BBC R4 programme about the role of the editor

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

What you must remember, Sparrow, is that 'publishing' in the good ol' days was pretty well a simple deal between an author and a printer. When publishing became a money-spinning industry, some form of editorial quality control had to be introduced. After forty-odd years as a professional writer and editor, I can assure you that NOTHING should go to print without serious, pro editorial intervention. Only crass amateurs believe otherwise -- and the result is the deluge of arrogantly self-published nonsense that now confronts someone browsing for a book. Some self-publishers are sound, painstaking operators, but they are in a tiny minority and I think would be the first to agree that it's very difficult for the potential reader to sort the wheat from the chaff in a world where writing and publishing is made too easy. That everyone has a book in them might well be true ... but not necessarily a good book. An editor is necessary to spot the difference and to enable a good writer to get the best out of his work on behalf of the folks at the top of the food chain; the readers. Neil

It's this kind of arrogance which turns a lot of writers away from editors and results in many of us going it alone. There's no one person on this earth more capable than another in gauging the subjective merits of a cultural work. Why are you 'the Chosen One' when it comes to knowing what is good and what is not? What separates your opinion from anybody else in the digital world? And if the answer is experience, then that's no answer at all. You have just as much experience as any other random netizen.

For me, and many other writers of fiction, the position of editor is as dated and useless as the agent and the publisher. If the writing is so terrible, so blatantly unreadable that it needs a third party to come in a correct that writing, then it should not be offered in the first place. Let it rot on the vine. If not, then let the writing stand as is, warty and pock-marked, but real and untouched by the arrogance of third parties who claim to tell us, like meddling grandparents, what is good and what is not good for our creations.

The party is over. We kicked out the crashers. Now it's just you and me and we'll dance, in our clumsy way, to a music of our own creation.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by rhadin

....

I just blogged about my experience this week with a packager wanting me to edit some STM (science, technical, medical) books. You can read it at my American Editor blog or at Teleread.

Thanks for the links and thoughts Richard.

[neilmarr]

Fair enough, MoeJoe. Neil