The Editorial Letter

You send your man­u­script to your edi­tor. You may get a rejec­tion letter—I’ve had my share over the years—but, even when your work is accept­ed, you will get “an edi­to­r­i­al let­ter.” These edi­to­r­i­al let­ters lay out the things the writer needs to do to move for­ward. I have even had such let­ters explic­it­ly say “If you agree with this, we can go for­ward and pub­lish this book. If not .….”

Over the years I have worked with many edi­tors, so (no choice) I might even be called an expert on edi­to­r­i­al let­ters. That said, in all my years of publishing—and many books—only once did the accept­ing edi­tor tell me he was send­ing my book (S.O.R. Losers) right to copy-edit­ing. I object­ed, feel­ing there was work to do.

An edi­to­r­i­al let­ter will lay out the edi­tor’s views as to what needs to be done to the book to make it pub­lish­able. I know of one edi­tor (a very suc­cess­ful one) who, none the less, elic­its from one of that edi­tor’s writer’s “The scream.” See adja­cent image. (Edvard Munch scream)

On the oth­er hand I have in hand an edi­to­r­i­al let­ter sent to me (some time ago) which is four pages (sin­gle spaced) of com­men­tary, which was insight­ful, clear, use­ful, and put to valu­able use. It made me want to go back to the book and revise, and I did so, successfully.

Let it be quick­ly said, one writer’s edi­tor’s painful edi­to­r­i­al style is anoth­er writer’s lucid cri­tique. Unless you are writ­ing the same kind of book over and over again, a giv­en edi­tor may not even be the right match for every book you write.

Peo­ple and edi­tors may dif­fer about this, but I think the role of the edi­tor is to help the writer cre­ate the kind of book the writer is try­ing to write. Prob­lems occur‑I think–when the edi­tor tries to bend the writer to the book the edi­tor wants writ­ten. Indeed, the edi­tor needs to be clear. The writer needs to be responsive.

Still, as it not often acknowl­edged enough, the writer-edi­to­r­i­al con­nec­tion is a deeply col­lab­o­ra­tive process. One of my favorite (and pro­duc­tive) parts of the pub­lish­ing process are the dis­cus­sions I have with a smart edi­tor. It almost inevitably leads to a bet­ter, rich­er book.

Some­times, it’s not nec­es­sary to do every­thing the edi­to­r­i­al let­ter sug­gests. By work­ing on sec­tion A, it just might make sec­tion B bet­ter, more log­i­cal, etc. On the oth­er hand, when work­ing on sec­tion C, it can shift things so, you wish to, need to, change sec­tions, D, E and F, going far beyond what that edi­to­r­i­al let­ter suggested.

If all of this advo­cates that the sub­mis­sion and accep­tance of a book, is only part of the process, I have made my point. That edi­to­r­i­al let­ter can be a road map to a good book. Think of it as a bud­dy movie. Trav­el well.