Diary of a Mad Editor

Knopf editor, Carole Baron has posted this editorial on The Huffington Post entitled "Do You Really Need an Editor at a Publishing House?" which makes a case for why editors are still necessary.

The first thing that struck me about his post is how desperate Baron sounds. She’s not really addressing most writers here — not writers who can’t even get an agent much less sell their books to a major publishers. She’s really addressing writers (like the anonymous writer she mentions) who are already in the system who are maybe thinking that self-publishing, for one reason or another, is a good option for them. Except for reports that some writers are self-publishing eBooks for the Kindle may be making higher royalties than they would going through their publishers, I somehow doubt there are a lot of writers in that system who are looking to jump ship, so maybe Ms. Baron’s plea is a little bit silly. On the other hand, while reading her post, I was reminded of that scene from Office Space in which Tom Smykowski is addressing the "Bobs" and says, "I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don’t have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

Certainly, I’ve heard tales from writers I know who’ve suggested to me that possibly some editors don’t work as hard for some writers as they do for others. I know of at least two writers who were basically hung out to dry by their publishers when those editors jumped to other publishing houses. And, I’ve certainly read books published by major publishers that made me question whether anyone edits anything anymore. I’ll give you a for instance: Last year, I got hooked on this show, Legend of the Seeker. I don’t know what it is about the show — the hot women in leather, the swordplay that takes me back to playing pretend as a child. Whatever the reason, the show has become a guilty pleasure. So much so, I decided a while back to try reading the books the show is based on. For those of you not familiar with the show, it’s based on the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. I should preface my comments by admitting that I’m not a major reader of fantasy novels. I think most fantasy novels are dumb, unoriginal and poorly-written, so I’ve limited my exposure since entering adulthood. Anyway, I went to the library and checked out Book Four in the series. I wasn’t all that impressed to tell the truth. I thought the characters were pretty thin and one-dimensional and the dialogue — some of the most horrible dialogue I’ve ever encountered. I wondered if the book had been edited at all and thought, if it had been edited, how bad was the book before the editor put hands on it? Anyway, after that, I decided to keep watching the TV show and forget the novels by Goodkind (Yeah, I half expect to receive hate mail from Goodkind fans now).

Anyway, I think the question of whether editors edit anymore is a far less interesting than whether or not we still need  traditional publishing houses anymore. Because, let’s face it. If you’re a major bestselling author with a huge fan-base, you could probably do just as well for yourself or even better self-publishing. And if I’m Stephen King or someone like that, I’ve got to at least consider the option, don’t I? And if you’re completely disenfranchised from the traditional publishing industry. Can’t get an agent, can’t get your foot in the door — then self-publishing may be you’re only option.  There’s no denying that an editor provides a necessary service to an author, but is a traditional publishing house the only place to get that service?

Let’s examine Baron’s list:

l. Choosing the book

2. Negotiating the deal with the author or agent

3. Editing the book

4. Working with copy editing, design, and production

5. Writing jacket copy and catalog copy; work with the art director on the jacket

6. Positioning the book within the company as an advocate to sales and marketing

7. Being aware of what is happening in the publishing business so you can make informed decisions

8. Communicating to the author and agent what is happening to the book along the way.

9. When the book is published, cheering for the good reviews and commiserating for the bad ones (and explaining that even Jane Austen and Herman Melville got bad reviews).

10. Being there for the author’s next book.

1. Hmm. Well, if you self-publish, you don’t really need an editor to choose your book, now do you?

2. If you self-publish, you don’t need a literary agent, so there’s nothing to negotiate.

3. There are plenty of freelance editors out there — many of whom have experience working in the book publishing industry so this work can be outsourced.

4. Again, this work can be outsourced.

5. Yet another thing that can be outsourced.

6. Certainly, this is an important advantage of being published through a traditional publisher but only because the scales are tipped in favor of traditional publishing. As the stigma against self-publishing erodes this, too, may become kind of irrelevant.

7. Well, if the writer keeps on top of what’s going on in the publishing business, he doesn’t need an editor’s input to make informed decisions.

8. Again, if you self-publish, this is completely irrelevant.

9. Don’t read reviews. Honestly, book reviews don’t have that much influence over what people choose to read anyway. And a writer should never write for his critics be they good or bad. So don’t read reviews.

