Thinking Fiction: Protecting an Editor’s Rights — If Any

By Carolyn Haley

A subject that comes up from time to time in publishing circles is whether an editor has any copyright interest in an author’s manuscript — that is, the edited version of the manuscript. Some editors believe the edited version is unique to them and forms a new and different work, which can give them leverage in demanding payment from a recalcitrant party.

I first saw this tactic suggested as a last-ditch measure against publishers that don’t play fair — those that pay late or try not to pay at all. I’ve since seen editors adding language to the same effect in their contracts with independent authors, to protect themselves from clients who change their tune after the job is done and refuse to pay, or take way longer to pay than was agreed. As part of the language, the editor’s claim to having a copyright in the edited version becomes null and void upon receipt of full payment.

In my opinion, attempting to conflate copyright with payment is irrational and unprofessional, regardless of whether a given case is winnable in a court of law. My opinion comes from my combined position as an author, an editor, and a self-employed business entity.

How Copyright Works

Consider first that copyright applies to intellectual property. Per the U.S. Copyright Office, it pertains to “original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression.”

“Original” and “tangible” are the key terms, because ideas themselves are common and fluid, and expressed in myriad ways by myriad people, and have been so over centuries, if not millennia. Copyright law only protects an individual’s unique presentation of an idea, not an idea itself. (Nor are titles protected by copyright.) In addition (italics mine), “copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner.”

A work qualifies as derivative “if the changes are substantial and creative, something more than just editorial changes or minor changes. . . . For instance, simply making spelling corrections throughout a work does not warrant a new registration, but adding an additional chapter would.”

With those criteria in mind, how much does an editor have to change in a manuscript before it becomes a different enough “tangible medium of expression” to acquire uniqueness, and thus give the editor a copyright?

How Editing Works

Adjustments in punctuation, spelling, subtleties of phrasing, consistency — the tools of line editing and copy editing — all serve to clarify an author’s unique expression of their ideas, not change them. Perhaps developmental editing can get deep and gnarly enough to significantly change an author’s presentation, but does it change the book’s concept, audience, characters, or plot, or the author’s essential language and style?

If so, then the contract between author and editor should be about co-authorship, not editing.

The main thing to understand is that in an editing job, the author has the right to accept or reject the editor’s changes and suggestions. That gives the author ownership of the content by default. In some draconian contracts out there, an author may have signed away that right and must accept whatever a publisher’s editor or an independent editor does to the work — but in that situation, the author has made a regrettable mistake. In the absence of such contract terms, the agreement between author and editor generally is based on the editor helping improve the author’s work, not alter it.

Understanding Editing vs. Revising

Another argument against claiming copyright of the edited version of a work is the nebulous relationship between editing and revising. A manuscript is a work in progress until it’s locked into its published form and released. Until that point, starting with the first draft, most authors revise their work numerous times, and may have other parties, such as friends, family, colleagues, beta readers, editors, proofreaders, agents, and pre-publication reviewers — paid or unpaid — participate in the process. These helpers, individually and collectively, contribute to a version of the manuscript different from the one before, which is different from the one before, as often as needed to complete and polish the work.

Should each party in that revision cycle get a copyright interest in the work? Should the parties involved in the next cycle supersede them because a new, copyrightable version has been created?

What if the author desires to register their copyright after the first draft? Registration is not required for an author’s copyright to be valid, because copyright is automatically granted the moment a work is “fixed in a tangible medium of expression.” Registration is recommended to protect the author’s interests in the event of a legal challenge, but is not conditional for protection. Nonetheless, many authors register their copyrights because doing so makes them feel more secure. Imagine, then, what the paperwork and costs would be if they had to register every updated version of a work in progress, each one involving different people!

The whole idea is silly, because all editing occurs before a work is deemed complete. As such, it is subsumed into the overall development and revision process. Without a legal structure to define and support the many layers of building a publishable work, and the many people who might be involved, there is no basis for giving anyone but the author a copyright in the work.

The Alternative to Claiming Copyright

Having copyright-related language in editing contracts might be effective with publishing companies that employ accounting departments and lawyers, who fear legal action and can’t or won’t take the time to research the efficacy of defending copyright claims. Such language also might discourage individual authors from playing head games with independent editors.

More likely, the language would chase away independent authors of good will who are paying out of their own pockets for professional editing services, and who desire a personal, supportive, and honest relationship with their editors. Many writers have been coached by other writers or online gurus to fear that editors will steal, or drastically change, their work. Adding the threat of somebody claiming a copyright on their work will just reinforce their anxiety and give them a reason to look elsewhere — or go without editing at all.

In which case, an editor won’t have to worry about getting paid.

Getting paid does remain the bottom line. It can best be assured through transparency and a straightforward contract. My contract states: “Unless a co-authorship arrangement is made in writing, all royalties and monies gained from the sale of the book will be the sole property of the book’s copyright owner. Editor acknowledges no rights to the manuscript beyond the right to withhold delivery of the edited manuscript until final payment for work is received.”

In other words, the politically incorrect expression “no tickee, no shirtee” applies. I consider this a reasonable business position (i.e., I do the work, you pay me for it), and that claiming a copyright for something that isn’t mine is needlessly aggressive. It is also not trustworthy, owing to the copyright claim’s dubious enforceability and the specious element of “oh, that claim disappears as soon as you pay me.”

From an author’s standpoint, I wouldn’t hire an editor who would hang that kind of threat over me. My book is my book, and somebody who thinks they have the right to hijack it is somebody I wouldn’t deal with.

A Balanced Approach

Editing is — or should be — a cooperative profession, not an adversarial one. Editors stating plainly that they expect to be paid are declaring themselves professional businesspeople. Editors stating plainly that they are prepared to co-opt an author’s copyright are inviting trouble. Most publishers and indie authors will pay for services rendered. The minority who won’t pay are the reason that editors consider using the copyright-claiming ploy.

One way to avoid needing such a ploy is to require a deposit before commencing work. This usually isn’t an option for independent editors dealing with publishing companies, which state the terms that editors must take or leave. In such cases, editors need to weigh the pluses and minuses, negotiate the best they can, and be prepared to accommodate a loss should the project go awry.

When making deals with indie authors or amenable companies, however, editors should state their terms and stick to them. I have found that a signed agreement delivered with a 50 percent deposit demonstrates a client’s intention to pay. They go into the deal knowing that I will sit on the finished edit until they pay the balance, and if they don’t pay, they lose the work and have to start all over again.

In the event they don’t pay, I may have wasted time but not suffered a total loss. The less-than-expected final compensation might end up being a painful learning experience, but still, learning can’t be discounted. Meanwhile, I still have something in my pocket to show for the effort.

