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What comes next

Editorial LetterIf a book you have writ­ten is accept­ed by an edi­tor, more often than not you will get what is known in the trade as an “Edi­to­r­i­al let­ter.” I doubt very much if any­one has for­mu­lat­ed how these let­ters should be com­posed, but over the years, con­sid­er­ing the many such let­ters I have received, they fol­low an almost stan­dard­ized form. 

Aside from a kind wel­com­ing greet­ing, and a restate­ment that the edi­tor is pleased to be pub­lish­ing your book, the let­ter will start by review­ing the pos­i­tive aspects of what you have writ­ten. This is grat­i­fy­ing, because it sug­gests you have been suc­cess­ful in vital ways. After all, your book has been accept­ed for pub­li­ca­tion. There is noth­ing wrong with accept­ing the praise. Indeed, it is impor­tant you do, because of what comes next. 

Because what comes next is an out­line of your book’s weak­ness, and ways it can be improved. 

These points  and how they are presented—are the key to the writer/editor rela­tion­ship. Even when these points are offered as “sug­ges­tions,” they are often more than that, which is to say you must give these ideas your absolute attention. 

Yes, it is the editor’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to under­stand what you have tried to do, and there is an equal respon­si­bil­i­ty to present these sug­ges­tions in clear, under­stand­able fash­ion. (An edi­tor once said to me “Just rewrite the book.” Not help­ful.) Nev­er­the­less, you must accept the basic premise of the editor’s let­ter that she/he is try­ing to help you write a bet­ter book. 

My own approach is always to try to do what the edi­tor sug­gests. My expe­ri­ence is that most times, they are right, and you will get a bet­ter book when you imple­ment these ideas. 

When in doubt reread the letter’s first paragraph—enjoy it—and then get on with the work of revisions.

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