No doubt she was an intelligent woman and certainly she provided huge marquis value for Doubleday but did she really have the chops required for such a position? I certainly can’t imagine her boss barking “Onassis, where’s that damn manuscript?” Or would she be used as author bait for top scribes? Same with Pete Townsend when he did his editor gig, I just can’t imagine these people sitting at a desk with a blue pencil. Nor can I imagine a tempermental writer abiding Jackie or Pete telling them to flesh out a character or rewrite chapter 3. Anyone in the business who knows how this works?
Well, a little of both. She was not a stupid woman, she was well-read and educated. She did actually edit the books she handled–but unlike most editors, she got to pick and choose only the projects she really wanted to do, and she certainly didn’t have to meet the deadlines and workload her co-workers did.
The publishing world has come a long way from Maxwell Perkins. Most editors don’t edit manuscripts in the traditional sense any more. This is mostly a bad thing, as you can see from reading all those bloated books that get published, but it’s been a growing trend for decades.
The field is also split into acquisitions editors and line editors. Acquisitions editors are like rainmakers in law firms; they’re responsible for bringing big and profitable clients to the firm. This is not necessarily the same thing as saying they got the clients and the books got published, poof. It’s a rule of thumb that the bigger the name the worse the manuscript. But it also takes a very big name on the one side to work with the very big name on the other side when unpublishable garbage comes in and diplomacy must ensue.
IOW, Jackie was probably more of an acquisitions editor, but that doesn’t mean that she didn’t play a real and significant role inside the firm.
Correction: nowadays it’s split into acquisitions editors and Spell Check.
Rainmaker is what I was trying to think of when I came up with author bait. Thanks folks.
Ok, so when an author makes all sorts of (probably sincere) kissy face thank you’s and “I couldn’t have done it without him,” in the acknowledgements, is he referring to an acquisitions editor or a line editor? Or something else? Just finished The Shame Of The Nation, e.g., and Kozol thanks a lot of people and ends with his friend, the editor. Which kind of editor was that? Who does the real editing of a manuscript with the author?
Beats the heck out of me. I always want to put the following acknowledgment in my books:
I would like to thank my agent and my editor for all the help that they gave me. I would like to, but I can’t. I can’t because I did every line by myself without any assistance from them. Someday I’d like to have someone make the work easier, but it hasn’t happened yet.
“bookS” - so, you’ve written several books? And NO one has suggested leaving out a paragraph, section, etc.? No one has suggested adding explanation, clarification, etc.? I thought that happened virtually all the time, even with top quality writers - of which you may be one. Do you have someone else take a look at your manuscripts before submitting them? How does it work to have no filter between you and the published version? It’s perfect when you send it off? Even in the view of the publisher? Isn’t that unusual? Please explain and clarify. xo, C.
What happens depends on the book, of course, but can roughly be summarized. All my books have been non-fiction, BTW.
Either the editor or a hired “subject matter expert” goes over the manuscript and makes comments or questions. The writer then shakes his head at the incredible obtuseness and defends his work as much as possible, trying to decide which battles are worth fighting and which will be easier to just make the stupid changes.
I’ve never encountered anyone who said, move this stuff around or concentrate on that instead of this or it would be a good idea to incorporate this stuff into the book or any of that. It’s usually been more line editing than book editing as you would understand it.
I did have one strange experience with an introduction I wrote. The editor called me and said, I don’t like this. Why not? Well, it doesn’t have this in it. Yes, it does, right here, I replied. But it doesn’t say this. Yes, it does, right here, I replied. This went on for a while, at the end of which he said, I don’t like it, redo it.
So I redid it, and he printed it without changing a word.
That’s reality in the book biz. Editors like to meddle, but except for really famous authors and really important books, they only have x amount of time to spend on any one minor book. If you can stall them long enough. you win most of your battles.
Eve may have different stories to tell.
The reality again is that most books could stand to be properly edited, to tell authors when they ramble on about one subject too long and neglect something of importance, to let them know that their prose is awful, or a hundred other things. I can tell that this doesn’t happen because I read the books. Real editing has stopped occurring for the vast majority of books. It has little to do with authors’ abilities and everything to do with the time pressures on editors.
I desperately need a good editor, and sometimes I get one and sometimes I get nuthin’. I’ve had a couple of terrific editors (and you can probably tell by reading my books which ones they worked on!). People who actually corrected my grammar, questioned facts and sources, said, “umm, you go on about this too long, no one cares,” etc. I love them madly.
Then I’ve had . . . well, not even Spell-Check. The book I give them is what gets printed. Which is why I beg as many friends as I can to read my manuscript and strongly critique it before it goes to the publisher.
I had a friend (well, okay, an enemy) who was edited my Mrs. Onassis, and he said she actually was a good, hands-on editor.
Apropos of little:
Larry Gonick thanks Jackie O for being his editor and friend in one of his ‘History of the Universe’ books.
In project engineering you always include the “executive screw.” That’s something that obviously should be changed. Then when you brief the boss he can point it out, you agree and he now has a stake in the design and it’s smooth sailing. At least as far as that boss is concerned.
Abso-freaking-lutely.
I’ve had a similar experience (four non-fiction books in the last five years). I’d love to have an editor give constructive criticism and help to make the book better, but as **Exapno ** pointed out, those folks just don’t have that kind of time to devote.
What’s worse is the meddling editors who make changes that hurt your book. I had an editor in 2001 who thought he was improving some sentences, so he made minor changes without telling me. Unfortunately, he also changed the factual information that was being conveyed in a couple of places. Those screwups were mentioned in a prominent review as reasons to doubt my knowledge of the subject matter.
Another bit of accord. I have gotten a bit of help from the copyeditors of my books, for which I’m usually grateful (they’ve saved me from the occasional solecism or factual error) but the style of my books, the organization, and the content has pretty much gone uncommented-on, probably for the worse, though under deadline I was happy not to have to do more re-writing than I chose to do voluntarily.
I just want to note that there’s a pretty high turnover in editors. My book went through half a dozen junior editors, three senior editors, and one copy editor, who really did go through the manuscript in detail. (Although I’m amazed how much of the book got through intact. There are parts I was sure would have gotten the axe, but didn’t).
The problem with having so many editors is that no one perason gets responsibility for the work. A lot of the criticism of my book was that it needed editing for content. It was a book outside my field, and you take a chance with that. A really good editor presumably would’ve caught my many errors outside my specialty. It’s my fault that the errors were there in the first place, but good editing should’ve caught them afterwards. I think my stuff slipped through the cracks. (nobody’s called me on any errors inside my specialization, I note). A word to the wise : Check out especially the stuff you think you know really well, and is least in need of checking. It’s the unintentional obvious slips that really get you.
I note that my OPN articles are edited pretty heavily, and well.
Well I heard, War and Peace was originally titled “War, what is it good for”
=P
Mrs. Onassis also worked in the office only Mondays through Wednesdays. I used to be a book editor, and I never had those hours.
Ever run across an editor who said something like: “I want Section A moved down to C and D moved over to M and B merged with F and, by the way, have you considered writing your opening something more like this?..”