Nine times out of 10 (more accurately, 9.999 times out of 10), I end up with full payment on time, a happy client, an open relationship, and future work from the client or someone they refer. These benefits come from respecting authors’ work and position, and not messing with their heads. Better yet, their work goes to publication; and with luck and a good story, cleanly edited, they enjoy publishing success. I doubt I would have this track record if I made it a policy to step on their writerly toes.

How many of our readers have invoked copyright claims on edited work with authors who have not paid as promised and planned? Has it worked for you? What other techniques have you used to ensure being paid?

Carolyn Haley, an award-winning novelist, lives and breathes novels. Although specializing in fiction, she edits across the publishing spectrum — fiction and nonfiction, corporate and indie — and is the author of two novels and a nonfiction book. She has been editing professionally since 1997, and has had her own editorial services company, DocuMania, since 2005. She can be reached at dcma@vermontel.com or through her websites, DocuMania and New Ways to See the World. Carolyn also blogs at Adventures in Zone 3 and reviews at the New York Journal of Books, and has presented on editing fiction at the Communication Central conference.

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From the Archives: The Editor’s Interest: Copyright or Not

(The following essay was originally published on
An American Editor on March 1, 2011. The addendum
was added and published on August 30, 2017.)

A question that sometimes arises, usually when an editor has difficulty getting paid for his or her work, is: What can the editor do to collect payment? I’ve been a long-time advocate of the position that the editor has a copyright interest in the edited version of the manuscript, a card that the editor should play in payment disputes.

We need to step back a little. First, if you are an editor and have a written contract governing the relationship between you and the client, unless the contract specifically provides for your copyright interest, you don’t have one — your relationship is governed by the four corners of the written contract.

Second, the law is unsettled, not clear, or whatever other description you want (muddy, perhaps?) as regards an editor’s interest in the edited manuscript.

Third, the editor’s interest I advocate extends only to the edited version. The author and/or publisher have an unencumbered copyright interest in the original manuscript the editor received; it is only the editor’s edited version in which the editor has an interest — and that interest is wholly extinguished upon being paid in full (i.e., the check has cleared, not the check has been received).

As you can see, I am talking about a narrow interest, not the broader interest that an author has in the manuscript. This narrower interest can readily be extinguished in two ways: (1) payment for service in full or (2) wholesale rejection of the edited manuscript. Acceptance of even a single comma, or corrected spelling — that is, of any single edit — is, in my view sufficient to retain the editor’s interest.

Here is where opinions begin to scatter. I have been told by lawyers for one major publisher that I do not have such an interest. It was a great thrust to the heart by the publisher but, alas, it missed. If lawyers scare you, then this isn’t the position to take. But if you have some titanium backbone, the response is (and the one I made)

I am willing to find out in a court of law. Are you willing to take the chance that the court sides with me, because if you are and if you lose, you will make life exceedingly difficult for your publisher client. Isn’t it smarter to simply pay my bill?

The reality is that it is smarter to pay my bill and not hire me again. It is unlikely that what is owed me is such a large amount of money that the risk of losing in court is worth taking.

Of course, there are steps that should be taken when using this collection method. You should send both an e-mail and a certified-mail return-receipt letter to the client notifying the client of your interest and demanding that they either pay your invoice in full immediately (be sure to give a specific payment date) or

• not publish the edited manuscript;
• if they publish the manuscript, that they not sell any copies or distribute any copies;
• if they sell or distribute any copies, that they place 100% of all receipts in a trust fund pending outcome of litigation;
• and that they notify the author(s) in writing that you are claiming a copyright interest in the edited version of the manuscript because of the client’s failure to pay for your services, which payment would extinguish your copyright interest.

You’d be surprised at how much influence a screaming author can have, especially if the author liked your work! If you know how to contact the author, you should send a copy of the e-mail and letter directly to the author as well as to the publisher.

Alright, I admit we haven’t yet determined how valid the editor’s claimed copyright interest is, but I’m not sure it is possible to determine its validity in the absence of a major court’s definitive decision (lower court decisions have little precedential value, just witness the 5 decisions on Obamacare). Because it is an open question, I see no problem in making the claim. Personally, I see no problem in defending the claim, either.

A court decision adverse to a publisher and in favor of an editor on this could have significant ramifications for publishers. It would add pressure to pay on time because an editor could prevent release of the manuscript in its edited form. Of course, it could also encourage publishers to add editing to the list of items to be bypassed in the book production process, but doing so would remove one of the few remaining justifications for traditional publishing.

The most likely result would be the influx of contracts. Today, most publishers still work on the handshake basis; that is, they contact an editor and ask if the editor is available, tell the editor what is wanted, and send the manuscript for editing. Sometimes a purchase order is included. In return, the editor edits the manuscript, returns it with an invoice, and receives timely payment. Welcome to the world of 99% of publishers and editors.

The problem is the 1% with whom a handshake is like striking a bargain with the devil who has its fingers crossed behind its back. They promise payment in 30 days and then when the work is done tell you it will be 6 months. Or they tell you how much they love your work until the invoice arrives, at which point they tell you how bad your work is and want you to reduce the invoice. Or they tell you the manuscript is 250 pages and only requires a very light edit when the reality is it is a 400-page manuscript that requires a very heavy edit because the author’s English language skills are virtually nonexistent.

With the 99% of clients a contract or a handshake means the same thing and either will work. With these clients the issue of the editor’s copyright interest never arises. Even if they hate your work, they will pay your invoice on time and just not call again. Paying your invoice costs less than 2 hours of attorney time, so business sense dictates payment.

With the 1% of clients neither a contract nor a handshake has any meaning. It is with these clients that one must be prepared to use the complete arsenal available to collect for work done. Unfortunately, we often don’t discover that a client is part of the 1% until the work is done (perhaps a particularly good reason to bill and get paid in instalments), at which time the 1-percenter thinks we are over the barrel. It is with these clients that the copyright claim is most effective and should be invoked.

Do editors have a copyright interest in the edited version of the manuscript? Maybe, maybe not, but it is a weapon in the editor’s collection arsenal that should not be ignored.

[Addendum added August 30, 2017: If you have a contract with a client that specifically states that you retain a copyright interest until paid in full, that clause is enforceable under contract law — it is no longer a copyright question. Copyrights are transferable and saleable property. Recall that in olden days, by contract, authors assigned copyright to publishers or movie studios or record companies and it was the publisher, the movie studio, the record company that enforced copyright. The change — that is, the author keeping copyright — began in the late 1960s and became standard in the 1990s. However, authors are still free to assign copyright as they wish via contract.

