Torquere. Again. Sigh.
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/09/22/guest-review-uneven-by-anah-crow/
Dear Author reviewed Anah Crow's novel. They gave it a good review, mostly.
But a couple of sentences have ignited a firestorm:
"Anah claims on her blog that she wrote Uneven in a few weeks. While you couldn’t tell that from the story, you can tell it from the copy-editing. There are a lot of dropped or extra words that can get distracting, which is a shame in such an engrossing book."
There are about 37 comments, most of which are talking about Torquere's editing.
Worse, this is not the first time such comments have turned up on reviews of Torquere books.
If I were a publisher and saw something like this, I would be ashamed. I'd be calling meetings and demanding to know how such stuff was escaping our house.
Instead, all the author list is saying "Well, My Editing Experience was wonderful and they're just big poopyheads." Lovely. Circle the wagons and break out the pompoms and yell, "No, no problem here!" (That's the catchphrase of the Cereal Professor from _Cujo_) The owners are saying, "We're working on it."
To be fair, I have seen signs of progress on that front, but the entrenched image is going to be hard to overcome.
****
At base, it's NOT "Your Editing Experience" that matters. It's the readers' perceptions that count. If they think TQ puts out badly-edited stuff, they're going to go elsewhere. Enough houses are putting out GLBT work that they can pick and choose now.
****
My suggestions:
1) The new pre-edit idea is a good one. However, there should be 2-3 editing passes: one for mechanics and one for content and one for clean up. Phaze, Dark Roast and Ellora's Cave all do it this way. Don't be afraid to ask for content changes or phrasing changes. I've seen evidence that this is occuring more, and I think it's a good thing.
2) The website has been a nightmare since 2004. You have to know what you're looking for to find it. The search engine is unreliable. At least change the prepackaged template to read "authors" not "Manufacturers."
When I needed a new website design, I looked around at other authors' sites. Torquere would do well to do the same, to check out sites where you can find books by title, author or genre.
Now, I'm off to work. Gonna be a long, late day. I'll deal with the fall out later.
Dear Author reviewed Anah Crow's novel. They gave it a good review, mostly.
But a couple of sentences have ignited a firestorm:
"Anah claims on her blog that she wrote Uneven in a few weeks. While you couldn’t tell that from the story, you can tell it from the copy-editing. There are a lot of dropped or extra words that can get distracting, which is a shame in such an engrossing book."
There are about 37 comments, most of which are talking about Torquere's editing.
Worse, this is not the first time such comments have turned up on reviews of Torquere books.
If I were a publisher and saw something like this, I would be ashamed. I'd be calling meetings and demanding to know how such stuff was escaping our house.
Instead, all the author list is saying "Well, My Editing Experience was wonderful and they're just big poopyheads." Lovely. Circle the wagons and break out the pompoms and yell, "No, no problem here!" (That's the catchphrase of the Cereal Professor from _Cujo_) The owners are saying, "We're working on it."
To be fair, I have seen signs of progress on that front, but the entrenched image is going to be hard to overcome.
****
At base, it's NOT "Your Editing Experience" that matters. It's the readers' perceptions that count. If they think TQ puts out badly-edited stuff, they're going to go elsewhere. Enough houses are putting out GLBT work that they can pick and choose now.
****
My suggestions:
1) The new pre-edit idea is a good one. However, there should be 2-3 editing passes: one for mechanics and one for content and one for clean up. Phaze, Dark Roast and Ellora's Cave all do it this way. Don't be afraid to ask for content changes or phrasing changes. I've seen evidence that this is occuring more, and I think it's a good thing.
2) The website has been a nightmare since 2004. You have to know what you're looking for to find it. The search engine is unreliable. At least change the prepackaged template to read "authors" not "Manufacturers."
When I needed a new website design, I looked around at other authors' sites. Torquere would do well to do the same, to check out sites where you can find books by title, author or genre.
Now, I'm off to work. Gonna be a long, late day. I'll deal with the fall out later.