Every good ebook needs a good editor | Harriet Evans
With the advent of ebooks, self-publishing has exploded, convincing some authors they don't need publishers. But what about the editors?
Even if, like me, you don't particularly love the experience of reading an ebook, and think that a novel that doesn't break if dropped in the bath is still the best way to read, there's no doubt that the age of the ebook is here. In New York last week for the publication of my latest novel, I heard print books referred to as p-books: as if they were ebooks' clunky physical byproducts. Many argue that electronic books have given power back to the consumer, and to the author. For every editor at a conventional publishing house being told by the top brass that they must trim their list, there are hundreds of would-be writers chasing that elusive book deal, and many have turned to the internet as a means of getting their material out. In many ways this is undeniably a great thing: freedom of expression, a limitless potential audience, and a better financial deal if you publish directly yourself through Amazon's Kindle store, for example and miss out the publisher.
A recent, much-circulated discussion between two US writers, Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath, about how Eisler (a successful thriller writer) had apparently turned down a $500,000 advance from his publishers to self-publish, was fascinating. They, like many others, firmly believe authors don't need publishers; that you can outsource everything, keep control of your career and receive more of the revenue as a result. It's worth pointing out that both men are admirably generous and passionate about the rights of authors in the digital age. But it's also noteworthy that not once in the entire discussion does either of them mention who's going to a) structurally edit or b) copyedit their books if t! hey're p ublished online, except fleetingly as an outsourced resource they can pay for. And this is representative of a larger view across the spectrum of online publishing where the author, not a publisher, controls the process. That's fine by me as long as you're not going for posterity or longevity, because though I am an avid consumer of all kinds of writing on the web, I firmly believe there's a big difference between a book published online by the author and one prepared for publication by a publisher, and it goes to the very heart of what books and literature mean to us.
Editing is the most important part of my job as an author. Before I gave up my day job to write full-time I was myself an editor, first at Penguin, then at Headline, which is partly why I'm so passionate about the process. And yet I cannot tell you how much I hate it. It is extremely dispiriting to sit in a room with your editor and be told that the book (in my case novel) you have lovingly crafted over a long period of months is not gripping, charming and perfectly turned out, that it is in fact repetitive, unconvincing, too sketchy here, too drawn-out there. But I'd be mortified were anyone other than my editor and agent to read the first draft. It is vital that an author has someone willing to be tough with them. It's in their best interests, and if that person is employed by the author themselves on a freelance basis, I question how tough they'll be willing to be. I'm in the lucky position now of having a core group of readers who will always buy my new book. I absolutely know I wouldn't be there if I hadn't been edited by people whose job it is not to flatter the author and take the paycheque but to turn your manuscript into the best book it can be. (If you've read any of my books and hate them, you'll be laughing hysterically to yourself at the idea that they could be worse than they were. Sorry.)
Editors of yesteryear wielded vast influence; a book could go through many, many rewrites before it was deemed ! worthy o f selling to the reading public. Who knows whether Gone With the Wind would have been as successful had it been called, as it originally was, Pansy, after its eponymous heroine, Pansy O'Hara, before Margaret Mitchell's editor at Macmillan persuaded her to change the name to Scarlett? One of the greatest editors ever is Robert Gottlieb, who was for years at Simon and Schuster and edited everyone from Salman Rushdie and Toni Morrison to John le Carr and Michael Crichton. (He bought Catch-22.) He was and is legendary for his attention to detail and the degree to which he cares about the placement of a comma. He gave a fascinating interview to Salon.com that includes a story which, for me, sums up why having an impartial eye cast over your work is so important: the idea that an editor is on your side, but still something of a busybody. "I've had moments, walking down the street, of seeing a woman walk toward me and wanting to say: 'Excuse me madam, you're really great-looking, but orange is not your colour.' But I have restrained myself, wisely no doubt, since as you see, I'm here to tell the tale."
I don't say publishers today are perfect, because they're not. They've been far too slow to react to the digital age and don't really, I think, fully embrace its potential. I don't believe editorial standards in all traditional publishing houses are absolutely perfect, either. But as an author who has a contract with a publisher, I like the fact that, on a very basic level, every time I deliver a manuscript, I am auditioning for them all over again. Ebooks are still books, after all. Anything that's published and sold as a book, even if it's cheaper than one in a shop and making more money for the author, should be as good as it possibly can be. Choice is a good thing, but there's increasingly no delineation between an online publisher or author who bundles up! sub-sta ndard work and sells it as cheaply as possible and a publishing house that has some interest in curating their authors' careers. I think consumers deserve the same level of respect now as then, and so I wonder what the future holds.
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