Editor: to be or not to be!!!!!!

I have been working as a book editor for years. Well, if reading books were supposed to be difficult, then editing books is simply a pain in the neck. I don't want to discourage the probable book editors, but my experience has made me wiser and compelled me to think on this line.

An editor has several other jobs to do apart from the traditional editing. Traditional editing is knowledge oriented. It requires knowledge of grammar and sense of books. Those who have the knowledge and the natural instinct, prove to be good editors. Editing, in traditional sense, is the natural inborn ability. You have it or you don't. If you are natural, you have fun while editing. You learn and discover several new things. Traditional editing or hardcore editing as some may say is fun.

But editing goes beyond hardcore editing. The process starts with visualizing the book. You tend to make sense of the book that you have thought of. A natural editor loves this challenge. He likes to be in the thick of the action. He wants to be the creator. He takes pride in creating a book.

After visualizing, the editor has to look for the content. The content might come from an author or the in-house content gatherers. Content gatherers are the new breeds of author-like species. They are the result of the great Internet revolution and its motto of free knowledge readily available for all on a finger click.

The author writes according to his whims and fancy. He does not like being tied to write for a particular audience or for a particular age group. He has the boon to flow freely. And the bane of the editor starts. He collects the manuscript from the author and tries to tailor it according to the requirement of the book he once visualized. Or did he? Forget it. The editor also has to keep in mind the great ego of the author. The tailoring should not alter the manuscript to such an extent that it catches the eyes of the author.

Consequently, the editor than relies heavily on his own in-house content providers or gatherers. He does not have to watch for their ego. The content gatherers are to some extent dormant editors. They don't explode or in most cases refuse to explode. They don't want to (sometimes they are prevented to) be the part of the entire process. They simply give content, which is supposed to be edited.

Lets talk about such contents. For a 14-spread book, the content can range from 100 pages to infinity. In between, there are several loose ends that fail to end. These days they are given on MS-word. The word document of such contents use at least 1000 fonts and 1500 formatting styles.

Now the editor is supposed to edit the precious content file. However, sitting for endless hours on the hard chair just to figure out the head and the tail of the document creates all the symptoms of spondylitis. The neck starts to pain.

Somehow, using tried and tested old tricks, the editor finally writes the book he once visualized. Did he? Oh! May be he did.

The book then goes to the creative department. They are supposed to make the layout of the book with the judicious placement of text and the images. By the way, in the developing countries, the responsibilities of image lie with the editor. He has to search for appropriate images that would appear in the book. Remember he once visualized the book.

Since, there are several stages of development, so there are several types of developing countries. Some are more developed, some are less. They are all developing, nonetheless. India for instance is a rapidly developing country. So, the Indian Publishing Creative Departments are progressing even rapidly. They demand less from the editor. They only ask for images that are of better quality with a resolution of 600, which could be printed twice. Oh! They also ask for different angles and poses. I am not making any sense, do I? They also don't make any sense, but they do ask.

An editor, then out of the fear that the book that he once visualized might face a radical twist of the fate, makes hard efforts to sit with the creative book designers. However, his attempt invokes severe resistance from the designers. The resistance transcends the boundaries of book making process and travels to the plane of creativity. They are creative, because they design. They design because they know software. They know software because they know keyboard shortcuts. They know keyboard shortcuts because they have worked umpteen times on that software. And since they have worked umpteen times on that software, they are designers. It's a great designer's vicious cycle that an editor has to resist, before giving his inputs or before his inputs are taken.

The book is some how completed. The designs appear far better than what was originally thought of (this is obviously the great achievement of the designers) and the text is superb (this for the end product that an editor keeps with him, who once visualized a book). The editor is forced to identify only with the text part of the book.

Tell me is being an editor fun? I am not a sadist. Well, editing still is a fun. You know why? Just after taking such as great journey of book making, the editor again starts to visualize a new book!!!!!

Cheers
Kundan