The main essay above focuses on those instances where there is no contractual provision assigning copyright pending payment to the editor. Best practice is to include a clause in your written contract as there is no question about the enforceability of such a clause.]

Richard Adin, An American Editor

From the Archives: The Business of Editing: Noncompetition Agreements

(The following essay was originally published on
 An American Editor on January 29, 2014.)

As I have discussed in the past, I rarely am asked to sign a contract. Yet lately it seems that an increasing number of packagers are asking for contracts. The terms are one-sided and onerous, and in some cases want me to agree to be bound by the law of a country to which I have never been and with which I have no legal or cultural connection.

But there is one particular clause that I find to be especially irritating, and unlike sand in an oyster, does not produce a pearl. I am referring to noncompetition clauses.

I am a freelance editor. By definition it means that I have more than one client. If I have only one client, the IRS is likely to look askance at my claim to being a freelancer and call me an employee, something neither I nor my clients want. Consequently, I sometimes wonder if my clients are confusing noncompetition clauses with nondisclosure clauses, although they assure me they are not.

The illogic of the noncompetition agreement is that clients are unwilling to divulge their client list. How can I possibly know who I should not solicit as a client because of such an agreement if I do not know who the packager wants me to not solicit? The answer is, all too often, that the packager basically wants me to stay away from everyone who could possibly provide me with work except them — even though they are unwilling to commit to giving me more work than the current project.

More importantly, from their perspective, I would think, is the possibility that the IRS would ask why a freelance book editor, someone who is supposedly not an employee of the packager, be required to sign a noncompetition agreement when by the very nature of being a freelancer, I am in competition with the packager, at least to the limited extent of the limited number of services I provide. The normal situation is that an employee who is leaving the packager’s employ would be asked to sign a limited noncompetition agreement because it would be expected that the leaving employee is leaving with knowledge about the employer’s clients and business.

I have raised this issue several times with those who ask me to sign a noncompetition agreement. I have even suggested that we submit it to the IRS for an advisory opinion, because if I am going to be made an employee, I want to bargain for all the benefits. Not only has there been a general refusal to discuss the matter, there has been universal refusal to get that IRS opinion. I am not surprised.

For the purpose of the noncompetition agreement, it is editing that is the subject matter. These agreements need to spell out exactly what areas I cannot compete in (which they do not), and it basically has to be limited to the services I actually provide the packager (again, which it is not), that is, limited to editing.

But then the packager would need to attest that my editing services are unique and particularly valuable. If they are run-of-the-mill, they cannot be restrained by a noncompetition agreement. When I raise this point, I ask if the packager intends to pay me a premium for my services, so that it would be clear that they value my editing skills much more than the skills of any other editor, which might make my editing skills unique, not run-of-the-mill. Alas, that has not yet occurred — but I keep trying.

Part of the problem is that some lawyer somewhere has given the packager a bunch of papers for freelancers to sign without stressing that the forms are appropriate for certain types of work but not for others. The people who do the freelance hiring at the packagers are told to have the freelancer sign the forms and so they become insistent, and impervious to any suggestion that the forms (or clauses) are inappropriate for the work I am being hired to perform.

So that puts us at a stalemate: the packager won’t hire me without my signing and I won’t sign.

I know that some of you are saying “just sign, get the work, and move on.” The problem is that there may be nowhere to move to. If I sign a noncompetition agreement without knowing who I am to avoid and without narrowing down the services involved, I could be putting myself out of business. The usual case is that the packager and I both often do work for the same client. Think about a publisher the size of McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Wiley, or Elsevier. They produce thousands of books and journals every year and have numerous divisions. How unusual do you think it is for both a packager and an editor to work with one of them? But if the packager’s agreement is signed as presented, you may be precluding yourself from working with such companies.

Besides, why should such a limiting agreement be signed without appropriate compensation? If you give up valuable rights, in this instance, the right to work with clients you may have worked with for years, should you not be compensated?

I am constantly amazed by editors whose job it is to deal with words, language, and meaning, yet who will blithely sign contracts without considering the ramifications of signing. Just as I give the manuscripts I work on a careful read and think about what message is being communicated, so I do the same on my own behalf when it comes to signing contracts for editing work.

Would you agree not to edit a spy novel in the future because you are being hired to edit one today? Sign a noncompetition agreement and you might be saying exactly that. Would you agree not to edit a book on pediatric medicine for McGraw-Hill because you edited one for Elsevier three years ago? You might be agreeing to that.

The point is that you need to read noncompetition agreements very carefully. You need to be sure that its scope is very narrow and that all of the entities you are not to approach are identified. Even more importantly, you need to negotiate compensation for the rights you are giving up. Finally, I would think about whether signing the agreement would change your status from freelancer to employee in the eyes of the IRS. Because I am averse to signing such agreements, I make it clear that I plan to send the agreement to the IRS for review. So far, that has been enough to have the agreement disappear without my signature.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

From the Archives: The Business of Editing: Nondisclosure Agreements

(The following essay was originally published on
 An American Editor on November 12, 2012.)

Have you been asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement? In recent months, I have been asked three times to sign such an agreement, and three times I have declined to sign the agreement as provided.

If you have been asked to sign such an agreement, how carefully have you considered its terms, what those terms mean, and what effect those terms might have on your business? Based on conversations with colleagues, I suspect that most of the time the agreement is just signed and considered a requirement of doing business. For the most part, I would think the agreement is meaningless — after all, exactly what trade secrets are editors being made privy to? — but because such agreements could return to haunt me years down the road, I am careful about what contracts I sign.

These agreements are particularly problematic when they are with an offshore company. Citations to foreign laws and provisions to litigate in foreign (to me) courts are red flags — these are two things that I simply cannot agree to. I imagine having a dispute with a client whose NDA agreement requires me to litigate in Indian courts. I have no doubt that Indian courts will fairly apply Indian law, but what do I know about either Indian law or the Indian court system? And based on what I read about how long litigation takes in India, I’d likely be buried before any dispute was resolved, after having spent many thousands of dollars prosecuting or defending an action.

It is bad enough when I am asked to sign agreements that are governed by U.S. law and courts. My pocketbook isn’t unlimited; it is paltry compared to that of the company that wants me to sign the NDA.

Interestingly, none of the NDAs I have been presented with have ever really defined what I am not supposed to disclose. They use terms like “trade secrets” but they never clarify what that means. I make it a point — before signing — to ask for an exhaustive list of what constitutes a trade secret. I want to make sure that (a) it is information to which I am privy and (b) that I agree that it is a trade secret. More importantly, I don’t want to be ambushed. How can I know what not to disclose if you don’t tell me specifically that the information is a trade secret?

