorry I can't suggest another strategy for you to use; I've got to say I'm pretty happy with the results of the one do you use, though, and I urge you to keep going.

  • Can you tell I'm not a fan of that strategy?
  • 23:

    Charlie, would it depend on whether you have finished saying what you wanted to say in relation to those characters/settings/ideas? I mean, moving beyond the SF/Fantasy boundaries, there are plenty of examples, particularly in spy or crime fiction. Has Ian Rankin been churning out BOOK$+n for the past twenty years, or been exploring a character and setting in ever more forensic detail, or both? I'm not qualified to answer that one.

    I suppose it comes back to what you want to do as a writer. My own draw to SF is through the way it refracts human nature through ideas of things that don't (or will never) exist*. There's a quote by Iain Banks about 'plausible impossibilities', or something similar, that used to sum it up for me. I would imagine that if a book's primary purpose is to probe an idea, though, it's a measure of the job being complete that the writer has said all they wanted to say on the matter. In which case, a trip back to the well is not going to find much water, so to speak?

    *Plus the rayguns and jetpacks, of course.

    24:

    Martin: yes, it does. That's why I'm writing a sequel to "Halting State" (it's not about gaming/VR, and Jack and Elaine don't appear in it). A near-future setting is a useful toolkit.

    I've noticed, though, two things about my own writing. Firstly, once I've written about a theme, I find it hard to go back to. (Don't expect another singularity novel after "Accelerando", or another gaming book after "Halting State".)

    Secondly, Graham Greene spoke of writing "novels" and "entertainments" -- by which he meant works of substance with something significant to say about the human condition, and somewhat lighter works of popular entertainment. Sometimes they crossed over ("The Human Factor"), but often his books could be pigeon-holed as one or the other. I'm finding that a useful handle on some of my own work. The Laundry books, and the Merchant Princes series, are "entertainments" -- yes, there are some ideas in there, but don't look to them for deep insights. Meanwhile, some of the other works are attempts at saying something more serious (although I'm not sure I've gotten there yet).

    25:

    Whether or not I'd like a "sequel" to $BOOK depends a lot on how rich the tapestry of characters, questions and situations covered in the book that are left un-answered. And whether it is a brain-neutral romp with a fun lead.

    Brain Neutral romps work as sequels whilst the author manages to maintain the freshness and fun.

    For others, sequels are tricky. For me, what is often more interesting is more exploration of the environment created and the questions raised, than necessarily following the same characters, unless there is something clearly to follow on.

    So Laundry sequels work, but Accelerando or Saturn's Children don't.

    However, the milieu of Saturn's Children (or some of the others) might provide an interesting backdrop to explore other interesting questions or tales. But does this count as a sequel?

    That said, I find that mostly sequels sort of loose their lustre after a few books, as I guess the author tires.

    26:

    Kevin: That said, I find that mostly sequels sort of loose their lustre after a few books, as I guess the author tires.

    Yup. That's when it's clearly turned into a day job. I dread that point.

    I burned out on the Merchant Princes books some time between the middle of book #3 and the middle of book #4. Books #5 and #6 were a death march. Luckily I had enough left-over vision to see where they had to go and to keep surprising myself with little detailed stuff ... I'm midway through the final pre-publication check on #6, and I think #6 works okay as a dramatic series climax and wrap-up. It's really the climax of the extended multi-volume novel that started with book #3; in fact, this series is really two books, "The Family Trade" (sold as "The Family Trade" and "The Hidden Family") and "The Clan Corporate" (sold as "The Clan Corporate", "The Merchants War", "The Revolution Business", and "The Trade of Queens"). If I'd tried to push it any further, it would have gone downhill rapidly. So, er, I'm not. I won't go back to that universe without, at a minimum, a long time off first -- and then a new message and a new cast of characters.

    I did not quit the day job for the unpredictable life of the freelance novelist just so that I could find a formula and reinvent the repetitive grind of everyday work for myself.

    27:

    I spend a lot of time reading books that are similar in style. Often by "second rate" authors. I love being surprised while in a familiar setting.

