Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do (15 page)

Ultimately, Mr. Wade declares that “if you have done your job properly, if you have really served the
book,
you will have served your employer
and
your author and behaved both morally and ethically.”

The Ethical and Moral Dimensions of Editing

It is not surprising that most editors feel a very strong personal commitment to the authors with whom they work. Some of the writers I work with today have become very dear friends over the course of more than twenty years in harness together. Long ago I had to ask myself how one reconciles the obligations of friendship with those of an editor who is expected to contribute to the corporate interests of his or her publisher. Under ideal conditions, the interests of author and publisher coincide. But, alas, not always. And what about the obligation one has to readers?

The only workable way to reconcile what may seem to be conflicting obligations and interests is to stay with one essential truth: the editor’s primary obligation is to the
book
. If you fail in that you are no friend to the author and you are not doing what a publisher pays you to do.

It all begins with acquisition of a book. If you have some strong personal belief or bias that goes against the argument of a book, if you find the subject matter or writing or point of view distasteful or even repugnant, then you should be very hesitant to involve yourself, even if—or especially if—you think “it might sell a lot of copies.” The editor should not play the role of either expert or censor. If you suspect you are going to distort, even unwittingly, the author’s ideas and expressions for whatever reason (your “expertise” or your moral evaluation or even hazy issues like taste), then you have no business editing that book. All of us would like to claim, with Voltaire, that we might disagree with someone but defend his right to say what we disagree with—but professionalism demands that an editor not get involved if there is any likelihood of crossing the line that separates objective, supportive work on the book from trespassing on the author’s right of expression.

Declining to work on such a book is not personal indulgence; you should not serve as its editor unless you can approach it with a certain degree of objectivity and the enthusiasm and support it needs to be successfully edited
and published. It is, after all, not
your
book. On behalf of your publisher you will be acquiring certain rights to it but, unless it is employee-for-hire material, the author owns the work he or she has created. That’s why every publisher’s contract has a warranty clause. In that clause the author-creator of the work “warrants and represents” things that must be taken with unreserved seriousness by both publisher and author—that the work is original, doesn’t violate someone else’s copyright (i.e., the author is not a plagiarist, the worst nightmare of publishing), that it does not invade the rights of privacy of others, and a great deal more.

That clause gives the editor some very important fundamental guidelines about what an editor is
not
. An editor is neither an author nor a collaborator; he or she does not participate in the creation or the ownership of the book.

This does not mean that you are inhibited from giving your opinion to an author. In fact, you would be remiss if you did not express your opinions, reactions, thoughts; you’re paid to offer your author your advice as well as to be the reader’s advocate. But you offer opinions; you don’t have any right to issue orders. The author listens to what you say—and then accepts or rejects your suggestions. If you and your author have widely divergent opinions about the quality and content of the manuscript, you may well reach a point on the book where another rather important clause in the contract comes to bear: Is the work acceptable?

Publishers fight constantly to keep the definition of what is acceptable rather broad. But if a publisher and its representative—you, the editor—have this wide discretion, you also have a very heavy responsibility. I have, in nearly thirty years as an editor, worked on only a tiny number of books that were ultimately not accepted. Most of the time this happens when a book was acquired on the basis of an outline or some other form of brief presentation; if you acquire a manuscript that is substantially complete, you ought to know what you will have to publish. How and when does an editor come to this unhappy standoff with an author? It should not happen until you are sure that you have exhausted all of the resources at your command to assist the author in making the book say what the author wants it to say, including detailed editorial advice and time to revise the manuscript.

Your conscience has told you that you’ve done your best. What now? There is no rulebook, no set of specifications to guide you. You may fear that “the book won’t sell.” First of all, humility reminds us that publishing is a fundamentally unpredictable business. Often the only way to find out what will sell or not is by publishing the book. If you believe that the book represents the best that the author, with whatever help you have given, can achieve, then you have done your job. But this is a complex determination. You’ve probably read previous books by the author. The outline said clearly that certain things would be covered. Has the author demonstrated
that he or she has done the work with a level of skill and commitment commensurate with previous work? Did the book keep the promises that the outline made?

Other considerations may enter in: the legal review of a manuscript may reveal large areas of possible legal trouble that entail considerable business risk. You work with the author to resolve those problems but it may come to a point where the author says, “Here I stand,” and you must say, “Good-bye and good luck.” But you may also decide, with the approval of your house and counsel, to take a business risk.

Bearing in mind that the author has made certain undertakings in the warranty clause, you may have certain apprehensions, based on experience, that something isn’t quite right. At this point you do one of the hardest jobs facing an editor; you go to the maximum lengths to determine if your apprehensions are grounded in fact. While you are not an expert, and while you can’t vet or check out every book, you do have an obligation to check out the credentials of an author. And if that author is recommending something that
might
be injurious to the health or other vital interests of readers, you are obliged to seek out experts and determine the degree of risk that might be involved—and advise the reader of these risks, usually in the form of a notice placed prominently in the front of the book.

What you can’t guard against is, as I have previously mentioned, that dreadful nightmare of plagiarism. Whether unconscious or deliberate, stealing the work of another brings down horrendous and punitive damages if the case is proved. Fortunately this is a rare outcome. I have been involved in cases where such a taking was claimed but, thank heaven, the claims were proved groundless or withdrawn in every case. So plagiarism is both the greatest and the least of your worries; your only defense against it is the integrity of the author. But there are many other vexing issues that you will face, most of them related to the acceptability of a book.