The NDAs also usually include a very broad clause that is a mother clause to another, somewhat subsidiary, broad clause. The first says that anything you invent or improve upon becomes the company’s intellectual property. The child clause says that you give the company permission to execute your name to any paperwork it deems necessary to lay claim to your inventions. Together, both clauses cover everything you have done from the day you were born and everything you will do to the day you die (when read in conjunction with the clause that says the NDA will continue in force even after your relationship with the company ends).

I suspect that no reasonable court would uphold such clauses, at least based on my knowledge of American courts, but the truth is, I have no idea what a court in India or Germany or Spain or Tunisia or Brazil or anywhere but America is likely to do — and even with American courts, all I’m doing is “educated” guessing. To find out what a court would in fact do, I would have to initiate a lawsuit, an expensive proposition.

Also missing from the NDA is any benefit to me. There is no guarantee of work; there is no payment in exchange for my signature; there is no reciprocal agreement that the company will not disclose my trade secrets. What is usually said is that they cannot hire me without the NDA, but that is not the same as saying they will hire me if I sign the NDA. And there is certainly nothing in the NDA that says that should they hire me, they will pay what I consider a reasonable rate. The NDAs are decidedly one-sided.

I have certain rules by which I conduct my business. First, any disputes have to be settled in the American judicial system under American law. I am an American editor with an office in America.

Second, I will not sign any agreement that gives the company the right to execute documents of any type in my name. I have no idea who these people are. My signature is one of the most valuable things I own; giving it away seems to me not to be a smart idea.

Third, I will not sign broad agreements. Agreements must be specific and limited. All of the NDAs are written for consultants who are going to come to the company and examine its books and procedures and make recommendations and improvements or who are being hired to create something specific to improve the company’s workflow. I’m not doing anything even remotely close to that. I edit books. I have no idea what the contract terms are between the companies I work for and their company or author clients. I make sure sentences end with punctuation and that flippant is spelled correctly. I don’t determine whether a book is worthy of publication or how many units to print or how large the marketing budget should be or whether the book should be digitized or anything else that remotely could be called a trade secret by a reasonable person. Thus the danger of these broad clauses and why extraneous/inappropriate clauses must be stripped from the agreement.

Fourth, I will not sign a contract that is so one-sided that it should be titled “Certificate of Indenture.” I must get something in return, something much more than a future promise of possibly some work. I will offer to sign an NDA for a specific project with the NDA limited to the specific project.

Fifth, I will not sign an agreement that gives a company the right to lay claim to things I create, invent, or improve upon that facilitate my doing my work. I have spent, for example, many thousands of dollars developing EditTools and my (patent-pending online) Max Stylesheet. EditTools makes my work go more smoothly and quicker; the Max Stylesheet both makes it easy for multiple editors to work closely on a project and for clients to access a book’s stylesheet years after I edited it. Both are tools for my business and marketing points. Yet under the presented NDAs, the companies could lay claim to these items and could execute documents to take title to them without compensating me.

I understand the need for NDAs. Afterall, no company would like to give a consultant access to its databases to find that the consultant is selling the data to the company’s competitors. But companies need to look at who they are asking to sign NDAs and not simply have a blanket rule that requires everyone to sign one. An editor like me who has no access to company information is not really a candidate for an NDA.

More importantly, I need to carefully read and consider any agreement presented to me. What are its implications? What if something does go wrong? What if nothing goes wrong but the company sues me anyway? How important is this company’s business to me?

The bottom line is this: The company doesn’t trust me enough to give me work without signing an Orwellian NDA but expects me to trust it to do what is correct and honorable when it deals with me. A handshake will serve me, but not the company. Doesn’t sound like a very promising relationship to me.

What do you think?

Richard Adin, An American Editor

From the Archives: Business of Editing: Liability Insurance — Nyet

(The following essay was originally published on
 An American Editor on May 22, 2013.)

One problem with working as an editor for large organizations is the contract that the organization wants you to sign. Some of the clauses have validity, others I wouldn’t sign regardless of the promised fee (see, e.g., The Business of Editing: Contracts — A Slippery Slope and Editors and Contracts: Editor Beware!). Recent discussions on various lists have focused on another requirement: the requirement to carry liability insurance (an errors and omissions policy) for such things as defamation and other events that have nothing to do with editing.

These contracts are boilerplate and prepared by attorneys who rarely have a clue about what an editor does for the express purpose of covering all of the possible arcane matters that can affect a publisher. As editors, we need to say “Nyet!” to these inapplicable clauses.

When I am faced with a demand for errors and omissions insurance, I ask the client to specify clearly and precisely against what risks I need to insure myself and against which the client will seek indemnification. I point out, for example, that defamation is not something an editor does; it is something a writer does. I make it a point to educate the client as to what precisely an editor does and does not do, after which I ask the client whether I am being hired as an editor or to perform some other function, one that has the potential to make me wish I were insured.

If the client expects me to undertake tasks that could make me liable for such things as would be covered by an errors and omissions policy, I know I need to decline the job — because it is not an editing job. Copyeditors don’t decide dosages or medicines, don’t determine whether a beam’s angle is correct, do not determine whether a street is a dead end or a highway on-ramp, or whether a named person is properly described.

I also ask the client whether the client truly believes that anyone would issue an errors and omissions insurance policy that protects against subjective decisions. What I mean is this: What insurance company will insure against my choosing to refer to people as “that” instead of “who” (as in “the patients that” vs. “the patients who”) or will reimburse the client for my use of “followup” (which the American Heritage Dictionary 5e says is OK, along with “follow-up”) as opposed to “follow-up” (which is the only form accepted by Merriam-Webster Collegiate 11e)?

“And what,” I ask clients, “if I use recur when it should be reoccur” (in case you are wondering, except, for example, in medicine, recur means to occur repeatedly whereas reoccur means to occur again once; in medicine, recur is used for both meanings)? “Do you really think an insurance company is going to pay a claim for my using one over the other?” What if I don’t use serial (Oxford) commas or if I do use them and the nonuse/use changes meaning (as in the infamous “eats, shoots and leaves”)?

Every editor knows that issues of language and grammar are rarely right-wrong matters; rather, they are matters of opinion in the sense that both sides of a language and grammar question can be, and often are, correct. How do you insure against making a decision that can be correct but just doesn’t tickle a client’s fancy? Perhaps spelling is in a separate category most of the time, but as followup versus follow-up illustrates, spelling is not in a separate category all of the time.

Clients are intelligent; what clients are not is omniscient. Consequently, when I am faced with a contract clause that requires me to obtain errors and omissions insurance, I endeavor to educate the client. First, I ascertain what the client thinks my job is. Then I educate the client as to what my job really is. If we cannot come to agreement on the parameters of the job I am being hired to do, I say thank you and walk away. To do otherwise is to bring me trouble.