    Having that said: When a book comes out with the word Stross on the cover I will drop whatever I'm reading and go buy a copy instantly.

    Both types of books have their pleasure. One is taking me to imaginary places. The other makes my brain ache in that wonderful way.

    I would love it if Charlie could (and wanted to) push out ten books every year but not at the cost of getting less (pleasurable) brain ache. And, definitely not at the cost of Charlie´s well being!

    28:

    Charlie @18:

    "what they want is a book that makes them feel the way they did while they were reading $BOOK for the first time."

    Yep. That's why I tend to look for authors who have a style that I like and just read whatever they release. This mostly works extremely well, with the exception of a few cases where the author is drastically altering his style.

    Extended series (Robert Jordan, I'm looking at you) not only lose their flavor, but can go on long enough that it's almost impossible to remember what has happened from one book to another unless you've been taking notes or reading them back to back to back to back.

    29:

    "Yup. That's when it's clearly turned into a day job. I dread that point."

    It's slightly telling tales out of school, but the subject is now long dead, this was decades ago, his relatives won't see this to be offended, the financial detail I mention wasn't a secret back then, and it's purely my personal opinion, in any case, but as someone who worked on both the reissues of a long list of Roger Zelazny reissues, and on almost all of the second series of Amber books as they came out, I never felt that, fun as they are, Roger's second series had as much of the verve and freshness, let alone originality, of his earlier work.

    But we gave him a million-dollar contract (with escalators), and who could blame him for not accepting? He had kids and a wife to leave a financial legacy for, and it was far and away more money than he'd ever made before, by an order of magnitude, in a single (multibook) contract.

    They're not bad books; they're nothing to be ashamed of; far from it!

    I'm glad to have worked on them, and to have gotten to work with Roger (to be clear, not as his editor: as his editor's assistant), but they're not Lord of Light or "...And Call Me Conrad," or among his finest works, in my opinion.

    I'll leave nameless other writers who really killed their careers through an excess of sequels leading to diminishing returns, or who killed their careers through an excess of accepting offered contracts, simply because they were offered, and finding out that if you turn out too many mediocre books too quickly, people will notice, and future contract offers can suddenly dry up very quickly, no matter that you are truly an immensely talented writer.

    Publishing can be extremely cruel, and unforgiving; thus the option, in some cases, of starting over under a new name, possibly in a new genre.

    It's not a business run by tremendous sentiment. It's run, like most business, by P&L (profit and loss) calculations, and reputations in the trade can and will stereotype a writer's name very quickly, if you don't manage your name very carefully via what work you choose.

    And you remain subject to the vagaries of the market, and accidents at many points along the line of the publishing of your individual works.

    Maintaining a truly long-term career is extremely hard work: vastly more so than having a short burst of critical acclaim and popularity for a few years; those who can manage to maintain such a career in the long term, let alone grow it, are relatively rare and few, no matter their talent, or how much they deserve otherwise.

    And lots of brilliant writers aren't at all canny about the business. Others can be too canny and calulating, which works in the short term bettr than the long term. Finding the happy mediums between creativity, self-fulfillment, knowledge of the commercial environment, and what niche you can fill to meet goals that work for you both creatively and financialy is the only path to long term success.

    Charlie shows all the signs of continuing down that path; he's a wise man, as well as a brilliant writer.

    30:

    Gary: I'm only on this path because I had 15 years of abject failure (as a learning experience and object lesson in how not to do things) behind me before I sold a novel.

    As for Roger Zelazny ... the second Amber series certainly doesn't hold up. But given his circumstances at the time (wife and kids to support, terminal cancer diagnosis) I really can't hold it against him. If I ever get a similar diagnosis, watch this space: I'm not proud!

    31:

    In past days I had some responsibility for a stack of technical publications - the harsh joke that life played on me was on each occasion that I opened a first print-run of a new manual I would fan through the pages and light on a fresh typo...despite weeks of effort to clear them. It is truly a thankless task.

