A Change in Curriculum

I will no longer be featuring the articles entitled “Who’s Your Editor, (Author’s Name)?” because it could be taken as though I am outing the work of professional editors who have worked hard for their positions. And considering the fact that I am still a student with the hope of becoming an editor, I do not want to offend any future colleagues.

To add to this whole debacle, (people telling me not to write the articles, people telling me it will be okay, others saying I will be blacklisted for even thinking of such a thing, and then a very credible professor giving me further insight into the matter), I would like to give you a bit of the real story from behind the curtain of the publishing world. Yes, it is unfortunate that grammatical errors and typos may throw us out of our reading, blasting our attentions from the character’s world and back into our own, but (and here’s the sad thing) it might not even be the author’s or editor’s fault. Even the best editors/ copyeditors/ proofreaders/ etc. can’t stop the errors that happen in publishing! According to my professor, “The composition process (literally how books are put into pages) can introduce errors…the big corporate process of making books (wherein companies from all over the world bid for low-cost manufacturing contracts) creates errors that highly skilled editors and obsessive authors never see and cannot address.” That’s just swell! (Sarcasm.)

So, the point is, if we’re all tired of being boosted from our reading because a multinational corporate entity is struggling to make a profit by outsourcing most of the post-editorial production work (thanks for that, Professor!) then we need to find a way to make a difference by continuing to demand more care to details, go to the source instead of blaming the author or editor, become better editors ourselves by getting educated in our own language. Then, when we truly become a part of the publishing world, maybe we can do something about it, from the inside.