A fundamental rule of editing is that client and editor must agree on the parameters of the job or the client needs to find someone else to do the job. Any editor who fails to grasp and embrace this rule is bound to have unsuccessful client relationships.

After I educate the client about what my job is, I undertake to educate the client as to why the insurance clause should be stricken. The usual response by a client is that if the clause has no relevance to my work, then we’ll leave it and ignore it. Alas, to agree to leave and ignore is to invite danger (for me) into the client-editor relationship. Meaningless clauses need to be struck, not ignored, because once a contract is signed, the unstruck clause is no longer meaningless. It may be that I cannot be held liable for defamatory text written by the author, but I still need to buy the insurance or be in breach of the contract. And do I really want to incur the expense of defending against a client’s attempt to make me liable for not catching that the dose should be 12 mg, not 120 mg?

If the client insists on retaining the clause, I send a revised estimate for the project. I take my original price and add to it a price for the purchase and administration (i.e., my administration) of the insurance. I submit that revised price to the client and explain that my other clients do not require such insurance and that it will be a special purchase just for this client, thus the additional charge. In addition, because the purpose of the insurance is not to protect me but to protect and indemnify the client, the only beneficiary of the insurance is the client, so it is only fair that the client pay the cost.

My experience has been that at this point the client is willing to strike the clause. But I am prepared for when the client simply says sign or go. I always will (and have occasionally had to do so) choose go and refuse to sign.

The only insurance I carry specifically for the benefit of clients is Worker’s Compensation. I maintain such a policy because it proves to the IRS that I am an independent contractor and clients who worry about proving that I am not an employee accept the certificate of insurance in lieu of all other items of proof, such as copies of tax returns or lists of clients, that they would otherwise require (and which I do not wish to divulge).

Part of being a businessperson is drawing lines that I will not permit clients to cross. Those lines are important. They form the basis of the relationship between me and my clients. One of my lines is that I will not sign contracts that contain terms that are not applicable to what I am hired to do, especially if those terms will cost me money.

What do you when faced for a demand for an errors and omissions insurance policy for your copyediting work?

Richard Adin, An American Editor

From the Archives: The Business of Editing: Discounting Rates

(The following essay was originally published on
 An American Editor on January 7, 2015.)

It has been asked: Is discounting your rate ever justified? The answer is “yes, but not usually.” We have all been faced with the dilemma: Should we offer a discount in order to get the job? Or because the potential client is a student? Or [fill in the blank]? The answer is not easy. I begin where I always begin when it comes to rates — with the effective hourly rate (EHR). Discounting a rate is like setting a rate in that you must first know how much you have to earn to keep yourself afloat. It is neither very smart nor does you any good to earn less than your required EHR.

Many years ago I would have said that it is better to have some income than no income. That was in my days of not applying business practices to my business and not realizing the potential of my business. The truth is that it is not better to have some income than no income. It is only better if that income meets your required EHR. Note that I am speaking of required, not desired, EHR. I learned quickly that rather than take on work that was below my required EHR I was better served spending my time marketing myself, trying to find work that would meet my required EHR. This is also true when it comes to discounting my rate.

I never discount to a rate that is below my required EHR; I want to be able to pay my bills, which is something I will not be able to do if I do not meet my required EHR. There are several factors at play. First, before discounting my rate, I need to be earning overall more than my required EHR, and preferably close to my desired EHR. It is that difference — the difference between my earned EHR and my required EHR — that is the negotiable area.

Second, the client needs to be a repeating client. It does me no good financially to provide a discount to a one-off client, even if I think that client will tell friends and neighbors how great I am. The reason is that the one-off client will also tell friends and neighbors what he paid and the friends and neighbors will be expecting a similar discount. For repeat clients, especially institutional clients, I am willing to consider a discount because I know I can make up for the loss on the particular project on future projects or because it is worth my while to charge a little less in exchange for a larger volume of work. Which brings me to the third point.

Third, volume discounting is reasonable as long as the discount does not go below my required EHR. In the case of a volume client, I always keep in mind my Rule of Three (see “The Business of Editing: The Rule of Three“) as it will do me no particular good to have a lot of business that I am losing money on. But volume clients are what I want because such clients assure me year-round profitable work. In a sense we have gone full circle. Discounting one’s rate is acceptable in the circumstance that doing so does not bring the rate below one’s required EHR.

Where most of us part ways is with the other requirements. Usually the argument is that

• it is a new subject area for me that I want to explore
• the client is poor
• the subject matter of the project is one that I am very interested in

and other similar “reasons.”

The first question to ask yourself is this: Are you a business or a charity? If you are a charity, then these reasons have some merit; if you are a business, these reasons have no merit. As a business, you need to earn enough to stay in business and even to earn a profit. Why remain in a business that cannot provide income sufficient for your needs?

The second question to ask yourself is this: If I undertake this project, will it preclude me from taking on a higher-paying project? If it will, then it should be avoided. Why take on a project that costs you both money and opportunity?

The third question to ask yourself is this: If I take on this project will I have the time and money and energy to market myself to better-paying potential clients? If no, then don’t take on this discounted project. Discounting is fine when you are in a position to do so, when your business is such that whatever loss you will take can be made up for. It is also fine when it is connected to volume. But under no circumstance is it fine to discount below your required EHR, which means you must have calculated your required EHR beforehand. (To calculate your required EHR, see the five-part series “Business of Editing: What to Charge.”)

One thing we haven’t considered is the worth/value of your editing. I consider myself a highly skilled professional. My services can make a difference. How valuable are those services? The more valuable they are, the less willingly they should be discounted. I differentiate my services by the price I charge and the quality I provide; discounting takes away that differentiation. And it becomes a slippery slope: If I discounted today, why not tomorrow? The consumer will neither understand nor accept the fine differences we use to distinguish among projects and clients; if my price was $x yesterday, the consumer expects it to be $x today and on both days expects high-quality service.

Are there times you can discount? Yes. Are there times when you should discount? Yes. The way your  recognize those times begins with knowing your required EHR and evaluating whether giving the discount will further a legitimate business interest. In the absence of either, no discounting should be given, and under no circumstance should a discount result in an EHR below your required EHR.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

From the Archives: The Business of Editing: Contracts — A Slippery Slope

(The following essay was originally published on
 An American Editor on May 7, 2012.)

When I first began editing as a freelancer, I never was offered a contract by a client. I was hired to copyedit or developmental edit, and it was understood that I would do my best and the client would pay me for my work. Even the structure for payment was understood to be what constituted a billable (i.e., hourly or a page, which consisted of x). It was a “handshake” agreement.

