Sunday, December 22, 2013

Random Work Quote of an Emphatic Nature

Lately, the things I've been working on haven't really had comically bad quotes in them.

There have been moments where they were bad enough that it was comical, but there wasn't anything that was specific that I could pull out.

And there have been plenty of times when the manuscripts have just been so bad that I was fighting back tears or anger while working on them - but I wasn't laughing.

So I've been taking pleasure in the random messages sent in by clients.

I fully admit that the people we work with are passionate people. They've put a lot of time, money, and heart into what they've produced - for better or worse - and many of them obviously feel that now that the manuscript has been sent to an editor they are done. They simply don't realize that there are brand new pieces of work that are just now beginning.

There is the editing - the part I'm most involved in - and the interior design, and the cover design, and the marketing, the website, and - fingers crossed - sales, distribution, and maybe even income and taxes to deal with. And the company I work for can help out at every step along the way.

Which brings me to today's random quote. The standalone message in the message center was the following: "I DO NOT WANT ANY OF THE SUGGESTED WORDS."

First glance made those of us in editing a little worried, because we thought the author might have been actively rejecting the entire edit.

But then we realized that the author was simply emphatically rejecting the marketing copy written for the back cover of the book which had been written for him.

In case you're wondering, no, he didn't say why. He just gave that one line. And, you know, that's his option. We'll see, in a few months, whether it was a good choice.

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