Communication: the axis on which the editor/​client relationship spins

I’ve been struck in a couple of conversations with editors, recently, how well some communicate with their authors, and how some seem to shy away, worried that it will somehow make them seem less experienced.

There were worries about how frequently you ‘should’ or even could ask questions, how it would look if you had to send a second email with a question you’d forgotten, what happens if you miss a query when you’re compiling your list and end up with a query called 17a: in sum, how you’d be judged.

Editors (and, I daresay, other folks) are convinced that if you see their legs paddling furiously away instead of just the beautiful gliding swan, you’ll assume they are unprofessional, inefficient and even ineffective. Mind you, not getting the information they need from you is even more unprofessional, inefficient and ineffective. Which would you rather have?

And that showed me that the editors who struggle are thinking more about themselves and how they come across, and less about how the author feels. I’ve always recommended putting yourself in your client’s shoes and using your imagination to think about what they want from you, and then providing it.

That’s an important lesson for all editors to learn.

In this post I’m going to talk about how I interact with authors when the publisher is my client, but I have direct contact with the author to resolve queries. In this case, I have at least two people to communicate with – the project manager at the publisher, and the author(s).

Beginning the relationships

1        Communicating with the publisher client

For me, customer care starts with my very first contact. Once I’m assigned a book, I take a good look at the files and the publisher’s brief.

If there are any questions arising from the brief, I jot them down in a draft email (pro tip: don’t fill in the To box on the email until you’re ready to send, then it won’t go off by mistake). I compare the brief to the book’s files where particular points have been mentioned. I look for gaps and inconsistencies in the brief both within that document and in that comparison with the files I’m going to be working on, and I think about whether the deadline is achievable.

When I’m happy I’ve got all my questions lined up, I refine the email and send it off.

Depending on what the issues are, I may decide it’s best to wait until the publisher’s (the client’s) answers come back, or I may be in good shape to introduce myself to the author(s).

2        Communicating with the author(s)

Before I do introduce myself to the author(s), though, I work out my rough timetable for when things have to be done in order to meet the deadline I’ve been set, or have now renegotiated, when the queries will start going out (assuming there are any. I say that to be polite – I’ve edited books that have required anything from 4 to in excess of 300 queries; never yet have I met a book that didn’t generate a single one) and when I have to have all the answers by.

Guided by the publisher’s brief, I work out if any style changes might come as a surprise to the author. Perhaps they’ve written with ‑ise spellings, but the brief stipulates ‑ize; perhaps they’ve numbered figures from 1 straight through to the end, but the publisher says they’re to be numbered by chapter; maybe the author has used footnotes, but I’m going to group them by chapter at the end of the book. You get the idea.

Then I write my introductory email to the author(s).

I’ve already started managing the author’s (I’m going to go with the singular for the rest of this piece) expectations. They know what I’m going to be doing; they’re invited to discuss the timetable if it poses difficulties; they’re alerted to any swingeing changes to style they will encounter when they come to check the proofs; they’re alerted to the publisher’s instructions and are given the opportunity to speak up if that raises any problems.

More than once I’ve discovered that what an author has agreed with the commissioning editor about departures from house style hasn’t been relayed to the production team who write the copyeditor’s brief. Giving early notice to the author allows problems like this to be dealt with before I’ve got started on the edit.

Oops!

Now, suppose I realise moments after I hit Send on that email that I missed off an important bit – perhaps a question I had for the author that will have an impact across the book. Should I sit on my hands from embarrassment, and not wanting to show myself as inefficient?

No! I send a second email quite happily, apologising of course, but saying cheerily that I knew there was something I’d forgotten to mention.

The same applies to my communications with the publisher. It’s not the kind of goof I’d want to make often, and certainly not get a name for doing! But I am just one of billions of people this has happened to; I’d bet my bottom dollar that the recipient has done it themselves.

What matters is getting the information I need, or the agreements I need, in order to do a good job of the edit.

