There is a peculiar variety of heroism attached to the investigative journalist, the social activist and the idealistic teacher. (Doctors seem to have been taken off this list these days.) But I haven’t yet come across any account of the heroism of book editors though they are, let me tell you, a doughty people who display the courage of investigative journalists even if they don’t venture into the murky underbelly of the city in person, the idealism of school teachers, and certainly, the somewhat headstrong and foolish love for the poor and the needy (some writers are poor, all are needy). But there should be. Here’s why.
We live in an age where strident techno-determinists constantly decry the death of the book as we know it. The copyleft-wallahs extol free downloads and no royalties. The aggressive market watchers say that ideally any books left unsold after three months ought to be pulped. Some retailers say only books will the following words in the titles – girlfriend, boyfriend, Facebook, love, kiss, sex, murder, u n me – should be published. A large number of people feel that the book stage should be entirely bypassed and films should come out of whatever writer-types do.
But even in this day and age, that there are a whole bunch of people dedicated to the art of book-making – nurturing the narrative, tightening the dialogue, excising purple patches, and ironing out creases that emerge from inexact thinking on the part of the author and inelegant timing of her characters – is some sort of a miracle. They publish worthy books, even if those books will not make it to bestseller lists; they murmur poetry aloud to themselves from rare manuscripts submitted online and decide to accept the risk upon their own heads; they care about grammar; and believe you me, they don’t make as much fun of the choicest lines picked out from the slush piles as they could have.
(If this above paragraph makes them look like slightly dull saintly types clad in FabIndia – think again. Book editors are great fun. They are also generous, well-dressed – unlike their writers – and usually a fount of the most delish literary gossip in town.)
Where would we be without our book editors?
In my brief career of three books, I have had the good fortune of knowing four editors. I drove all four batty, in different ways. Consider my first novel, The Vague Woman’s Handbook. It was assigned to N – a highly organised person who would meticulously plan out in her diary in the morning a planning session with herself, a croissant, a cup of coffee and a notebook, for the evening. She approached Mil and Indira’s vague world with a uniquely rigorous approach; it worked too.
A very important editor at the publishing house, S, my husband’s editor and a great friend, was in charge of The Heat and Dust Project. He likes to edit on paper with a pencil and make little notes on the margins. When pages were biked over, along with the valid cuts and valid questions (‘Are you sure it is College Street and NOT Surya Sen Street?’) would be little lines of praise that would prove once and for all that the editor is the ideal reader the writer dreams about.
In the case of my second novel, The Weight Loss Club, I displayed a complete inability to reference time frames. I said to my editor P, ‘I will give you the next three sections three days from now.’ When I said it, I completely meant it.
It’s just that Nancy Housing Co-operative in Calcutta, where most of the action was set, had a unique Brahma-like disposition. One day in the life of Nancy was like three months in the life of a mortal book editor.
Consequently, there was a great deal of drama. Mails were exchanged daily. She refused to take my calls in that time, because, she told me later, she would have screamed bloody murder at me for an hour if she did. Finally, she sent me an email that did the trick. (And no, not the ‘return the advance’ one. She had used the threat once already. And since I had spent the advance, I wasn’t even scared.)
She sent me one line: ‘If you don’t send me rest by end of tomorrow, will publish as it is.’ At the time, the characters were in deep shit of their own making. Published without their happy(ish) endings, the readers would hate me for the rest of my life. I wrote for 36 hours straight.
When I say four editors, I include my publisher K, too, who, in spite of being an extremely busy person (one of her authors had joked she is busier than the PM; another of her authors, the then PM’s daughter, had confirmed this) conducted a round of edits on both books published by her. Her edits made the books infinitely better. But one time, without really knowing it, she saved our lives.
We returned to Delhi after the grind of months and months of journeying on local buses and living out of backpacks in grimy rooms. We had barely two hundred rupees left in the account; we were waiting for freelance work money to come in and borrowed cash from parents. K took us out for lunch with an unlimited buffet. We ate and ate and told her all our tall travelers’ tales. Afterwards, in the office, she had our contracts fished out – and the advance amount doubled. (It was not a big amount, true, but at the time, it saved us.)
So this weekend, after all your bookshopping, give a moment’s thought to the person who read the book cover-to-cover more times than the author did. Long live the editor!
An example of the usual email exchange between writers and editors
From: editor AT publishing-house.com
‘The deadline for this book was a year ago to this day. Any updates?’