    -- Andrew

    32:

    @18:

    Charlie, here's the pyramid scheme version of "what they want is a book that makes them feel the way they did while they were reading $BOOK for the first time."

    What would work really well (are you listening, fans?) is to write books that we really want to buy second copies for to give them out as presents, and get those people sucked in.

    If you can pull off writing interesting books, and we can pull off getting our friends hooked, then you'll have enough sales on any one book that you'll have the time to focus on quality over quantity.

    Good luck proofing. Just remember, it could be writer's block...

    I'll suggest the pyramid scheme version of

    33:

    @30 Charlie Stross: "I'm not proud!"

    You should be! You wrote some of the best fiction I've read in my (half-)life!! Cheers!

    34:

    Sorry, Charlie: I don't get it.

    Why are you proof reading your novels after a professional proof reader or two have already done this? Is it just a question of "one more pair of eyes" or is it important that yours are the last eyes to pick up changes before it goes off?

    (I have happy memories of reading letters to clients across, calling every comma and change in case, to fellow accounting erks in the early 80s. Worked a lot better than trying to do it on your own. We would never have sent out a letter that someone had proof read on their own. Though 1000 pages would be tough on both throats.)

    35:

    I vaguely recall reading years ago (maybe in his Letters) that JRR Tolkien found, on reviewing the galley proofs of The Hobbit, that the typesetter had taken it upon himself to change "Elves" and "Dwarves" to "Elfs" and "Dwarfs". I suppose that in modern DTP-based publishing, that risk of unauthorised change is much reduced, but it's probably where the idea of the author giving a final check comes from. And probably especially important where you are using a variation on a common English word.

    More realistically, I suspect that in economically-constrained modern publisher, the author's role is proofreader is more significant than ever. Do your own manuscripts go past a dedicated proofreader, Charlie, or just the eyes of the Editor + Ed. Assistant?

    36:

    Re Zelazny: I'd heard the same story before - it made me admire him as a man that much more. And even ignoring that second Amber series (which indubitably made a lot of readers happy) damn, what a legacy of great books he left behind him, with A Night in the Lonesome October as a lovely bittersweet coda.

    37:

    "Gary: I'm only on this path because I had 15 years of abject failure (as a learning experience and object lesson in how not to do things) behind me before I sold a novel."

    Yes, I remember. :-) From afar: we didn't meet, but you know how gossipy fandom is.

    Oh, that Charlie: he's so serious about trying to write. How very silly of him!

    Or, as I was just explaining a couple of weeks ago on PW's Genreville, writing professionally is mostly about putting your nose to the grindstone and working at it and learning the craft for year after year after year.

    It's a huge amount of work, and you need to be smart, and you need to know how to really read, which most people don't do.

    But that's what it's about: not magic talent, or who you know.

    "Why are you proof reading your novels after a professional proof reader or two have already done this?"

    Because it's his book, and his name on the spine, and his name in the reviews and criticisms, and his career.

    Do you, as a rule, want to be blamed for someone else's mistakes?

    And do you want to be the one to hear the complaints if the proofreading is screwed up? Or a crucial line goes wrong?

    38:

    @34

    Sometimes, what I flag and query as a copyeditor is a question for the writer -- did you mean this, or that, or the other thing, and would you like to clarify it using one of these suggestions on this list I'm providing on a Post-it? So it's important that the author see it again. Plus, in my opinion, some of us proofing folk are just too heavy-handed, and fiction especially is not an exact science.

    (Some publishers actually do NOT give the manuscripts back to the writer to check, actually. But those seem to be the ones that tend to churn out more, faster, and with shorter shelf life, speaking only from my own observations, of course.)

    39:

    @37, 38,

    Thanks: this is a very foreign world to me. I understand why the author would approve the changes that anyone makes to his work.

    Is this what we are talking about here, or is it sitting down with a clean draft of the book and going through the whole thing? I can think of a number of possible reasons for the latter:

  • because you don't believe the proofreaders will do as good a job as you

  • because if you give a draft to an author to proofread, it is hard for him to complain about any errors that escape into the wild

  • because the industry practice is for the author rather than the publisher to be responsible for the quality of the final product, so the publisher does not pretend to provide rigorous quality control

  • because you would rather suffer an accident if you have an element of notional control (just as most people find the risk of being injured in a road accident far more acceptable than the much lower risk of being injured in a train)

  • Are any of these clsoe to the mark?