What then do you do if, all remedies exhausted, you have a book that is a turkey, a dud, an absolute nonstarter? The author has cooperated and done his or her best; so have you. Well, you admit that it is,
in your best judgment
, a book that your house is not going to be able to sell. You have fulfilled your responsibility to the book; in the words of the nineteenth-century poet Arthur Hugh Clough: “Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive / Officiously to keep alive.” It is not a question of your being right or wrong; it is a matter of your honest evaluation. You do no favor to the book to “give it the benefit of the doubt”; that doubt of yours will taint everything you do in the course of publishing the book. You can’t present it with full and professional enthusiasm. You will, in effect, have failed your responsibility to the book as well as to the author and your house.

If this decision to cut the book loose sounds simple, it is not. It is the most
unpleasant and most morally demanding decision an editor makes. There is some small measure of comfort in the fact that your “wrong” may well turn out to be someone else’s “right”—the publisher just down the road that takes on the book after you have rejected it. Both parties turn out to be right. You are right in saying no because you are, given your response, not the right editor for the book.

There is, of course, that limitation of freedom of speech and expression that Holmes set forth: the (false) cry of fire in a crowded theater. Ought you to be, as editor, the one who decides if there’s a fire or not? I think not—unless you feel that you can’t keep your fundamental vow to the book. In the extreme case, are you (and is your house) ready to go to court? Counsel has warned you of potential legal problems—you take a “business risk.” Reporters, newspapers, even television and radio, face this decision more often than we do because they
report
and are shielded by a presumption that their reporting, in which timeliness is essential, gives them a wider latitude than we have in books. That goes to the heart of the lengthy dialogue between editor and author and what you bring to the process: absolute honesty and forthrightness, of course, but also experience and good judgment. And remember that you are not some isolated moral agonizer; you are part of a collegial body that is your publishing house—you have other experienced people to go to when you want to try out your opinion.

But this should be done, if possible,
before
the book is sent on its way to the press, preferably when it is still in manuscript. Once you have signed off on it, barring unforeseen developments, you are responsible for that book. On the basis of your judgment, your house has made a commitment and ultimately its imprint appears on the book. The public has the right to expect that the publisher (and that means, effectively, you) has published a book after reasonable deliberation, with judgment and care that match the advertising claims and promotional sizzle. This does not mean you or your house
approves
of the book; it means only that you and your house have behaved in a responsible way. There is no
NIHIL OBSTAT
or
IMPRIMATUR
stamped on the book by you or your house. Still, there is no absolute guarantee that a book won’t come back and bite you! Some will. That is what makes publishing and editing such a damnably interesting business.

…

No matter how “scientific” we try to make publishing, it is essentially a business of experiment. It needs passion and enthusiasm to drive it—and the strong reins of experience and prudence (yes, and more than a dash of humility) to keep it on the road. While our relationships with authors are formalized in written contracts, the heart of what we do takes place in phone calls and conversations, in the human friction of brief and hasty
interchanges. Clarity in communicating in such informal ways can stave off a lot of grief for author and editor. It is desirable to be clear and make sure you are understood—and that you understand. One’s colleagues in subsidiary rights are all too aware of this; every day over the phone they conduct paperback and book club auctions involving many thousands of dollars. The obligation to be truthful and accurate is what makes this possible.

This is not a question of moral delicacy; clarity and truthfulness make it possible to carry on a business that depends on mutual trust. If someone is caught lying in an auction, for example, that auctioneer will be badly damaged. Repetition leads to professional ruin. We don’t have the time to be dishonest; in most cases chicanery isn’t worth it. So let this pragmatic consideration rule your relations with authors. What you mistakenly conceal or withhold from them or their agents will, more often than not, come out sooner or later. As quick as any editor is to pass on good news, so must he or she be prompt and unreserved in conveying the bad news. You, the editor, are generally the author’s main conduit of information; you represent your house. But you are not quite a press secretary or cheerleader; you are the person who owes his first loyalty to the book. Once you’ve done your work with pencil and persuasion, you are the book’s chief advocate in the house. You steer it through production, launch—the whole process.

Yet authors have just one thing to think about; you have many things. All books are not equal—in quality or the way they are published. But the author wants to feel that he or she has your undivided commitment and attention. (The same might be said of what the author would like from the publicist or the advertising director or the jacket artist. But the editor is expected to give the best approximation of total and constant attention. While awake, anyway.) Much is made of the kind of hand-holding expected by authors. But my experience is that authors really depend on editors for one thing: the truth. Yes, you can sugarcoat it if you want, but sooner or later you have to come forth with it.

When someone in the house says, “Let’s not mention this or that to Author X,” your initial response should be to ask if it is really necessary to keep this back. What will it really accomplish? Publishers, editors, and spies have two things (at least) in common; they love to gossip and they love to keep secrets. But publishing is a business of so much detail that it is hard to keep much buried forever. Misinformation (a polite term for lies) does so much harm to publishers that it just isn’t worth it. Sometimes we hold things back for good reason; maybe the situation is complicated and we don’t have all the facts. But more often than not we are reluctant to tell an author or an agent something he or she has a right to know because we mistakenly think it will cause us problems if we do divulge it. The real motive behind it all, truthfully, is that we fear our case is a bit shaky or that
we have something to hide. If you have screwed up, the first thing to do is admit it. If the author wants to know what the first printing is, tell him. If the author wants to know why there weren’t any books in the stores in San Francisco when your house sent her there on tour, find out why and explain it. In the process you will educate the author in your realities, the way your business works. It is, in fact, the author’s business too. We are locked in a symbiotic relationship; trust and full disclosure are necessities, not luxuries, and they go far in building an enduring, productive, and creative relationship between editors and authors.