A PROPOS

I am a technological idiot so if this link does not work forgive me. Galley Cat published the top 20 apps for books and here's the link.

Honestly I have no idea why people use apps. For starters, how do they see the screen? I suppose that's the point--I'm a dinosaur, quickly eating up all the vegetation because I am huge and unsustainable.

Happy Holiday

Who Will Pay for the Cheese Sandwiches?

Hilarious, charming, with an edge of perception. How many people can couple childlike drawn images of dead pantaloon-clad authors, blood-dripping knives, and a puffy-topped "publishing pie" with references to Elvis's shoelace, cheese sandwiches, and "the anchovies are restless"--and make a serious point about publishing, books, writing, and the future of it all--and what it means for authors, traditionally published and self-published alike? Only Margaret Atwood, in her talk "The Publishing Pie: An Author's View" at last week's O'Reilly TOC Conference/Tools of Change for Publishing.

What Books Are You Giving This Year?

With holidays upon us, I was reminded that a literary agent friend once told me that every few years, he makes it a "books-only" Christmas. Even while writing this I feel the excitement of browsing a favorite bookstore (online or bricks-and-mortar--or even LinkedIn's program where people share what they're reading), trying to match a lusciously tempting book with the recipient most likely to relish it. What fun! For all the brouhaha over the fate of book publishing and of books themselves, I think there's still no argument that books in all their forms (physical, electronic, enhanced e-book, and audiobook) remain among the best values for the money spent. I'm perpetually late with my shopping, but the start I've made is, so far, books-only. If you're buying books as gifts this year, what are you choosing, and why?

Keeping Things on the Straight and Narrow

This morning I was editing a manuscript for a book intended to be both practical and inspirational. The chapter I was working on focused on having spiritual belief. And I found myself in conversation (electronically, via Track Changes Comments) with the author, feeling unconvinced by the author’s discussion and asking questions readers might ask in order to “go there” with her.

That got me thinking about the editor’s role, which I believe is to reflect the reader’s unfolding experience to the author. The author is the expert on his or her world, but that very expertise can cause a blind spot about the reader’s world. The editor’s job is to align the worlds of author and reader so they can enter each other’s experiences. When things work as they should, both are enriched: most authors who are well edited say that the process not only improved their book, but also deepened their understanding of their subject, and satisfied readers extol the rewards of reading well-written books.

That philosophy of “being the reader” keeps me on the editorial straight and narrow: if an edit falls under the rubric of my personal preference (“I don’t agree with this,” or “here’s how I would write it,”) I consider it an invalid edit. If it falls under the rubric of reflecting the reader’s experience (“I’m confused by this statement because it contradicts the one just above,” or “I don’t understand the leap of logic between this paragraph and the next one,” or “I think there’s a risk of losing the skeptic in this section; here’s where the thread of logic seemed to disappear,” or “This is the first time we’ve seen this term. What does it mean?"), then it’s valid and worthy of the author’s consideration. It’s an approach that keeps the ego out of things and puts both the author and me squarely where we should be: in the service of the subject and the reader.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Toni Sciarra Poynter