There’s been some interesting discussion over the past week on bad writing, namely whose fault is it and what can be done to stop it from “dirtying” the entire ebook industry. And it is true, a badly written book makes a multitude of people look bad and certainly doesn’t do any favors for the industry. However, I remember being at a sf convention and seeing postcards advertising some new “alien erotica” novel coming out from a big NY publisher. The blurb sounded bad enough, but when I found a copy of the book in the dealer’s room…well…let’s just say that some of the recent reviews or twittering that’s been going on this week had nothing on this baby. It was Brain-o on aisle nine, and I threw up a little in my mouth, horrible. So first off, let’s just say that bad writing isn’t just something one sees in ebooks.

While a badly written book is never a happy occurrence, it should not dirty the entire ebook industry. I mean, come on. I’m not a math girl, but if each of the big publishers are putting out four (or more) books a week, and other smaller publishers put out that many, or less. Then you add in publishers that aren’t in the romance genre, it quickly comes to light that one book is merely a speck in the bucket. It’s not even big enough for a drop. So a well-educated and informed reader should not use a big brush to tar the entire industry for one bad book.

In fact, and I’ll admit it pains me a bit to say this, one shouldn’t tar an entire publisher for one bad book. There is not a magic number that could be construed as a “representative sample.” And as consumers, we each have our own saturation point for bad customer service. Plus it depends on what is perceived as bad products. Having a dirty bathroom may not stop someone from patronizing a gas station. Finding a bloody finger in one of their sub sandwiches, probably would. One person’s dropped piece of toilet paper is another person’s health code violation.

A pattern, however, may lead a consumer to take appropriate action. And as a publisher and an author, my tolerance for a badly edited book may be far less than someone who is just reading for enjoyment. Unlike baseball and certain criminal offenses, there is not a “three strikes and you’re out” rule. Which may be a good thing.

That said, someone has to take responsibility and the buck needs a desk to land on. And really, since any given book at any given reputable publisher should pass through several different hands on its way to release day, there are several desks on which the buck can land.

First desk – the author. Every author is at a different place in his/her career. Some authors have the most wonderful and honest critique groups. The kind that can tell you the story sucks, give you the reasons why, and chase you back the computer to create revisions that blow their socks off. Others have a few friends. Some don’t have anyone. My personal opinion on this aside, given the internet, and the ways in which we all communicate, an author submits the best manuscript she, or he, can at that given moment in time. If the editor accepts it, the author has a responsibility to learn and grow and complete those revisions that knock the editor’s socks off.

Second desk – the submissions reader. This may, or may not, be the same person as the editor. However this person needs to know where a good story may be badly executed, or where the author may simply need more work on craft. And, if the reader enjoyed the story, thought it held merit, but was badly executed, or the author needed a lot of work, then this needed to be communicated to whoever sends out the approval letters (and if someone else is going to edit, this damn well better be discussed with the actual editor) and the author.

Third desk – the editor. First, the editor has to be competent enough to recognize the weakness in the writing and inform the author of it in a way that will allow the author to learn and to fix it. Secondly, the editor needs to know when changes aren’t being made and either confront the author on the issue or pull the escape clause on a non-compliant author and release them from their contract. Third, the editor needs to know when s/he is in over his/her head and seek a second opinion. No matter the state of the initial manuscript, if a badly edited book makes it to market, the editor either didn’t, or couldn’t, do his/her job.

Fourth desk – the line editor. This is the person who provides the fresh pair of eyes to read a manuscript. Mostly this person looks for grammatical errors, words that may not have been caught by the spell check, or even mention questions or consistency issues. Because if the line editor has questions about the world building or motivation, there’s a good chance readers will too. The line editor is worth his/her weight in gold if s/he is a good one, and is the last line of defense before a book goes out.

Fifth desk – the managing editor/publisher owner. This is the person who imbued the previous three people with their authority. If they are not capable of doing their job well, then this person made a hiring error. For the more prolific houses, there may not be any way for this individual to read every single published book. But really, if a publisher is putting out crappy work, this person will ultimately be where the buck stops, because this person most likely made the hiring decision. (I know one publisher that made authors turn in synopsis with their contracts, presumably because so many bad books escaped. Which is just an example of the steps that can be taken in-house to keep things from happening.)

That buck can now be broken up into five neat, twenty cent, increments. Or can it? The truth is, while it is very easy to feel sorry for authors who may not have been ready for publication taken on by houses who do not do the development of their authors that they should, one should not lay all the sympathy there and all the blame at the publisher. It takes a village to raise a child. It takes just as many individuals to put out a book. And at any time, any one of these people, should have spoken up and said “wait.” Because the truth is, everyone involved in the process of writing has a responsibility. If just one person doesn’t live up to that responsibility, well…we’ve seen what can happen.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 2:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.