That was my experience with my two novels. My editor at Simon and  
Schuster just didn't edit, I knew my works could use suggestions, I  
would have welcomed them [everyone can always improve themselves],  
but she just didn't do it. She seemed more interested in the social  
aspects of being an editor- she was always off at this conference or  
that book fair. I never could figure out just why she was pulling  
down a salary. It finally got so bad my agent got together a package  
of complaints from her writers who had this particular editor, and  
presented it to her. It only helped for a short while. It was  
certainly eye-opening for me, I was still living with the illusion  
that publishing fiction was a literary endeavour, like in the 1930s.  
Not anymore, it's all business, pull 'em in, push 'em out, rake in  
the money. Except for some of the smaller publishing houses, they  
have no interest in the literary aspects at all.

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Feb 13, 2007, at 1:28 AM, Kathleen Much wrote:

> On 2/12/07, Fred Fausz wrote:
>> I have learned
> never to trust information unless I have found it, seen it, and
> verified its accuracy myself.  This is especially critical these
> days, because all of the careful copyeditors and conscientious
> critics seem to have become extinct.  Was there a purge? <
>
> As good as. Publishers don't pay enough to attract the kind of
> well-educated editors I used to work with. In fact, many of them
> explicitly tell copyeditors to fix only the most egregious errors and
> not to "waste time" on fact-checking. They usually dispense with
> content and line editing altogether unless a book is expected to sell
> in very large quantities. Some authors hire their own editors, knowing
> that they won't get more than a cursory glance from their publisher's
> hired hands.
>
> And most colleges don't pay attention to writing skills, so their
> young graduates are generally ill-prepared to learn the editorial
> craft (the exceptions seem to be self-educated). Well-trained editors
> are dying and retiring, and the pipeline is running dry.
>
> Kathleen
> The Book Doctor
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the  
> instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html