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Sasquatch Books managing editor Joan GregoryOn behalf of the membership:
Thank you, Joan, for sharing your thoughts and experience with us! About JoanJoan Gregory is managing editor at Sasquatch Books. She’s been with the press for more than eight years and has been in publishing for more than fifteen. In her early days at Sasquatch, Joan hired and directed not only freelance editors but also designers, illustrators, compositors, and printers. Now, with design and production handled by a separate department, Joan manages three other production editors, acts as production editor herself on several books a season, oversees budgets and schedules, and helps acquire and develop new titles. Joan’s heart has always been in editorial. In a former life, she taught high school English. She left that world and her native Pacific Northwest to attend the summer publishing institute at New York University. She spent the next six years in New York City, working as a production editor for various textbook publishers (K–12 and college) and a university press. When she returned to Seattle, she did freelance editorial work for local and New York publishers (so she’s been on that side of the fence as well), spent more than a year at Microsoft as a copy editor and technical editor, and then, against the advice of every practical person she knew, left Microsoft for what was initially only a part-time job at Sasquatch. Joan's presentationJoan began by expressing profound appreciation for the work that editors do, and for the existence of a group such as the Guild. She then discussed what she looks for in freelancers:
Money Joan said she wants editors to feel they are paid at least “decently” for their important work. She said trade publishers probably pay editors less than do other employers of editors, since they don’t have the budgets of dot-coms and other corporations. She appreciates freelancers who can say, when presented with an editing/proofing budget that they feel is too low to do a complete job, “For that sum I can do X, Y, and Z, but I won’t have time to do A, B, and C.” Schedule Joan appreciates freelancers who can say, when presented with a book’s schedule, “I can do it if you can give me one extra week,” or “I can’t do it in that schedule.” She said often the copyeditor has to turn things around
relatively quickly because the author is late with the manuscript. Questions from Guild membersHow does a copyeditor know the publisher’s idea of a book’s audience/vision? You need to ask for/demand it from publishers. Sasquatch gives an editor a tip sheet on the book s/he’s working on, which spells this out. Sometimes rough catalog copy can be provided. You mentioned you used cookbook editors from the East Coast since it’s such a specialized kind of work. How do you find them? Through authors and sometimes through agents. Joan recommended asking publishers to make sure that the authors of books you edit know your name; that way, if the author likes your work, s/he can pass on your name to others who are looking for a good editor. You said an editor’s job is to produce “clear, crisp prose” and later you said it’s important to preserve the author’s voice. Aren’t these two goals sometimes in conflict? With some books, like guidebooks, providing clear information is the paramount concern. With other books—especially those that tend more toward fiction—the voice may be more important. [Sorry, that’s a rough summary—I didn’t take notes on the answer to that question!] In response to a question, Joan described the process Sasquatch’s books go through editorially. After the copyedit, an in-house editor reviews the copyedits to ascertain that the editing has accomplished what Sasquatch wanted it to, and that there is nothing there that will upset or mislead the author. Then the manuscript with the copyedits showing is sent to the author so s/he can review the edits and answer queries. Then the in-house editor reviews it again to make sure the author has addressed all the queries, etc. Then the manuscript is sent to a word processor to input the copyedits, if the manuscript has been edited on hard copy, as well as the author’s responses to queries. If the manuscript has been edited online, Joan said she prefers to have the copyeditor do the necessary cleanup (inputting the author’s responses to queries) if possible, since the copyeditor is intimately familiar with the manuscript. Joan said that when an author receives a copyedited manuscript, often s/he is initially defensive/upset and looks at every correction. But after some number of pages or chapters, when s/he begins to see how the editor’s work has improved the book, s/he begins to trust the editor and looks only at the queries. When a sentence needs to be revised, is it a good idea to give an author several alternatives? It depends. If the author is a good writer, it’s better to just point out the problem—the solution s/he devises will be better than any suggestion you can come up with. If the author is not a good writer, Joan would prefer that you just choose the best alternative and go ahead and revise the sentence yourself. Joan said it is usually not necessary to explain queries;
the problem you’re fixing, especially if it’s a grammatical one, is usually
obvious. When you revise a sentence, a simple “for clarity” is usually
enough. Online editing There was a brief discussion of online editing, with some editors expressing the opinion that it took more time (which they weren’t compensated for) and perhaps resulted in editing of less than their usual quality because they were looking at a screen. Joan said first-time authors do tend to “freak” when presented with their manuscript as electronically edited. One editor felt it would be instructive to see the proofreader’s marks on copy she had edited online. —Sherri Schultz, notetaker |