10. Once again, completely irrelevant if you self-publish.

But, don’t get me wrong, despite my current role as devil’s advocate, I’m not saying every writer who currently publishes with a traditional publishing house should jump ship and start self-publishing. Self-publishing definitely has it’s pitfalls and aside from that, most writers are ill-equipped for what self-publishing entails. Any idiot can upload a digital file of a manuscript to a self-publishing service and have a book made in short order. It takes more than that to make a good book and get people to buy and read that book. That being said, traditional publishers and those working for traditional publishers can no longer afford to be dismissive of self-publishing. There are good reasons why this is increasingly becoming an option for many writers and it is not some fad that’s going away. If you’ve got the means and motivation to self-publish the right way, the technology is available to completely bypass traditional publishers. So maybe it’s a good thing that that option is available to writers. <shrugs> It certainly doesn’t help traditional publishers for an experienced, well-known editor such as Ms. Baron, to make a public plea justifying her existence. She sounds like a car insurance salesman. Jesus Mary and Joseph, have some pride!

Mr. Big Time Publisher gets out of bed, gives himself a good phisoderm scrub — showers, shits, shaves, then goes downstairs to eat a grapefruit and drink a steaming cup of coffee while he reads his New York Times. Imagine the look on his face when he reads this headline:

Apple’s Prices for E-Books May Be Lower Than Expected

Gee, who didn’t see that one coming? Seriously. I hate to say I told you so, but . . . well, actually, I LOVE to say I told you so. Didn’t I say it didn’t make sense to trust Apple? Didn’t I say one should pick one’s battles when fighting with Amazon? Now one can only speculate as to why Apple has changed its tune on eBook pricing. My own theory is that the overall early response to their iPad was far less than they’d hoped with plenty of negative reviews and surveys suggesting that their new toy might not fly off the shelf as fast as they expected. I’m sure their own market research revealed that most readers do not want to pay more than $9.99 for a digital book. I think they also realized that it will be harder to compete against Amazon than they thought. After all, Apple’s success depends more on being able to sell the iPad than Amazon’s does on selling more Kindles. Amazon, in addition to the Kindle device also has a Kindle app for several other devices and will have one for the iPad as well. The clear loser of this round are the five major publishers who jumped on Apple’s bandwagon. The winners, besides Amazon and Apple, are Sony (because they probably had more to lose from the iPad than Amazon did) and Random House (because they were smart enough not to accept the agency model deal).

Over the next several months we’ll see just how much of an impact the iPad truly has on the eBook market. I’m still of the mind that its impact won’t be as big as mainstream publishing thinks it will be. When one considers Amazon’s place in the market, Google Books and its clear benefit to Sony (which is why Sony supports the Google Book Agreement), digital media pirates and the consumer (who doesn’t want to overpay for eBooks and may not think the iPad is the best choice for an eReader).

For the past few years, one of the most controversial subjects in the digital realm has been Google’s plan to collect, scan and digitize the world’s books into a vast virtual library. It is probably one of the most ambitious projects since the construction of the Library of Alexandria. The settlement of a dispute between Google and the Author’s Guild has exposed some legitimate concerns from well-meaning groups as well as some jealousy and hypocrisy from Google’s competition.

Most of the criticism is focused on three key areas: alleged copyright infringement, privacy concerns and concerns over the exploitation of orphan works.

Copyright

Opponents of Google Books believe that Google is doing an end-run around copyright protection by designing it’s database as an “opt-out” instead of “opt-in”.   While it’s technically true that “opt-out” may lead to copyright infringement on a large scale and that Google could easily address concerns by making it “opt-in” (and I suspect Judge Denny Chin will ultimately order in favor of doing this), I don’t believe “opt-out” is substantially unfair to authors.  Back when I used to publish a monthly newsletter promoting my press, I would usually feature at least one item that had been previously published in one of my publications as a teaser for that publication.  Given that I never knew ahead of time what piece I’d choose to reprint and close deadlines, it wasn’t practical for me to contact the writers individually to ask permission in the hopes that they’d respond in a timely fashion so I did this as an “opt-out”. I could do this because the writers I’d published were all on my mailing list so I just sent a general announcement explaining the situation and informing them if they didn’t want me to use their work all they had to do was  e-mail me if they had a problem. As I recall, in the 3 years I published the newsletter, only a couple of writers expressed concerns and only one of those individuals opted-out.  Obviously, Google is doing something on a far grander scale than my forgettable newsletter, but I suspect, like me, Google’s motivation is not really nefarious, but for convenience sake.  Opt-out isn’t that unfair — just that opt-in is fairer to writers and I suspect that most writers, if given the option to opt-in instead of opt-ing out would be eager to take part. Indeed, a lot of authors have already chosen to allow their books to be scanned. I further suspect most writers are either indifferent to Google Books or in favor of the project as public opposition to the plan among writers has been surprisingly weak.