    40:

    "Is this what we are talking about here,"

    Going through a returned copyedited manuscript is a matter of checking lots of queries and changes and suggested changes, and either stetting them (meaning the words/phrases/sentences/paragraphs revert to your original) or approving the changes, or possibly giving a very tiny and minimal rewrite, in which you limit yourself to a handful of words, or a sentence or two, and keep the wordcount as close to the same as possible; copyedit stage is not a time to engage in substantive rewrites; it's too late for that, and will throw off page estimates and cost estimates, and otherwise screw with the process and make your editor, and the managing editor at your publisher unhappy with you. The author's time for substantive rewrites ends earlier in the process, with a line edit, if one has been done).

    (How substantive or trivial a line-edit you get varies a lot; this is setting aside discussion of earlier stages in the editing/writing process.)

    Going through a galley and proofing it for errors is the next, and final, point in the process where the author gets to double-check what's about to go into the final typeset version, and is simply to check for typos or similar errors that have crept in. ("Final" meaning for that edition, or possibly just the first printing; typos found later can be fixed in at least the next edition, and more rarely, if the editor deems the cost warranted, and the problem serious enough, in a mere reprinting. Fixing a typo between printings is unusual, due to the extra expense.)

    Two separate stages, both calling for a ton (or a tonne) of work in a short amount of time.

    (The copyeditor and proofreader may have immensely short deadlines, as well; it depends on how smoothly the assembly line at the publisher is going, and things can get delayed and backed up at any number of points in the process; a couple of weeks for each of these stages for everyone involved is a nice theory, but often tends to not happen in practice.)

    "or is it sitting down with a clean draft of the book and going through the whole thing?"

    Unless I'm misunderstanding you: no.

    41:

    "...because the industry practice is for the author rather than the publisher to be responsible for the quality of the final product, so the publisher does not pretend to provide rigorous quality control...."

    Both the author and the publisher are responsible for the quality of the final product. Who the reader blames for any lack of quality is up to the reader.

    Everyone involved tries to provide as rigorous a degree of quality control as they can manage; everyone involved is human, and some have tighter deadlines than others. Some are less competent at their jobs than others, or than others might be in their jobs.

    42:

    Thanks for your patience and explanation, Gary.

    Perhaps I should explain that I'm coming from a lifetime in accounting, where we rather obsess about quality control. And accountability. So we would want to be very clear about who is finally responsible for any product, and then that person would invest in the necessary resources, processes, double double checks, etc. to meet their service level agreement. Payroll, for example, is typically targeted at about 99.98% accuracy (numbers may have moved on since I last looked at payroll five years ago).

    If for any reason he fails, he knows that he needs to understand why, take any remedial action and probably strengthen his process. Shared responsibility tends to complicate this response, as it is much harder to track down a problem and there is a natural assumption to assume that the other guy messed up.

    In a situation like this, I would look at who is responsible to whom for quality of each stage in the process. If Charlie has the last pair of eyes on the text, he is finally responsible for the quality of the text. The publisher is responsible to Charlie to deliver him a galley in an appropriate state. I think.

    43:

    Thanks for your patience and explanation, Gary.

    Perhaps I should explain that I'm coming from a lifetime in accounting, where we rather obsess about quality control. And accountability.

    So we would want to be very clear about who is finally responsible for any product, and then that person would invest in the necessary resources, processes, double double checks, etc. to meet their service level agreement. Payroll, for example, is typically targeted at about 99.98% accuracy (numbers may have moved on since I last looked at payroll five years ago).

    If for any reason he fails, he knows that he needs to understand why, take any remedial action and probably strengthen his process. Shared responsibility tends to complicate this response, as it is much harder to track down a problem and there is a natural assumption to assume that the other guy messed up.

