Re: Re: RWA's latest

At 9:17 PM -0400 3/21/08, you wrote:
>> Personally, I don't think this definition is fine-grained enough.
>> There are many things (generally associated with the creation and
>> editing of the manuscript) that author's pay for. In the case of non-
>> fiction books, almost every trade contract I've seen requires the
>> author to provide the index for the book, and says that the
>> publisher will charge the author for the index if the author does not.
>
>The two that I've seen (my own from Wiley) don't, I don't pay for my
>own indexing. I'm not sure that it's as standard as you think. IN
>fact, I have never seen a contract that requires an author to pay for
>indexing. Granted, that means naught, but still different people may
>have far different experiences than you do. Also, it may vary highly
>from genre to genre. Academics may be expected to provide their own
>indexes while trade books may not.


Actually, I think your experience is probably the outlier. Wiley is more of a textbook publisher than a trade publisher (although they certainly do publish trade books also).

To me this makes sense. The textbook and academic markets value indexes more than trade markets (in general), so I believe those publishers are more likely to absorb the costs of indexing in order to have more control over its quality (IMO, author-provided indexes are too often not very good -- because authors don't always know how to index.)


My experience was with Bantam, Doubleday Dell (now part of Random House), and with Henry Holt & Co (part of the group that includes St. Martins Press and Farrar, Strauss & Giroux). These are ALL trade-heavy publishers, with no academic or textbook publishing to speak of. (Henry Holt is sometimes confused with Holt, Rinehart & Winston, a textbook publisher -- they aren't the same).

I do agree that these things vary from genre to genre, but that is part of my point -- "I don't think this definition is fine-grained enough." is what I said.


><snip>



>> My point is that in the case of editing, there is an assumption in
>> most contracts and by most publishers that the quality of the
>> manuscript will meet a minimum level before it is "acceptable." The
>> author must either submit a manuscript at that level, or pay someone
>> (usually NOT the publisher) to get it to that level.
>>
>> So, I believe that editing is a bit more fuzzy than the production
>> or publishing areas.
>
>But it's not the publisher charging the writer for editing. It's the
>publisher saying, "go get an editor." In the case of many/most non-
>fiction books sold on proposal, you work with a developmental editor
>AS you write the book and the publisher pays. If you manage to finish
>the book, it's pretty much assumed that it comes out acceptable. Would
>I pay my own developmental editor? Hell no. They don't pay me enough
>for that.
>
>dej
>


You are correct that large publishers generally tell authors to go out and get it done, possibly suggesting editors or services they could use. I agree that its not the same as charging the author for doing the editing inhouse.

My point was that the definition wasn't detailed enough, NOT that it was entirely wrong. As an overall concept I agree that a publisher doesn't charge the author for doing the editing. BUT, I think there are certain cases where a blanket prohibition on charging the author for any preparation of the manuscript is too rigid.

And in the case we've been discussing, that seems to be what has happened. The RWA has rigidly applied a rule prohibiting any cost to the author, but many publishers (but not all) have clauses like this that limit the publisher's exposure when what the author provides isn't up to snuff.

Kent


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