More books than ever will be published in Australia this year. Jacqueline Kent explains why many will be badly edited.
Here’s a cautionary tale. An Australian publisher has just signed up a well known novelist. Both parties are very pleased with themselves: the author because it’s a better deal than any previous publisher has offered, the publisher because getting this author is a bit of a coup, despite the cost. They part with great cordiality and a few months later the author delivers the novel.
The first person to read it – apart from the author – is the editor. She is surprised to find that the manusript needs a lot of work. This gives her a problem: if she considers what she considers the necessary amount of time on editing, the book will appear late. If she doesn’t it will suffer.
She takes her worries to the publisher. He has given the author a publishing date and doesn’t want to break his word. On previous form, the author’s name guarantees a sale of at least 8000 copies. ‘I respect your literary judgment,’ he tells her (publisherspeak for ‘I think you are being a bit precious’) and says she must do only the work required for the book to appear on schedule.
The editor feels bruised and frustrated. But she squashes her editorial instincts by telling herself that her niggles are probably matters of taste: maybe she is being precious and alarmist. She edits the manuscript very lightly. As the author considers her mildest queries to be full frontal attacks, she’s thankful she didn’t ask for more. She still isn’t happy, but 10 other books are lined up on the editorial tarmac and she doesn’t have much time for regrets.
The novel appears on schedule. Because of the author’s stature it is reviewed in the Herald, the Age and the Australian, plus the major literary magazines. All reviewers point out errors of fact, clunky language, other slips of various kinds.
Most say that ‘the author has been very badly served by the editor’. The book bombs.
Publisher and author both blame the editor. She feels like calling Jack Kevorkian for an appointment. Why was she such a wimp, why didn’t she stand up for what she knew had to be done? Judging by my own experience, plus colleagues’ anecdotes, almost every experienced book editor in the country has had this or something like it happen.
It’s one reason why the statement that ’standards of editing are slipping’ seems so unfair Reviewers who say this probably don’t realise that there are a couple of good reasons why editors may fail to insist on the right to do the job properly. One, as we’ve seen, is lack of time: the other is lack of status. If you’re being paid less than the publisher’s secretary – and many editors are – what hope do you have that you’ll be listened to? Besides, what hope do you have if your employer really doesn’t now very much about your job? A surprising number of publishers don’t know how difficult it is to estimate the time and work required on a manuscript until the editor starts on it.
At a Christmas party once, I asked a multinational publisher what exactly he thought editors were for. He gave me the impression that an editor is a combination of Cosima von Bulow and Mother Teresa with a reasonable grasp of English grammar.
Publishers, of course have their own problems. The whole issue of more books plus less time is a worrying trend, and it seems to be getting worse.
This is what seem sto be happening. The big multinationals, who basically own the publishing game here, need to increase profit while economising at a time of rising costs. And like good economic rationalists everywhere, they look at the staff first. As far as they can see, editors sit around reading all day; they’re not actually helping make profits. The books would appear whether they were edited or not.
So a few editors lose their jobs and the rest give work out to freelancers, cutting down on overheads. Everything’s fine for the first year but by the end of the second, the schedule is slowing down. The two remaining editors, doing the work of five, are like Alice Through the Looking Glass, running faster and faster to stay in the same place. They’re exhausted, burned out. Mistakes happen. By the beginning of the third year, sloppily edited books are common. Reviews notice.
The publisher is now failing to attract well known literary authors, so he approaches agents. Naturally they want the best deal for their clients so they ask for good advances The publisher knows sales probably won’t cover the outlays, but he agrees. The book loses money that the publisher now can’t afford.
It’s a horrible cycle and, as usually happens with short-term thinking, it’s very expensive to break.
One management axiom states that an employee’s responsibility in a company is directly related to the amount of forward planning his or her job entails.
Someone working in a warehouse, for instance, has only to ensure that x number of books are unpacked per day; a managing director plans for up to five years.
But in publishing companies it’s the editors who are the long-term planners, scheduing and developing books tht may not appear for a year or two. It’s their bosses who are grabbing the short-term sellers for the sake of a quick buck, and editors and readers who have to cop the results – burnout, frustration, mediocre and badly produced books.
Of course this problem is not unique to Australia and I’m not saying that all publishers suffer from it. But it is increasing, with consequences for the future of Australian publishing. It’s worth asking: Why ar we letting economic rationalism swamp quality control? Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 1996