For the most part, even today, this is how I conduct much of my work. Yet, increasingly, I am being asked to sign a contract. This has occurred since the last time I addressed this issue, in Editors and Contracts: Editor Beware! In the prior article, I talked about a contract from India. Today, I am talking about a contract from the United States.

Because this is the “client’s” standard contract, I have to wonder how many editors either read the contract that is proffered or if they do read it, understand it; or if they simply sign it and consider doing so a necessity to have any business. I also wonder how many, if any, editors simply reject a burdensome contract.

As some of you know, my background is as a lawyer. Before becoming a professional editor, I practiced law for a number of years and learned early on in that career that business-to-business contracts really do need to be read and understood, and not just blindly signed.

The latest contract that I received simply reinforced that learning. It would almost be impossible to write a more one-sided and unfair contract short of one that says I would be responsible for the other party’s financial losses should the stock market decline for the next 100 years.

Good editors are language-smart, but sometimes not business-smart. Sometimes the need or desire to have work outweighs the common sense that dictates “do not sign the proffered contract.” But it shouldn’t, because some contracts are so exploitative that you have to wonder about the company that is proffering it. Would you trust the dog that bites the hand that feeds it?

Essentially that is what a contract is — an expression of distrust. The question is how much distrust is tolerable. I find that the more onerous the contract, which indicates that the offeror really distrusts the people with whom it “wants to work,” the less worthy the profferor is of being trusted. And thus I prefer not to sign.

Consider statements that say you will be paid “for satisfactorily rendered services.” What exactly does that mean? Who decides? How long do they have to decide? Is it satisfactory to leave “due to” in a manuscript? Is it satisfactory to not distinguish between “since” and “because”? Suppose you think a series of items should be a bulleted list rather than a run-on sentence. Is that okay?

What about a clause that says the client can audit your books? Are you an independent contractor or an employee?

Or consider the attorney-in-fact clause, which says that you appoint the client as attorney in fact to sign your name to any necessary applications for intellectual property protection for any reason. The only thing missed is taking possession of the bathtub.

One of the strongest methods to ensure payment is the availability of the lawsuit remedy. Yet the contracts insist that any claims be arbitrated and that doing so be at your expense. Back in the beginning of time, arbitrators had a reputation for lack of bias and for fairness; that reputation is long gone. I would be hard-pressed to voluntarily give up my right to sue.

The contract I was most recently offered also stated that my work product was a work for hire and that I waive any claim to ownership in my work product. Period. End of story. The waiver doesn’t come about because I have been paid or even because the client is obligated to pay me. No, it comes about because I unconditionally waive all my rights (which I’ll do immediately after the cheese the moon is made of is placed for sale in my local supermarket).

When you receive a contract to sign, do you look at the limitation of liability clause? You should. Invariably, the client has no liability. There is no mention of your not having any liability, which means that you might have some.

My favorite clause is the one that reads similar to this: “This agreement shall be interpreted as written and negotiated jointly by the parties.” Rarely is a client willing to negotiate any term of the proffered contract; it is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. But this clause has a great deal of legal significance should a dispute arise.

Finally, I love when I get a contract that incorporates the material in an attached exhibit and the attached exhibit is not filled out. An early learned rule is never to sign a contract with blanks. Good luck proving it was incorrectly filled out after you signed, not before.

The list of objectionable clauses and why they are objectionable can go on, but simply listing them doesn’t answer the fundamental question: What can I, the editor who is offered such a contract, do about it? What should I do about it?

I usually send a note back saying I cannot agree to the contract as submitted and give reasons paragraph by paragraph. Usually there are a couple of unobjectionable paragraphs, but, for the most part, the more wrapped in legalese the contract is, the less likely I am to sign it.

I usually begin by noting that the contract has little relevancy to the services for which I am being hired. What relevance does a clause about patents have to copyediting? I suggest that, if a contract is necessary, we should discuss realistic terms that are relevant to what I am expected to do as an editor. I also make it clear that, contrary to the assertion in a contract, there are no universal, objective standards to which either party can look as measures of quality for editing, so it is necessary that client define precisely what standards the client will apply to my work product.

I go through this exercise knowing that it is futile; with rare exception, these contracts are nonnegotiable. But I want the client to understand that I do pay attention to detail, and this is a subtle way of enforcing that message.

In the end, it usually comes down to either signing the contract as submitted by the client or passing on the work. Given that choice, I decide how trustworthy I think the client is. If I think I can trust the client, I will sign the contract; if I have any doubts at all, I will not. There is little sense in inviting trouble.  Usually — but not always — my refusing to sign the contract means no work from the client. Several times in recent months, however, the client has simply worked with me as if nothing about a contract had ever been discussed. In these cases, the work with the client has been ongoing, not just a single project and then no more.

Regardless, editors need to be careful about the contracts they sign. It is better to not sign and lose the work than to work for a client whom you can’t trust. Just as you have a minimum acceptable fee for taking on work, so you should have a standard for contracts below which you will not descend. At the very least, never sign one before reading it carefully and assessing its potential impact on you and your business.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

From the Archives: Editors and Contracts: Editor Beware!

(The following essay was originally published on
 An American Editor on December 5, 2011.)

My editing world is, admittedly, fairly narrow. Years ago, I decided that I would only do a certain type of work (subject matter-wise) and only for select clients (i.e., publishers, not authors). Consequently, the following discussion is shaped by 28 years of that narrow world and is focused on contracts between freelancer and publisher/vendor.

Over my editing career, I have been asked to sign a contract less than six times; I have never asked a client to sign one. Until recently, the last contract I was asked to sign happened a decade or more ago. I’m not sure why this is the case, except that I think my clients view the situation as I do — a contract isn’t necessary between companies.

Also until recently the purpose of the contract wasn’t really to detail the relationship’s obligations but it was to establish that I am not an employee and cannot be construed to be an employee of the client. In other words, it was to protect the client from my claiming that I was an employee of the client and entitled to employee benefits. The contract was designed to establish my relationship with the client should the Internal Revenue Service come knocking on the client’s door.

For the most part, once a client realized it was issuing payment to a company rather than to an individual, and once the client realized that I have payroll obligations, something employees of the client wouldn’t have, I think the necessity for a contract disappeared.

But recently I was asked to sign a contract.

The story begins with a publisher who asked me to edit a book that will run between 7,000 and 9,000 manuscript pages. The book has a “fussy” author (that’s fussy in the good sense of being both knowledgable about and caring of the use of language, not in the negative sense of being troublesome) and a short deadline of 12 weeks. Manuscripts of this size are what I commonly deal with and the short deadline just raises a challenge, not an obstacle that can’t be overcome. (And it is projects and deadlines like these that make investing in macros invaluable!)

