Andy Unedited
Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
Why do some brilliant editors discover bestsellers and other incompetent editors miss them? From Emily Dickenson to Harry Potter, how could so many have turned them down? In his history of the Scribners publishing house, written 75 years ago, Roger Burlingame pulls back the veil on this mystery.* For many writers and readers, this will …
I clearly remember my second day as an editor forty-five years ago. The first day was mostly orientation. But the second day an author came in to discuss a contracted manuscript with Jim Sire, my boss. I sat in watching and listening as they discussed the editing Jim had done. That morning and afternoon, the …
For me, editing has always been about loving words and loving ideas. Learning and thinking will always be important. Yet in a technology-saturated world with an ever-accelerating rate of change, we don’t know exactly what books and reading will be like in the future. We have a better idea, however, of who editors need to …
Jim Sire, my predecessor at IVP as editorial director, loved to tell the story of a book review he had drafted. He showed it to Paul to look over before he sent it off to a journal. Paul told him, “Here you say the book has merit but wasn’t evocative enough. What you actually write, …
What to do with footnotes has been a problem since Gutenberg. To some they are an aggravation on par with elevator music and cable company service. To others they are the glory of the published word. For those who want to be able to follow an author’s sources, and for authors who want to make …
It’s always a delicate matter—this business of editors giving advice to writers. These things must be handled with great diplomacy so as not to ruffle the authorial ego. I give you an example to emulate.
I interviewed for an opening in the editorial department at InterVarsity Press over thirty years ago. My prospective boss, Jim Sire, was sick and couldn’t make it to work that day. So I interviewed instead with the publisher, Jim Nyquist, and Linda Doll, who was the only other employee in the editorial department at that …
Every so often we at IVP get asked what it takes, or how one prepares, to be an editor. The question came regularly enough that my predecessor at IVP, Jim Sire, jotted down some thoughts which we have since been passing on to folks for over two decades. His comments are just as relevant now …
“Design, production, and manufacturing, in many publishing houses, are not considered as glamorous as editorial or sales, and may be looked upon a secondary. They should be viewed as quite the reverse,” says publishing guru Tom Woll (p. 161). Why? Well, how many times have design and production saved editorial’s and marketing’s behind when an …
One colleague said I seemed to be pretty negative about coauthoring when I wrote about that here recently. Since I have coauthored five books myself, I suppose one could suppose a certain autobiographical slant to my comments. That has not been the case. I coauthored three Bible study guides with my wife, another with my …