From: writer AT soon-to-emerge.com
‘Yes, I know, I know. I am struggling. I am steeped in the book the whole time. But what can I do? We’re stuck in the journey from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer. We have to get this just right.’
From: editor AT publishing-house.com
‘I understand. But unless you give a timeline, it is impossible to reserve a slot for next year.’
The writer does not reply to this email.
(Don’t you worry though. Revenge is to be had soon.)
A year later
From: writer AT soon-to-emerge.com
Have you decided on the print run?
From: editor AT publishing-house.com
Sales will.
From: writer AT soon-to-emerge.com
Do we have a pub date yet? When are you going to assign it to a copyeditor? My article on the philosophical foundations of online dating went viral – did you see? 78,657 views? I think the book should be published soon to capitalise on this new readership my pieces are commandeering.
(There is no reply to this email.)
Five things writers tell their editors all the time
Have you read so-n-so’s new book? The Press is going to town with it. As though it’s god’s gift to humanity. Isn’t it horrible? Lazy lines, lazy characterisation? I couldn’t go beyond two pages.
Did you really like the book? (Here, the writer is talking about her own book.)
How many copies has that “bestseller” sold?
The writing is not going well.
Should I consider therapy/writing a children’s book/babies?
The one thing writers don’t tell their editors
You don’t spend any quality time with me. You’re always spending time with those other authors. Yes, I’m on Facebook. Yes, I stalk you from time to time.
Five things editors tell their writers all the time
Don’t worry about the publicity. Yours is a good book. Ultimately, word of mouth is what will make a difference.
Would you please use fewer adverbs?
I’ll call you back.
It is impossible that such a mild dose of sedatives will make it a suicide. You should consult a specialist if the readers are to be convinced. (Don’t ask me how I know such things. For one, it’s my job.)
No, I don’t know the organisers of JLF personally. But I’m sure they’ll invite you next year. Yours is the exact sort of voice Indian English writing needs to highlight.
The one thing editors don’t tell their writers
I know sometimes my life, my kids’ homework, my lover, and my gallstones come in the way of your beloved book’s glorious destiny. When it does, can you please stop sending me hysterical SMSs?
Devapriya Roy’s new book The Heat and Dust Project: The Broke Couple’s Guide to Bharat, co-written with husband Saurav Jha, is the story of an eccentric journey across India, on a very very tight budget.
We live in an age where strident techno-determinists constantly decry the death of the book as we know it. The copyleft-wallahs extol free downloads and no royalties. The aggressive market watchers say that ideally any books left unsold after three months ought to be pulped. Some retailers say only books will the following words in the titles – girlfriend, boyfriend, Facebook, love, kiss, sex, murder, u n me – should be published. A large number of people feel that the book stage should be entirely bypassed and films should come out of whatever writer-types do.
But even in this day and age, that there are a whole bunch of people dedicated to the art of book-making – nurturing the narrative, tightening the dialogue, excising purple patches, and ironing out creases that emerge from inexact thinking on the part of the author and inelegant timing of her characters – is some sort of a miracle. They publish worthy books, even if those books will not make it to bestseller lists; they murmur poetry aloud to themselves from rare manuscripts submitted online and decide to accept the risk upon their own heads; they care about grammar; and believe you me, they don’t make as much fun of the choicest lines picked out from the slush piles as they could have.
(If this above paragraph makes them look like slightly dull saintly types clad in FabIndia – think again. Book editors are great fun. They are also generous, well-dressed – unlike their writers – and usually a fount of the most delish literary gossip in town.)
Where would we be without our book editors?
In my brief career of three books, I have had the good fortune of knowing four editors. I drove all four batty, in different ways. Consider my first novel, The Vague Woman’s Handbook. It was assigned to N – a highly organised person who would meticulously plan out in her diary in the morning a planning session with herself, a croissant, a cup of coffee and a notebook, for the evening. She approached Mil and Indira’s vague world with a uniquely rigorous approach; it worked too.
A very important editor at the publishing house, S, my husband’s editor and a great friend, was in charge of The Heat and Dust Project. He likes to edit on paper with a pencil and make little notes on the margins. When pages were biked over, along with the valid cuts and valid questions (‘Are you sure it is College Street and NOT Surya Sen Street?’) would be little lines of praise that would prove once and for all that the editor is the ideal reader the writer dreams about.