Privacy

This argument takes the proverbial cake and, I believe, is the weakest objection critics of Google Books are making.  For one thing, critics are ignoring the fact that every time you go online, you divulge information about yourself. We accept this. That Google Books will collect information about our reading habits is a given. So does Goodreads, so does virtual bookshelf, so does Barnes and Noble.com and so does Amazon. The idea that Google collects this information to “spy” on us or sell or gift that information to governments and other third parties is fucking ridiculous.  Point two is that I don’t really think the government cares that you’ve read Wuthering Heights twice or that you’ve perused a medical text on best acne treatments or whathaveyou. And since I doubt Google’s going to be scanning books on how to build incendiary devices other dangerous books, so this criticism is just paranoia run amok. Point three is that with social networking sites, email, e-tailers, etc., you cannot really address privacy concerns absolutely without dismantling the Internet altogether.

Orphaned Works

Orphan works, as previously discussed, are works that are still technically under copyright but that the creator cannot be indentified and/or located to grant permission to a third party to use.  Now, I don’t believe this is as big of a problem as we are being led to believe.

Copyright is all about controlling access to intellectual property in an effort to exploit that property for commercial gain. Obviously, the greater the access to said property, the less commercially valuable.  A bookstore that sells 5000 volumes a year is more valuable to the publisher and the author than a library that purchases a couple hundred new volumes a year and loans out to 5000 or so patrons. But one could argue that, while the library is less valuable to the author or publisher, it’s much more valuable to society at large because it exposes people to books who couldn’t otherwise afford books thus increasing the number of educated readers.  One could further argue that our Founding Fathers intended the latter by intentionally limiting the former. Back in the day, copyright protection only last for a certain amount of time and then the work entered the public domain. These days, what usually happens is that the author’s literary estate is incorporated and representatives of that estate renew the copyright before it expires, thus keeping the work out of the public domain indefinitely.  These estates in collusion with the publishers (which are almost entirely own by big media conglomerates) have been fighting against limits to copyright for years.  In fact, modern copyright law has been less interested in protecting individual authors and serving the public interest and more about protecting the commercial interests of big media companies like Disney and Rupert Murdoch’s empire. To the extent that orphan works is a problem, it’s a problem created by extending copyright far beyond it’s natural lifecycle. Until Congress is able to clearly define what criteria constitutes a fair and reasonable search to identify the copyright owners of Orphan Works and sets a clear statute of limitation on orphan work status before such a work automatically falls into the public domain, the problem will inevitably become a bigger problem in the future. And if it is true that Google’s remedy to the problem is inadequate, their book registry is at least an improvement over similar proposals in the flawed attempts by Congress to address the problem in the Shawn Bentley Act.

My own assessment is the Google Books settlement is more good than bad.  Microsoft only opposes it because they have failed miserably in creating a successful competing search engine and are against anything that enhances Google’s value in that arena. Sour grapes if you ask me, because Google isn’t preventing Microsoft from building a better search engine. Nor does Google’s book project preclude anyone else from doing it.

Publishers and literary agents naturally hate it because they see it as a threat to their bottom line and their level of control. Amazon and Barnes and Noble are against it largely for the same reason. This isn’t necessarily true, but that remains to be seen how this will play-out once the project progresses to its next phase. It could prove to be the opposite for publishers and online booksellers. 

Certain foreign countries are against it. Europe because there is a competing book scanning project in the works.  Asia is up in arms. 15 authors from India filed objections. China also objects. Since when do Asian countries care about copyright? I think this is funny considering that Asian countries are the biggest culprits when it comes to pirating English language books, including American bestsellers. And they’re worried about Google? They should be grateful to Google for providing access to writers most of us have never heard of.

So, I’m thinking, yes, let Google do books. I personally see the Google library as a great leveler of the digital playing field.  Let’s give it a chance to succeed.