alg | (no subject)

Good morning! I have been awake since six am, and wow! It is a beautiful day. I have the windows open, and there is a wonderful cold breeze blowing in. My bedroom window faces Manhattan, which means it faces the water, even though I can't see the water, and I get wonderful breezes -- although when it's freezing outside and the wind chill is, like, negative seventy-million, it's not so much fun.

(All I want this morning is a cup of coffee and a Danish. Wow, how bad do I want a Danish? Pretty badly. Instead I had a crescent roll. Not quite as good, but what's a girl to do?)

I want to thank again everyone who provided me with links and stories on Monday -- that was awfully nice of you guys and I really appreciate it! I am well on my way to recovering (especially now that my dentist has called in a new prescription for me, and I have much stronger painkillers, phew).

Now that I can focus for longer than 500 words, I am ready to write more about demystifying publishing.

I am really glad that these entries are helping y'all. And I am flattered that so many people are reading them -- I know I tend to be pedantic and long-winded, so it's amazing to me that you guys can get through these entries. *g*

I do want to remind you that these answers are by no means universal. Remember the first rule: Don't be an idiot.

Publishing is Hard!

Writing is an art, but publishing is a business -- and here are a few basic suggestions on how to navigate that business. Complete with explanations of various departments within a publishing company, and how they all work together to make your book. And, of course, my witty and charming commentary!

Thanks for reading; I hope this has helped at least some of you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As an acquisitions editor at the other end of the publishing spectrum--scholarly publishing in the house!--I'd like to say everything I have read so far has been right on. I particularly think your comments about production were right on. When a book's a priority, and been catalogued by a certain date, and the author's late, and editorial spends some time prepping the ms, suddenly its up to production to get the book out so that the sales department doesn't get pissed. And they do! I think I'm going to go give a production editor a hug right now.

Also, regarding assistants, not only do they remember, but their bosses remember, too. I would never sabotage a book--that's my bottom line you are talking about--but I will blacklist an author for being nasty to the assistants. I've never once regretted it, either.

Woo, scholarly publishing! Give your production editors a hug from me, too -- that's gotta be a tough job. Man, I cannot imagine how hard it must be to run production on stuff like that. (You do textbooks? Or... what?)

I have never sabotaged a book (no matter how tempted I've been) -- it's my line too. But I am not worried about being polite when someone is nasty to assistants. Or me. I am very public (within my company) about it, and people are always surprised -- they say, "You too? S/he did that to me!"

Sharing information is never a bad thing, IMO.

I do a few textbooks, but for the most part I work on scholarly and trade books--my acquistions area is business and economics. For the scholarly books, content is always more important than style, with the result that we sometimes hand a book over to production proud that we got all of the pages facing forward, and nothing more. That said, I like what I do, even if it is far removed from the fiction editor I imagined that I would be when I was twelve.

Tact is rampant in publishing. This is not always a good thing. Coming from a trade background, I think I am much louder about issues than my colleagues, but production and marketing appreciate the honesty (usually), and my books always get the attention they deserve. I am nice to authors, so that when I sometimes have to let them have it, they know I mean it. And, really, don't mess with my assistant.