What Is Book Editing?
Book editing is the process of preparing the
text for presentation to its target audience. The process
involves correction of errors, condensing the text into more
precise and simplified language, organizing the text for more
clarification, and sometimes modifying the actual content of
the book to different topics.
The person or group of people who edit the
book are called editors. There are different levels of
book editing in the publishing world. There are junior
editors, who are usually newcomers to the field, and the ranks
go all the way up to senior editors and directors. The
senior executive editors make the final decisions before the
book is released, but there usually is a hierarchy of editors,
especially with larger publishing companies.
Human editors are involved in a wide variety
of media editing today including newspaper editing, anthology
organization, magazines, scholarly books, ghostwriting, layout
editing, and copyediting. Usually smaller
publications do not have an editor for each role and sometimes
the editing jobs will overlap. The larger the publication
the more specialized the editor’s role will usually be.
The executive editor is the person who makes the final editing
decisions. This person takes responsibility for the
content of the publication that is seen by public eyes.
Thus, this person is the one who usually takes the blame for
content that is inflammatory or controversial. Another
role of the executive editor is as a team leader. They
are required to motivate the publishing staff and develop them
into better editors and writers. The executive editor
maintains and implements the production budget. They are
also involved in strategic planning of the publication.
The editors of books come in three
types. The acquisitions editor is the person responsible
for creating the contract with the author. The production
editor is the one who manages the creation of the book from its
draft all the way to the finish, and also is the person
involved in budgeting for the book. The copyeditor is the
one responsible for editing the actual text of the book so that
it is ready for public consumption.
Executive book editors have a tough task of
reviewing an author’s work and sometimes having to draw the
line when it comes to freedom of expression. If the book
editor releases material that is inflammatory or publicly
denounced, they will often take the blame and often lose their
job or position as a result. A recent example of a
controversial editing dilemma was when O.J. Simpson was
releasing his book entitled, If I Did It, Here’s
How. The executive editor of Regan Books was fired
immediately after a public outcry of the controversial
content. This is the kind of risk that an executive
editor must undertake when releasing content to the public.