Editors – the unsung heroes?

In response to an article in The Literary Platform* today I posed the question why they remained unsung, unknown and ‘unappreciated’ by the reading public?

For what it’s worth, here’s what I wrote: 
“Firstly, I agree with what most of you are saying here – but what are you actually doing about it?
Seeing that this article is being commented upon by editors, I would like, if I may, to throw in a thought or two as an outsider(from newspapers) who decided upon reflection to go his own way and set up a micro-publishing company to produce his own books (in the traditional, paper, sense – followed by epub/mobi and now iPad versions).
I have been incredibly frustrated in my search for developmental editors (this is, I believe, what you are discussing here) because you just do not “put yourselves about” as you might (part of the reason for which is precisely because traditional publishers keep you guys ‘under wraps’).
I touched on this in a letter to the agent, Peter Cox, in response to his article on ‘agents-as-publishers’ and I hope you might find it interesting:
“As an outsider I watch the publicised mega-deals which give no indication as to the median agent-struck deals with publishers. In the case of a non-mega deal what does the agent bring to the party? How does he/she justify his/her existence in a world where deals are struck with no advances to help the author live while penning his next book and where publishers do ‘increasingly’ less to push the book, once published?
In such a situation and disregarding e-books for a moment, I see a distinct opportunity for a new type of publishing concern – a developmental-content/copy-editing, proofreading and pre-production company working with authors to facilitate the production of their own work under the aegis of their own companies under one of the following agreements:
Prod Co contracted at straight flat-rate payment for work done for Author Co that pays the printing, shipment, and storage etc., costs. Author Co benefits by lowered print rates through Produce’s total printing volume.
For new or cash-strapped authors, Prod Co, after initial editorial viability vetting, enters an arrangement balanced between direct payment and royalties (i.e. in reverse of the current norm, with the possibility that some of these will achieve high volumes and continued income for the Prod Co).
Here the Author Co takes the 42.5-60% share of list price through wholesalers or bookshops direct for street sales or the equivalent through e-tailers.
[Basically this is what I have been doing these past two years, paying for runs between 1,000 and 3,000.]
As an outsider I would be only too pleased to have someone come along and say, “Hey, I’ll take all this load off your shoulders to let you get on with the task of creating,” but all I see from this side of the fence is seeming confusion and uncertainty fuelling panic and withdrawal of that real support, cultivating authors through time, that was, I am told, the hallmark of the great editors and agents of the past (before accountants took over the industry).”
If there are any talented (and I assume you are) developmental editors out there who are just a little curious about what I have achieved so far (on my own) and what I might achieve (with sensitive editorial guidance) I would be only too pleased to hear from you.
History. Ex-graphics editor of the Daily Telegraph (19 awards, incl. 5 British Press Awards).
Set up two businesses: firstly, illustrating for publishers, incl. Penguin Group, Osprey (military), Windmill (packager), Ivy, Aurum; for architects incl. Kit Martin (now Phoenix Trust advisor), John McAslan & Partners (world architect of year, 2010) and Norwich Theatre Royal renovation and expansion.
Secondly, set up own publ. co., Raven’s Quill Ltd., to publish own fiction. First, illustrated nonsense story of 176pp. has now sold over 8,000 in hardback at pounds 15 and second, gothic ghost tale has sold nearly 3,000 at pounds 10 as paperback with French flaps. Had small crisis with second in discovering our copy-editor left unedited the second when taking up ‘legit’ job resulting in more typos than even I might desire.
If permitted, I leave my email here: alan@ravensquill.com (website in limbo – under redevelopment to accommodate book-for-iPad transactional technology).”

 I invited any that read my response and were a tiny bit interested in what I am trying to do and exploring new adventures to be kind enough to contact me – with no result so far.


I wonder whether it was not because they are actually just a little too comfortable sheltering under the aegis of the big publishers about whom they moan. Dread thought – it couldn’t be, could it, that they hold my class of individual in such disdain they cannot be seen to be …?
[Perhaps, being a newspaper type, I am too ‘Sans’ – or ‘Grotesque’ – to their patrician eyes, for whom ‘Roman’ is the very antithesis of the concept of wandering in search of new conquests]

(advisor –v– adviser in English usage: perhaps an editor could advise?)


*http://www.theliteraryplatform.com/2012/02/follow-the-editor-a-recommendation-engine-for-readers/

THE HISTORY OF TITUS GROAN – BBC AUDIO DRAMA AWARDS – BEST ADAPTATION

Congratulations to Brian Sibley and all the cast and crew!


(ripped, still pulsing, from Brian Sibley – his blog): 
The citation for the Adaptation Award praised all aspects of the production:

The judges described this as "a brilliant piece of radio drama. It was a hugely ambitious undertaking to adapt the darkly comic, surreal and visual world of Mervyn Peake's novels for sound and this adaptation is faithful to both the spirit and the landscape of the originals.

The almost Dickensian characters (wonderfully realised by an outstanding cast), the exquisite language and a rich and original soundscape works for both Peake aficionados and new listeners."

And here’s a plug for the aforementioned auditory hallucination:

“All six hours of The History of Titus Groan can be downloaded here – and for just £7.86!”

“Publishers love affair with apps is over” – Forrester Research.