    In a situation like this, I instinctively look at who is responsible to whom for quality of each stage in the process. If Charlie has the last pair of eyes on the text, he is finally responsible for the quality of the text. The publisher is responsible to Charlie to deliver him a galley in an appropriate state. I think.

    If a publisher offered another layer of proofing and could demonstrate that it was more effective than an author's track record (and cheap), would a rational author turn over quality control to them? Would this mean it was any less their work?

    Probably overanalysing - another hangup from my background. I think I understand now: thank you again.

    44:

    TwistedByKnaves: The publisher is responsible to Charlie to deliver him a galley in an appropriate state. I think.

    Unfortunately you've got the publisher/author relationship ass-backwards.

    I'm effectively a sole trader, delivering a product. The product is acquired by a large corporation, merged with a stream of structurally similar incoming product, and processed, before the corporation sells the refined product on the open market.

    The only really unusual aspect of it is that I nominally "own" the rights to the product after it's delivered, and the corporation pays me a royalty fraction of their profits from selling it.

    Publisher's responsibility to deliver a clean galley to the author: zip, unless it's specified in the contract.

    45:

    "Probably overanalysing - another hangup from my background. "

    You have to keep in mind that book publishing is an assembly line, and every book is just another unit doing down the conveyer belt. It's never personal. It's all about the P&L and everyone's daily work-flow, and that's all. And everyone in the system is unbelievably, insanely, over-worked. Always.

    These four sentences explain almost all the occurrences in publishing that leave writers baffled and angry and feeling ill-treated, if they don't grok these facts. It's never about you or your book; it's simply the way the business is structured.

    (Why it's structured that way requires lengthier explanations, but suffice it to say that it's not a choice for non-small press mass-market publishers to change things on their own; it's built into the larger structure of sales to the trade, and so on.)

    Charlie: "The only really unusual aspect of it is that I nominally 'own' the rights to the product after it's delivered"

    To be impudent enough to Charlie to expand upon his use of "nominally," he does own his rights, via his ownership of his copyrights; he, through his agent, merely licenses various rights to his publishers for certain terms and under certain conditions, in return for stated considerations.

    As a rule, unless he's writing "work for hire" and surrenders his copyright, most or all of his licensed rights will eventually revert to him. (Obviously, I have no idea of the details of Charlie's contracts; I'm simply describing how mass-market publishing rights work in general).

    I won't get into the weeds of how reversions can work, since it's a large topic, with a lot of potential variations. And it's true that publishers can screw around in various ways with reversions by taking advantage of certain contractural phrasings, and practices, in ways that may not, ultimately, be in the writer's best interests, as opposed to the publisher's.

    This is one of many reasons why having an excellent, knowledgeable, and careful agent negotiate your contract for you, and continue to look out for your interests, is crucial.

    46:

    Okay, five sentences.

    47:

    But one. Was very. Short.

    48:

    Also, duh-duh-duh: "doing down the conveyer belt."

    I'm sure this is slang for something, somewhere.

    Random kewl technolink I'm too busy to blog just now: can you say "Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication" five times fast?

    49:

    Gee, I'da sworn I posted another short comment, officer, but I seem to have done something wrong, as I don't see it. Oh, well, t'wasn't important.

    I noted I'd written "doing down the conveyer belt," and observed that that must be slang for something, somewhere.

    It might be the link to a piece on electron beam freeform fabrication that killed my comment, rather than beauty, but I'll try this instead. Also, smilies, Nabokov, and sf history, in one bowl of porridge!

    50:

    Thanks for setting me straight, Charlie.

    I'm seeing this from the point of view of a large corporation wage slave. For us, anyone upstream is working at least in part for the people downstream. I think the mindset still works when the people are in different legal entities.

    Anyway, whoever is working for whoever, the effect is that the system requires that the creative geese need to polish the golden eggs as well as laying them. As others have noted, I can't help thinking that there must be an opportunity here for some mould breaking entrepreneur.

    Though given that a year's work can be checked in a matter of days, perhaps it's not such a big deal.

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