Monday, August 30, 2010

Editors Do the Darndest Things

From comments: "I'm still waiting for an agent to blog or tweet about something an editor did that annoyed them. I guess either editors are perfect or all those snarky agents who dare to tell it like it is find it a little harder to tell it like it is when the power balance is shifted."
Yep, you nailed it, editors are perfect!  I love them, no matter what.*

Even when they take months... and months... to read a short picture book.  No problem! That's fine, take your time.

Or when they disappear after expressing interest in a manuscript. Yep.  Just... disappear rather than give a concrete "on second thought, not for me" or any sort of closure. I don't blame them, after all, it's hard to say no.

Same holds true when they take forever to write a rejection letter made of fluffy nothing.

Or when they woo relentlessly before they buy the book, declaring mad love for the author and their work... but then as soon as the vows are said and the ink is dry on the contract, passion seems to turn into business-as-usual, communication dries up, and, and, and...sorry, I just had a bit of a post-traumatic stress flashback.

OK, I guess I don't really love them all all the time.

But they do generally have good manners and do not pee on the rugs.  And you have to admit, they are pretty cute.  Awww...



* In all seriousness... the good that most editors do to help authors and advocate for books they love far outweighs my small annoyances about the process.  And I fully realize that some of these same grievances could be levelled against most agents from time to time.  I am just gently poking fun, and not at anyone in particular.  So authors, don't take this as a post about How Editors Are Evil. They aren't. Well... the ones I know aren't, anyway!

11 comments:

  1. i just self published and had to edit myself, it was horrible... i'm up to edition 3 and will probably still find more typos. how do you feel about lulu? apologies if this is covered in an earlier post, just discovered you today. (nice to meet you)

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  2. Anonymous11:18 AM

    SO. i kind of feel the same way about agents sometimes...

    I mean, I love you all! You're fabulous but...*cough*...this is awkward...

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  3. Gretchen - even published authors will still find mistakes, years later. And I think there is a time and a place for self-publishing ventures such as Lulu, but I have nothing to do with them, myself, so I can't really speak to anything about it specifically.

    --

    LOL anon 11:18 - to be fair, I did say that agents are guilty too! :)

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  4. ha ha! I'm LOVING the editor kitten. Are editors really that cute?

    -unpublished author

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  5. All this talk about agents makes me wish I would hurry up and finish my manuscript. I know the road is long. Thanks for helping to make it entertaining and informative.

    Christine

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  6. Love this post! Hilarious! LOL

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  7. I think what the commenter meant was a post ridiculing a particular editor the same way agents ridicule particular writers for their queries or manuscripts or whatever. Of course you wouldn't do the former because you don't do the latter.

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  8. Whoa.

    This post is weirdly heartening. See, everyone? It's not just you and your ms! Awesometastic people like Jenn have the same agonizingly frustrating things happen.

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  9. ha, love this.

    Once at a conference, I had an art director gushing all over my portfolio, she wanted pages right out of it. Later, she was in the hallway showing an editor how amazing my work is, then they both asked to speak to me and wanted to know if I had stories for the illustrations, when I mentioned one, the editor said to the art director, "I will fight you for her."

    When I sent the manuscript to the editor, she took it to another 'level' but they decided it was too sparse... oh and the art director who wanted to marry me?
    Never heard from her again.. sent updated art... emailed her, sent her a thank you.... nothing.

    you must face a lot of that.

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  10. Entertaining post....I'm a tech writer and I see that most engineers don't read documentation. My skype slogan reads: "if all else fails, read the documentation".

    Loved the image of kittie reading the book. I was wondering if I can use for my skype message. Is the image copyrighted? If so, how and where do I go to get the permission to use the image?

    Thanks,
    RK

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  11. thanks RK -

    As far as I know it is a stock image, I got it from google tho it was up in a thousand places with no source listed. (that doesn't mean there IS no source, just that I couldn't find it).

    Google "kitten reading" or something and you should find.

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