So many problems and complaints can be avoided by having open communication and establishing a collaborative relationship.

Continuing the relationship

My usual approach with authors is to send queries on each chapter as it’s complete. For contributed volumes, that means the volume editor can send off discrete queries to each contributor.

For monographs and co-authored books, it spreads the work across the edit and doesn’t dump a book’s-worth of queries on the author at what may be a difficult time (most of my authors are academics who have exams to set and to mark, a gazillion meetings to go to, conferences to attend, teaching to do and research trips to make). It’s far less daunting to get a few queries at a time and feel that progress is being made.

I wrote about my process for raising queries a while back.

From my point of view, it means that queries answered now may pre-empt queries later in the book. A missing reference provided now means it’s not missing when it’s cited again five chapters later. It also reduces the risk to the schedule by getting queries answered as soon as possible. If the author becomes ill, or has a catastrophe at work that completely ties them up, we’ve got some of the queries answered already.

Answering queries as we go keeps the relationship with the author going, and enables a little chat to develop – chat that, more than once, has led to a better book, another job or a lovely testimonial.

If the author feels they can talk to me, that’s so much nicer than having some remote editor butchering their book, for all they know, and although I’m no fan of authors tweaking their book after it’s been submitted, it does mean that if they do spot a blooper that would have passed me by, they have frequent opportunities to say, oh, by the way, can you change note 216 to say this other thing when you get to it, please?

Continuing communication also means that I can send a list of outstanding queries lists – especially helpful for contributed volumes, when the volume editor is juggling everything – and check that we agree, without it seeming severe. Comparing our lists of outstanding work sometimes produces a set of answers that were completed, but simply not sent to me, and reduces the chance of accidents.

Handover time

1        Handing back to the publisher

When the edit is all complete, it’s time to hand things back to the publisher to go for typesetting.

I usually zip all the files together with everything the publisher will need – the edited text files, running heads, style notes, word list, edited artwork and all the answered query lists at a minimum. Depending on the job, there may be a tags list or a Word styles list, too.

My email lists what’s in the Zip file, and I mention any particular issues that I think they should be aware of, even though they’re already covered in the style notes. I want to be sure they know!

With some clients, I know to include a note of when I’m next available to take a book on for them.

2        Handover for the author

Once the job is complete and the files have gone back for typesetting, I send the author a final email, letting them know that we’re all done. I also enclose two files to help them when it comes to checking the proofs – the word list and my style notes. I explain what they cover and say to share them with any other contributors who will be checking proofs.

They’re not surprised to receive these, as towards the end of the edit I’ve told them what to expect for the next bit, and who will be their contact after I’ve bowed out. I do like to keep the author in the loop. It’s their book, after all. They’re probably quite interested in what’s happening to it!

I close the email by explaining that my involvement in the project is now at an end – although it’s clear I’m freelance from my very first email, not every author actually notices (or remembers, at any rate).

If at any point during the edit the author has said something lovely that I think would make a good testimonial, I’ll ask if I can use it on my website and in my Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading directory entry and provide links so they can see the kind of company they’ll be keeping; I also draft how it would look, including their affiliation, and invite them to approve or amend.

Lessons for editors

As you’ll have seen, I think open and free two-way communication is essential to a good edit and to good working relationships. Editing for an incommunicative author is a bit miserable, and can make it hard to get the information and the answers needed.

But we must remember that our authors are busy people, and therefore efficient communication will be most welcome to them.

Therefore I strongly recommend that editors should:

• group questions, and certainly not fire off individual questions as and when they occur to you;
• keep a log of the status of queries – when they were sent (and to whom, if necessary), when they came back, when the answers were incorporated into the text, that the style notes have been updated (and think – do you need to add something to your checklist for the job?);
• keep a log of any queries that have had to go back for further discussion;
• use that log to ensure that all queries are received;
• not be shy about nudging authors and publishers if answers aren’t forthcoming; and
• never be too embarrassed to ask an essential question, even if it means an extra email after you’ve sent off the main group.