Orphaned

It is not that unusu­al in the world of pub­lish­ing for a book to become what is called, “orphaned.” What is meant by this is that the orig­i­nal con­tract­ing edi­tor stops work­ing on the book before it is done. There can be many rea­sons. The orig­i­nal edi­tor moves to anoth­er pub­lish­ing house. The orig­i­nal edi­tor retires from pub­lish­ing. The orig­i­nal edi­tor becomes ill. There is a mas­sive shake-up in the orig­i­nal pub­lish­ing house. There is an irrec­on­cil­able dis­pute between writer and edi­tor. Even, it has hap­pened, the orig­i­nal edi­tor just gives up on the book for what­ev­er pri­vate reasons.

My very first book, Things that Some­times Hap­pen (1970) had three edi­tors. (Four if you count the revised reis­sue) The first (con­tract­ing) edi­tor sud­den­ly retired from pub­lish­ing. The second—assigned editor—went off to a dif­fer­ent pub­lish­ing house. Then there was the third—I don’t think I ever even talked to her.

That said, a change of edi­tors mid-stream, so to speak, is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a bad thing.

I have been in sit­u­a­tions in which the change has been for the better.

Nonethe­less, to shift from one edi­tor to anoth­er can be a big jolt for the writer.

Some­times the new edi­tor has been assigned and does not have a par­tic­u­lar affin­i­ty for the con­tract­ed book. Or the new edi­tor sees the book in a new light, and requests big changes. I’ve been in sit­u­a­tions in which the orig­i­nal edi­tor says, “Done!” only to have the pub­lish­er say, “Wait a minute. We need to look at this anew. Here’s your new editor.”

Of course the read­er will know noth­ing of this, nor need they. The hard truth is that the people—writer, edi­tor, even publisher—do mat­ter, but in ways the read­er need not know. The read­er wants a good book and what­ev­er it takes to make it good is what every­one is try­ing to deliv­er. An orphaned book finds a par­ent in the sat­is­fied reader.