Saturday, July 28, 2007
Editing blogs
Every once in a while an editor at a real live publishing house starts up a blog, and within DAYS every aspiring writer on the Internet is hanging out and commenting, clearly hoping that the editor will take note of the writer's sparkling wit, incisive critical thinking skills, and delightful prose and propose a working relationship. It always takes me a while to find these blogs, because I don't usually hang out at the writing blogs (except occasionally during November, when I do NaNoWriMo).
What I've noticed is that they tend to start out being all nicey-nicey and "ooh, I really LOVE to read everything you lovely talented people write" and end up being all snarky and "look at the RIDICULOUS thing some IDIOT sent me today. Publishable? AS IF!" Such is the case with one I've been following for a while now. I'm not going to link to it, but I will say this: in any field, it is extremely unprofessional and also just plain old bad form to a) publish the personal correspondence that clients send you; b) make fun, especially in a mean, snarky way, of people who ask you questions in a professional capacity, regardless of whether their question could have been answered with a Google search or not; and c) publicly analyze the work of people who did not specifically give you permission to do so.
What I think is really interesting about this is that I also read several blogs by professional copy editors, and they are unfailingly sensible and good-humored, with none of the I'm-smarter-than-you-so-there snark of the acquisition editors' blogs. I have to wonder: is there a fundamental difference in temperament between copy editors and acquisition editors? I don't know, having missed my calling and never worked in the traditional settings these folks seem to be in (newspapers for the copy editors, publishing houses for the acquisition editors). But it occurs to me that it might be like the difference between catalogers and reference librarians, introverts and extroverts, public interest reporters and sports reporters. Just a thought.
What I've noticed is that they tend to start out being all nicey-nicey and "ooh, I really LOVE to read everything you lovely talented people write" and end up being all snarky and "look at the RIDICULOUS thing some IDIOT sent me today. Publishable? AS IF!" Such is the case with one I've been following for a while now. I'm not going to link to it, but I will say this: in any field, it is extremely unprofessional and also just plain old bad form to a) publish the personal correspondence that clients send you; b) make fun, especially in a mean, snarky way, of people who ask you questions in a professional capacity, regardless of whether their question could have been answered with a Google search or not; and c) publicly analyze the work of people who did not specifically give you permission to do so.
What I think is really interesting about this is that I also read several blogs by professional copy editors, and they are unfailingly sensible and good-humored, with none of the I'm-smarter-than-you-so-there snark of the acquisition editors' blogs. I have to wonder: is there a fundamental difference in temperament between copy editors and acquisition editors? I don't know, having missed my calling and never worked in the traditional settings these folks seem to be in (newspapers for the copy editors, publishing houses for the acquisition editors). But it occurs to me that it might be like the difference between catalogers and reference librarians, introverts and extroverts, public interest reporters and sports reporters. Just a thought.
permalink posted by The Vintage Reader @ 10:47 PM 
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