In the case of my second novel, The Weight Loss Club, I displayed a complete inability to reference time frames. I said to my editor P, ‘I will give you the next three sections three days from now.’ When I said it, I completely meant it.
It’s just that Nancy Housing Co-operative in Calcutta, where most of the action was set, had a unique Brahma-like disposition. One day in the life of Nancy was like three months in the life of a mortal book editor.
Consequently, there was a great deal of drama. Mails were exchanged daily. She refused to take my calls in that time, because, she told me later, she would have screamed bloody murder at me for an hour if she did. Finally, she sent me an email that did the trick. (And no, not the ‘return the advance’ one. She had used the threat once already. And since I had spent the advance, I wasn’t even scared.)
She sent me one line: ‘If you don’t send me rest by end of tomorrow, will publish as it is.’ At the time, the characters were in deep shit of their own making. Published without their happy(ish) endings, the readers would hate me for the rest of my life. I wrote for 36 hours straight.
When I say four editors, I include my publisher K, too, who, in spite of being an extremely busy person (one of her authors had joked she is busier than the PM; another of her authors, the then PM’s daughter, had confirmed this) conducted a round of edits on both books published by her. Her edits made the books infinitely better. But one time, without really knowing it, she saved our lives.
We returned to Delhi after the grind of months and months of journeying on local buses and living out of backpacks in grimy rooms. We had barely two hundred rupees left in the account; we were waiting for freelance work money to come in and borrowed cash from parents. K took us out for lunch with an unlimited buffet. We ate and ate and told her all our tall travelers’ tales. Afterwards, in the office, she had our contracts fished out – and the advance amount doubled. (It was not a big amount, true, but at the time, it saved us.)
So this weekend, after all your bookshopping, give a moment’s thought to the person who read the book cover-to-cover more times than the author did. Long live the editor!
An example of the usual email exchange between writers and editors
From: editor AT publishing-house.com
‘The deadline for this book was a year ago to this day. Any updates?’
From: writer AT soon-to-emerge.com
‘Yes, I know, I know. I am struggling. I am steeped in the book the whole time. But what can I do? We’re stuck in the journey from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer. We have to get this just right.’
From: editor AT publishing-house.com
‘I understand. But unless you give a timeline, it is impossible to reserve a slot for next year.’
The writer does not reply to this email.
(Don’t you worry though. Revenge is to be had soon.)
A year later
From: writer AT soon-to-emerge.com
Have you decided on the print run?
From: editor AT publishing-house.com
Sales will.
From: writer AT soon-to-emerge.com
Do we have a pub date yet? When are you going to assign it to a copyeditor? My article on the philosophical foundations of online dating went viral – did you see? 78,657 views? I think the book should be published soon to capitalise on this new readership my pieces are commandeering.
(There is no reply to this email.)
Five things writers tell their editors all the time
Have you read so-n-so’s new book? The Press is going to town with it. As though it’s god’s gift to humanity. Isn’t it horrible? Lazy lines, lazy characterisation? I couldn’t go beyond two pages.
Did you really like the book? (Here, the writer is talking about her own book.)
How many copies has that “bestseller” sold?
The writing is not going well.
Should I consider therapy/writing a children’s book/babies?
The one thing writers don’t tell their editors
You don’t spend any quality time with me. You’re always spending time with those other authors. Yes, I’m on Facebook. Yes, I stalk you from time to time.
Five things editors tell their writers all the time
Don’t worry about the publicity. Yours is a good book. Ultimately, word of mouth is what will make a difference.
Would you please use fewer adverbs?
I’ll call you back.
It is impossible that such a mild dose of sedatives will make it a suicide. You should consult a specialist if the readers are to be convinced. (Don’t ask me how I know such things. For one, it’s my job.)
No, I don’t know the organisers of JLF personally. But I’m sure they’ll invite you next year. Yours is the exact sort of voice Indian English writing needs to highlight.
The one thing editors don’t tell their writers
I know sometimes my life, my kids’ homework, my lover, and my gallstones come in the way of your beloved book’s glorious destiny. When it does, can you please stop sending me hysterical SMSs?
Devapriya Roy’s new book The Heat and Dust Project: The Broke Couple’s Guide to Bharat, co-written with husband Saurav Jha, is the story of an eccentric journey across India, on a very very tight budget.
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