Although I was asked by the publisher to take on the project, the work and payment would come through a third-party vendor. The publisher would simply tell the vendor that I was to be hired to do the editing and that the rate had been agreed on. I was to work with the vendor and not the publisher.

That arrangement is not unusual in today’s publishing world. It is more common, perhaps, at least in my niches, for my name to be on a list of preapproved editors from among which the vendor can choose and negotiate a rate. I admit that I rarely find that to be good for me.

So the project is agreed to and the procedure agreed to and the work starts. Nothing more occurs until I submit the first batch of edited chapters and an invoice. That is when the vendor tells me that there is a contract that the vendor requires every freelancer to sign. The purpose, I’m told, is to ensure confidentiality. (I wonder who would want to see the edited manuscript for one of these books other than the author, but I also have no problem with agreeing to confidentiality.)

So the standard agreement was sent for my signature.

Let’s start with a few questions to set the stage: How many editors read such agreements? How many understand the agreement? How many editors are willing to say no and refuse to sign absent significant changes? How many editors are fearful that if they do not sign the agreement an avenue of work will dry up and leave them in dire straits? How many editors would say to themselves “although I don’t want to sign I better because I’ve already completed x% of the work and I want to get paid”?

Okay, you have the idea as to the stage-setting questions and undoubtedly can add more to the list, yet it is the answers that matter.

The contract I was offered was wholly one-sided. I had all of the obligations and none of the benefits. I wasn’t even assured of receiving the project I had been hired for if I signed the contract. In addition, the contract was riddled with grammar and spelling errors, which would leave the terms of the contract in a state of flux. But the worst clause of all — and there were many candidates for this honor, not least of which was the clause that required editing perfection and set the vendor up as the sole judge of whether the editing was perfect  — was that any dispute arising from the relationship between myself and the vendor had to be resolved in a court in India! The contract even mentioned Indian labor laws, as if I would have any idea of what Indian labor laws permit, do not permit, or require. Interestingly, the contract was open-ended; no work was promised and no specific project named — the contract remained in force until explicitly terminated by the vendor. Does indenture sound familiar?

I have nothing against India but I have never visited the country, I have never worked in the country, I have no plans to either visit it or work there, and I know nothing about Indian labor laws. Why would I sign such a contract? More importantly, why would any non-India-based editor sign such a contract (perhaps it shouldn’t even be signed by an India-based editor)?

And consider the perfection clause I mentioned earlier. Professional editors know that there is no such thing as perfect editing. There are very few rigid rules in editing that apply universally and never change, which is why we have, for example, 16 editions of The Chicago Manual of Style and 11 editions of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and 3 editions of Garner’s Modern American Usage.

I offered to sign a modified contract, but that was rejected. A colleague, Ruth Thaler-Carter, suggested to me that at the very least I should insist on a clause that reads along these lines (with additional modifications by me): “Freelancer cannot be held responsible for changes made by the Vendor once freelancer has submitted his/her/its editorial work to vendor and that should Vendor make changes that result in any form of liability to Freelancer, Vendor agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Freelancer at Vendor’s expense.”

Editors face a dilemma. They want and need the work that comes to them via third-party vendors, yet they really shouldn’t sign open-ended, one-sided contracts, especially ones that require them to use a foreign court system to resolve disputes. What editor could afford to go from the United States to India to enforce a claim for $500?

There is no easy solution to this problem. In my case, it was resolved to my satisfaction, but that was because of the intervention of the publisher, not because the vendor wanted to be reasonable. The vendor’s position was that you either sign the agreement as presented or you get no work. The vendor is really in the catbird seat because there are thousands of editors from which it can choose, but there are, by comparison, few vendors.

Could you walk away from such a job? Most editors cannot, which brings me back to a topic I’ve mentioned before: Professional editors really need a professional guild, at least a national one but preferably a worldwide one, whose focus is on protecting the member editors and finding the member editors work.

Even if you believe you have no choice but to sign on the dotted line, you should take the time to carefully read and evaluate any proffered contract. In addition, you should try to negotiate the more onerous clauses. Under no circumstance should you sign a contract like this that is open-ended. If you must sign such a contract, limit it to the project at hand. You never know when an open-ended contract will come back to bite you.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

From the Archives: Editors & “Professional” Resources: A Questionable Reliance

(The following essay was originally published on
 An American Editor on May 20, 2010.)

Editors rely on lots of “professional” resources to guide their editorial decisions when working on a manuscript. In addition to dictionaries and word books, we rely on language usage guides and style manuals, among other tools. [To learn more about the professional editor’s (and my) bookshelf, see The Professional Editor’s Bookshelf.]

But it isn’t unusual for an author (or publisher) to have a different view of what is appropriate and desirable than the “professional” resources. And many editors will fight tooth and nail to make the client conform to the rules laid down in a style manual. As between language usage guides like Garner’s Modern American Usage and style manuals like The Chicago Manual of Style, I believe that editors should adhere to the rules of the former but take the rules of the latter with a lot of salt.

The distinction between the two types of manuals is important. A language manual is a guide to the proper use of language such as word choice; for example, when comprise is appropriate and when compose is appropriate. A style manual, although it will discuss in passing similar issues, is really more focused on structural issues such as capitalization: Should it be president of the United States or President of the United States? Here’s the question: How much does it matter whether it is president or President?

When an author insists that a particular structural form be followed that I think is wrong, I will tell the author why I believe the author is wrong and I will cite, where appropriate, the professional sources. But, and I think this is something professional editors lose sight of, those professional sources — such as The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association — are merely books of opinion. Granted we give them great weight, but they are just opinion. And it has never been particularly clear to me why the consensus opinion of the “panel of experts” of CMOS is any better than my client’s opinion. After all, isn’t the key clarity and consistency not conformity to some arbitrary consensus.

If these style manuals were the authoritative source, there would only be one of them to which we would all adhere; the fact that there is disagreement among them indicates that we are dealing with opinion to which we give credence and different amounts of weight. (I should mention that if an author is looking to be published by a particular publisher whose style is to follow the rules in one of the standard style manuals, then it is incumbent on the editor to advise the author of the necessity of adhering to those rules and even insisting that the author do so. But where the author is self-publishing or the author’s target press doesn’t adhere to a standard, then the world is more open.)

It seems to me that if there is such a divergence of opinion as to warrant the publication of so many different style manuals, then adding another opinion to the mix and giving that opinion greater credence is acceptable. I am not convinced that my opinion, or the opinion of CMOS, is so much better than that of the author that the author’s opinion should be resisted until the author concedes defeat. In the end, I think but one criterion is the standard to be applied: Will the reader be able to follow and understand what the author is trying to convey? (However, I would also say that there is one other immutable rule: that the author be consistent.) If the answer is yes, then even if what the author wants assaults my sense of good taste or violates the traditional style manual canon, the author wins — and should win.