QUOTES: news from Digital Book World conference.

“Publishers need to look to how self-published authors price their e-books, improve the quality of their digital texts, and can no longer avoid selling direct to the consumer”
Shatzkin
“it is becoming harder and harder for publishers to avoid direct sales: customers are “the coin of the realm”

Forrester Reasearch: “Currently 25 million people in the US own an e-reader; 34 million have a tablet; and at least eight million homes have two tablets.  (me - 9 million more own a tablet than own an e-reader!!)

Yet McQuivey (Forrester above) pointed out that publishers' “love affair with apps is over": 51% surveyed said that the cost is too high and just 15% believe that apps represent a significant revenue opportunity.”

And from Guardian: “In record sales across nearly all product categories, Apple sold a record 15.43m iPads over the quarter, more than double a year ago. It sold 5.2m Macs during the quarter, a 26% unit increase.”

What do I take from this?

1. (Obviously) Vertical marketing more and more important. Building a direct publisher /reader feedback and participation interface (community of interest).

2. More tablets in US than e-readers – Apple’s growth phenomenal – others will follow this to compete (wide spectrum tablet devices rather than hard-core flat text e-readers, though these have a definite place for the hard-core reading community – pensioners!). Net-books are collapsing in the face of tablets.

3. Apple’s new textbook drive sold 350,00 in three days. [Suggestion. A special interest publisher (ie. weapons/war) who had a product ready right now might latch onto that feeding frenzy and find a whole new market for their not-strictly educational but fact-based product exploiting the curiosity of the young adult component of that buying group (ie. male students here) if the price is set at mouth-watering level. Who knows?]

4. (Carrying on from McQuivey’s second point, above) Publishers who, only seeing what is in front of their noses, give up on APPS as too expensive, are shutting eyes to the obvious – that others will devise open-source direct-to-market multi-media reading ‘pseudo-apps’ (based on ePub3 etc.) designed for easy access by publishers to compile without having to pay for high cost unique-to-device Apps (even Apple are here ahead of the game in tempting authors with the easy-enhancement-but-binding-to-Apple iAuthor). That the dedicated iPAD APP is only the start of the game. And yet they seem to be dismissing the whole phenomenon, leaving themselves wide open to tech-savvy games- film- and multi-media- enterprises to pull the rug from under them.

5. Reminds me (in a joking loose analogy) of a bunch of sheep (small publishers) in a field with a herd of cows (large publishers) looking across a road to a field of lush grass, saying “We professional cud-munchers are the experts in our field (curating grass).  All we gotta do (sheep) is sneak through this hedge which we can do because we’re small and nimble (we reassure each other) and can take advantage of small gaps opening up in the hedge, unlike our bovine brethren, and cross that there grey stuff and we’re made.” Off they go, catching a momentary flashing glimpse of light in the corners of their eyes as a combine harvester (novel industry) comes thundering down that road, pulverising them on its way into their field to cut their precious grass and process into novel products they never dreamed of.
(OK. Sheep not perfect, since they and cows get eaten, but if you take the wool-bearing and milk-producing aspect…)

See DBW article here… http://www.thebookseller.com/news/DBW%3A-%27publishers-should-learn-from-self-publishers-on-pricing%27.html

See Guardian on Apple piece here… http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/25/apple-annnounce-record-sales-iphones-ipads?newsfeed=true

That said, I’m not actually disagreeing with what this article says:
http://bookbrunch.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11831&Itemid=117

Since I am, above, making the (perhaps mistaken) assumption that most have not yet differentiated between the App (device-specific) and pseudo-app (open – ie Epub3 and beyond) multi-media modifications to the reading experience.
I am not taking aim at the adult fiction market in its present guise, trundling along quite nicely into simple epub.

Trending YA book news – after vampires… beasts of war.

Following the thundering successes of Warhorse (film) and Soldier Dog (book), it is reported publishers are to fight a three-corner battle for rights to the first in a bilogy of tales based on true stories of animals at war.


Cher Ami, the fast moving story of the plucky carrier-pigeon, in the only untold tale of the ‘Lost Battalion’, who won the Croix deGuerre with Palm. In October 1918, 194 American soldiers were trapped by Germans in the forest of Argonne, cut off behind the lines without a radio. Refusing to surrender, the trapped men fastened their co-ordinates to Cher Ami, who flew 25 miles in 25 minutes to American headquarters, despite being shot in the chest. The Americans launched a rescue mission and the soldiers were saved.

Second in this series of tales of animals in war is War Boar, the heartbreaking tale of a young Greek swineherd, Thura, and his boar, Kapros, who saved his city from certain destruction during the siege of Megara by Antigonus II Gonatas in 266BC.
Growing up together on the plains of the Isthmus of Corinth, Thura formed a unique bond with Kapros, the the one-eyed boar he saved from slaughter as a piglet. Retreating to the city as the siege got under way, Thura had his pet boar and herd of sows snatched by a group of desperate soldiers who poured pitch on them and set alight to them as they drove them out of the city gates towards the massed elephants of Antigonas’ army. The squealing of the flaming pigs terrified the elephants who ran amok, creating havoc among the troops and breaking up the siege, saving the city.

(Editor’s note: before readers write to complain they have a right to complain, it should be noted both stories are essentially true.)