LITMIR.BIZ

      The major drawback of having your book accepted by a publisher is that this attracts the attention of an editor. The word derives from the Latin adere edit, meaning to put out. This meaning survives in the author’s feeling quite put out when the editor returns the work for correction.

      It is like having your newborn — which you produced as a perfect act of creation — being brought in from the maternity ward all marked up on parts considered to need improvement. And God is mocked.

      Now, the novice writer is apt to be so affronted by this gratuitous intrusion, by this nitpicking harvest, that he or she, in a double-breasted snit, is tempted to tear up the contract and send the manuscript to a different publisher.

      Probably a bad idea. The second publisher may have the same editor as the first publisher, only using a different name and wearing a false moustache. And, of course, finding the same alleged blemishes on the ms. Plus a few more for spite.

      The ugly fact is that publishers trust their editor’s judgment more than they do the author’s. Insufferable, yes. But it is a fact of literary life that must be lived with. Sticking pins in a voodoo doll won’t cause your editor to shrivel up and blow away. The atrocious meddling must be tolerated. And — the plus side — may be blamed if the publication gets roasted by critics.

      In murder mysteries, the butler did it. In book publication, the editor.

      Chances are that your publisher will farm your manuscript out to a freelance editor, often a writer desperate for income and ready to accept any job, repugnant though it may be. If you are a freelance writer, you may be drawn into a joust of freelancers, each getting up on his high horse and levelling snide margin notes at the adversary. Monitor your blood pressure.

      After the toxic dust settles, it is traditional for the author to preface the work with an expression of thanks to her or his editor. A more sincere note might be struck with: This book was published despite gratuitous meddling by a certain person masquerading as an editor. However, in publishing as in other relationships, honesty is not always the best policy.

      Also, there is a chance that you, your writing career put on hold by a shortage of food, may find employment as a casual editor. The job isn’t terribly well paid, considering that it has a health-hazard rating right up there with lion taming. But as long as you avoid places where authors are known to hunt for food or drink, you may earn real money. Blood money, yes, but Safeway must be served.

PUBLISHERS

      Most writers hope to see their work published. Preferably in their lifetimes. There may be a few shy creatures born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air, but they are weird.

      In print. That is how any normal, ego-driven writer wants to see his or her work. Wearing a proper jacket. Sitting in a bookstore window. With the blessing of a New York Times book review.

      So the writer needs a publisher. Now publishers, like bras and other projectors, come in various sizes. Some publishers are big enough to be houses. To have your work accepted by a publishing house is a triumph in itself, such that some writers just quit further writing rather than risk a letdown. There are no new worlds to conquer, Alex.

      Most publishers, however, are more of a cottage industry, using their garages as offices because they can’t afford to own cars. These smaller publishers aren’t to be sneezed unless their offices at are really dusty. Many act as their own editors, so that the author’s manuscript doesn’t have to survive multiple judgments by people who enjoy disagreeing with one another.

      In contrast, major publishers are too busy — applying for grants from government agencies and benevolent foundations — to personally read the books they publish. For that tedious and booby-trapped exercise they employ a reader, a person financially desperate enough to enter the minefield. The professional reader is never identified, because a rejected author is a wounded beast, ready to lunge at anyone who has questioned his use of alliteration, let alone the value of the whole text.

      So what about self-publishing? If the person who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client, the person who acts as his own publisher has a real doofus for an author. Some people own a whole library of self-published books, of which not one copy has been sold.

      A touching tribute to ego, perhaps, but — desecration of forest land aside — a harmless folly. And the books provide a good place to press any flowers that you send yourself.

REJECTION!

      Impossible as it may seem, as we enjoy the afterglow of birthing what we know to be a potential bestseller if not a modern classic, our work may be rejected. Yes, spurned by some blind-minded publisher who is obviously in the terminal phase of dementia.

      We know that what we have written is damn good, probably brilliant. Family members and friends to whom we have entrusted reading a chapter or two are unequivocal in declaring — without having to read another word — that what we have done has left them speechless with wonder.

      Yet some yahoo in a publisher’s kennel of mad dogs has irrevocably and forever blown our respect for his judgment by rejecting our manuscript. That editor has doomed himself to a lifetime of ridicule, becoming known throughout the publishing world as the idiot who rejected our work.

      “Thank you for submitting this material to us. Unfortunately, it does not meet our needs at this time.…” The bastard doesn’t say what their needs are, or even what time it is. It’s a form letter, with the stamped signature carefully garbled.

      Infuriating, yes. But we should try to find it in our heart to feel sorry for the cretin who rejected our manuscript. That reader may have been going through some personal crisis — terminal eczema, spousal infidelity, income tax audit — that temporarily deranged his judgment to the point of self-destructive lunacy.

      Well, there are none so blind, etc. Let them wallow in their myopic editorial misjudgment. When you’re breaking new ground as a creative writer, sometimes you strike gold, other times, garbage. The main thing: keep shovelling, podner!

PERNICKETY CRITICS

      Every author, on publication, goes through three emotional stages:

      1. Hoping that his/her book will receive rave reviews.

      2.

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