The battles that are not concedeable by an editor are those that make the author’s work difficult to understand and those of incorrect word choice (e.g., using comprise when compose is the correct word).

A professional editor is hired to give advice. Whether to accept or reject that advice is up to the person doing the hiring. Although we like to think we are the gods of grammar, syntax, spelling, and style, the truth is we are simply more knowledgeable (usually) than those who hire us — we are qualified to give an opinion, perhaps even a forceful or “expert” opinion, but still just an opinion. We are advisors giving advice based on experience and knowledge, but we are not the final decision makers — and this is a lesson that many of us forget. We may be frustrated because we really do know better, but we must not forget that our “bibles” are just collections of consensus-made opinion, not rules cast in stone.

If they were rules cast in stone, there would be no changes, only additions, to the rules, and new editions of the guides would appear with much less frequency than they currently do. More importantly, there would be only one style manual to which all editors would adhere — after all, whether it is president or President isn’t truly dependent on whether the manuscript is for a medical journal, a psychology journal, a chemistry journal, a sociology journal, or a history journal.

Style manuals serve a purpose, giving us a base from which to proceed and some support for our decisions, but we should not put them on the pedestal of inerrancy, just on a higher rung of credibility.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

From the Archives: The Business of Editing: A Rose By Another Name Is Still Copyediting

(The following essay was originally published on
 An American Editor on June 27, 2012.)

I recently received an e-mail from a long-ago client who lost my services when they lowered their payscale to substarvation rates and began offshore outsourcing nearly 100% of their production process, the exception supposedly being proofreading, for which they paid sub-substarvation prices. Their e-mail stated:

We are a new team with a new process, but still need qualified readers for our books, so I hope you don’t mind that we are contacting you at this time.

We now do all of our composition and copyediting in India. However, we do put all of our books through a cold read using US-based freelancers. Our readers work on first proofs (PDFs)….

The assignment involves checking grammar, style (APA 6th Edition), punctuation, consistency, and poor phrasing. Rework awkward sentences only if confusing or very awkward. Feel free to query the Editor or Author. We realize there will be a lot of questions  with this test and perhaps the first few assignments. When in doubt – make the change and add a query. We want to see your “stuff.”

Needless to say, the rate of pay is very-very-low. They attached a PDF “test,” which they would pay me to take at the lowest rate they offer. The former client deserves a few kudos for at least offering to pay for the test taking.

This is an interesting ploy for obtaining copyediting from American-based editors. Calling it a rose doesn’t make it any less copyediting. It is worth noting that by requiring it be done using PDF rather than in Microsoft Word, the client is implying to most editors that it is not copyediting but proofreading, because experienced editors will tell you that the trend is to do proofreading in PDF. Very few publishers, especially when dealing with book-length projects, will ask for copyediting to be done using PDFs. It is much more difficult to edit a PDF than it is to edit a Word document, as many of the tools that editors use in the editing process are simply unavailable, including specialty spell-checking and the myriad macros that editors use.

The attached “test” was a PDF of composed pages. But if it was already satisfactorily edited (which I would assume because why would a publisher knowingly send manuscript out for editing to incompetent editors?), the “cold reader” — also known as a proofreader — should not be checking “poor phrasing” or “rework[ing] awkward sentences.” Those are editing tasks; they require decision-making skills, knowledge of grammar, and specialized subject-matter language, all of which are why the editor creates a stylesheet that is supposed to accompany the manuscript when it is sent for proofreading.

But call it what you want — rose, stinkweed, proofreading, cold reading — it doesn’t matter: The service they want is copyediting and they want it at substarvation pay.

The e-mail follows a recent trend among publishers. The trend is to offshore outsource copyediting and then ask the local people who the publisher previously hired to do the editing, to “proofread” at a rate that matches what the publisher is paying its offshore editors while simultaneously demanding that the “proofreader” correct all of the errors not fixed or introduced by the offshore editors. Publishers are squeezing local editors by taking away the work and then trying to get the same work after the fact under another guise, one that has always commanded a lesser fee.

In an attempt to lower costs, proofreading is now the new copyediting and copyediting is now the new typesetting/composition. Yes, I know that traditionally typesetting/composition meant simply putting the tendered manuscript into a WYSIWYG form that was called pages, and for the most part, that is what is happening with outsourced offshored copyediting. Publishers are banking on the local proofreaders to do the copyediting.

Not only is this sneaky, but it is also difficult to do well. Traditional proofreading meant comparing the typeset pages to the edited and coded manuscript that had already been copyedited, developmental edited, reviewed by in-house production staff, and reviewed and approved by the author to make sure that the typesetter didn’t introduce new errors.

Much of this changed when publishers switched to electronic editing, as electronic editing reduced the likelihood of typesetting errors. Such errors weren’t eliminated, merely exponentially reduced. With today’s bean counters unwilling to assign much value to editorial skills, publishers are trying to squeeze more editorial work out of freelancers for less pay. As many authors have complained in recent years, this is a recipe for editorial disaster.

Copyediting (along with other forms of editing) is a skill set that becomes honed over the course of years. One doesn’t simply hang out a shingle calling oneself an editor and suddenly become a highly competent editor. As with other skills, copyediting is a collection of myriad skills learned and honed over years of work and learning. It is not a wholly mechanical process; rather, it requires educated judgment calls.

It is this loss of perspective and experience that causes books that have been edited to seem as if they have never met the eyes of an editor. It is this loss that distinguishes a professionally edited, well-edited book from the amateur editor who is doing the editing for a neighbor as a favor.

It is this loss of perspective and experience that publishers seek to regain at a cheaper price by renaming the service they want as “cold reading” rather than copyediting. You can call a rose by another name, but it is still copyediting. It is this ploy that editors need to be aware of and need to say thanks, but no thanks to the “opportunity” being offered — especially if the opportunity is to do the editing in a software program that is really not designed for the task, such as editing in PDF format/software.

As the competition wars heat up, by which I mean as the ebook world with its lower profit margins overtakes the pbook world with its relatively higher profit margins, this ruse by publishers will gain momentum. The result will be increasing numbers of published books that make the literate reader grimace, with yet further squeezing of profit margins as readers rebel at paying high prices for poorly edited books.

Although bean counters have yet to grasp the notion, long-term the survival of publishers will depend as much on quality editing as on changing strategies to deal with ebooks. Editors do provide value but need to receive value in exchange. Smart editors will just say no to opportunities disguised as roses that are really stinkweed.

Richard Adin, An American Editor