Diary of a Mad Editor

There’s no such thing as Santa Claus.

There are no magic wands.

Can’t spin straw into gold.

Despite what the spam in my inbox says, there’s no such thing as an acne vitamin.

Likewise, there are no Leprechauns, unicorns or tooth fairies.

And there’s no such thing as a writing guru.

Well . . . there are “writing gurus”   — just that they can’t really help you beginners become better writers. If you’re a writer, it’s a nice little sideline. The self-help racket is a multi-billion dollar industry. And if you’re a writer, there’s lots of money to be made teaching others how to write. The thing is, one can’t really teach another person how to write — they can only teach a another writer what works and does not work for them. One cannot teach the creative process. They can only teach their creative process. So if you are a beginning writer looking for a mentor, run from anyone calling themselves a writing guru, writing guide, or creativity coach, because a good mentor doesn’t provide answers or claim to have answers. A good mentor is someone who plants a firm boot up your ass so you do the work to find your own answers.

The other day, I was reading an article on some tech news website in which the author was lamenting the "inevitable" death of print magazines and the lack of quality control online (terribly ironic when one considers that he had written this article for an online publication). I am always suspect of an advocate of print publishing who makes a blanket statement about the poor editorial standards of online publishers. Not that there aren’t plenty of instances of lackadaisical editorial standards online (which we’ll get to shortly), but given that there are plenty of instances of lapses in both editing and fact-checking in offline publishing, it’s not at all fair to say that offline automatically equals quality and online automatically equals low quality. To prove his point, though, the author pointed to a well-known article farm. The term "article farm" is obviously a derogatory term. Simply put it’s a site that offers both free and custom-written articles about a variety of topics based on certain keywords. Like me, if you’ve been involved in online writing and publishing, you’ve probably written for these sites at some point and used some of these articles for your newsletters and websites.

Which brings me to a site called articlealley.com. Just this morning I was asked to review this site. It is, by definition, an article farm that employs many, many writers to produce both free and custom articles. There are a number of custom-writing packages offered ranging from $40 for a single article to $23 per article for bulk purchases. I couldn’t help think about the previously mentioned article while I browsed this site. Although this company promises high standards of quality control for it’s custom articles, I am assuming that the same writers creating this content are the same guys and gals writing the free articles available on the site. If so, let the buyer beware. Having read a number of the free articles on the site, I have to tell you that the quality control is non-existent. The information contained in the article is generic and unoriginal. Copyediting and proofreading are likewise non-existent. Many of the articles don’t even seem to be written by writers who speak and write English as a primary language. One such article, “Kanye West Lady Gaga A True Rock Performer” is the perfect example of what I’m talking about. That gives me pause.  Read that article and tell me honestly you’d pay Azeem to write for your website. Because if you are paying $40 for an article that you have to edit and rewrite yourself, you’d be better off  writing it yourself to begin with and saving your money.

I know of several of these so-called article farms that actually do demand a certain standard from their writers and do take some time with an article and demand rewrites prior to approving an article. Unfortunately, many don’t and that makes everyone who publishes online look bad. My hope is that articlealley.com has higher standards for its custom articles and will be more discerning in the future when it comes to their free articles. Because when it comes to generating traffic and ad revenues, quality is much more important to the equation than keyword density.

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!