I am now friends with someone who has almost had a book published. I was surprised to learn some of my assumptions about publishing were very wrong.
The editor doesn't necessarily edit. I don’t know when they changed this, but her agent does the editing. I can see the agent suggesting improvements so it would be met with kindness when it gets to the publishing house, but if the agent is editing, what do the editors do?
Evidently the editors have meetings and determine how marketable your book is, and if it is not, it is killed in committee.
So that sounds awful. I would rather have dozens of cold rejection letters than to get an agent, get his approval, find a publisher, and then get the rejection there.
I asked if she’s going to try again and she’s currently too busy. I don’t know if I would.
Sometimes editors do make synthetic suggestions - the "more of this, less of that" sort of things, but yes, it varies a lot, and yes, mostly they are yes/no-ing books.
(publishers have been slowly cutting back on how much they help your book out, though. For a while in academic publishing, the publisher would hire someone to proof the book, and would sometimes/often hire someone to professionally build your index, and now: not so much. I've also heard that advertising is pushed significantly more to the authors as well, which is a big part of why authors who already have "social media presence" are more likely to be accepted because at least *that* many people will hear about the book, which, okay, fair, if you have two equivalent quality books but one of them comes with a pre-built audience and one has zilch, then yes, the book with the built-in audience is a better financial proposition. But it feels unfair.)
Anyway. I hope whatever process you go through goes well! (and also this post has an alarmingly high number of typos for you, which may be intentional? I am sometimes bad at catching things like implicit jokes regarding proofreading, which this could easily be...)
Posted by: KC | January 14, 2023 at 01:42 PM
KC - holy crap! Those are awful typos. (Even for me.) See, I blame the Grammarly keyboard. Plus, I have a habit of proofreading the night before something posts and I was busy last night. I wish I could palm it off as irony but no. I'm going to fix it but I must fully disclose that I typed these things:
"...publishing hiusd, but if the absent is editing, "
"...rejetection letters than to get an agent, get his approval, find a publisher, andnege get the rejection there..."
Posted by: theQueen | January 15, 2023 at 11:49 AM
... so you used the Grammarly keyboard but it *didn't tell you* there were some... issues? I keep seeing the youtube commercials and "we completely ignore typos and only tell you about things like passive voice, yay!" has not been a listed feature.
Posted by: KC | January 15, 2023 at 12:32 PM
KC - when I use Grammarly at work it's great, but here at home on the iPad it jumps my cursor back half a sentence and only points up my problems when I hover over them.
Posted by: theQueen | January 15, 2023 at 08:12 PM
... yikes. That sounds fairly treacherous!
Posted by: KC | January 16, 2023 at 07:33 PM