Torquere. Again. Sigh.

[valarltd]

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.

Comments

[erastes.livejournal.com]

How many edits do they do, then? I've always been used to three editing sweeps, at least - I think Linden do four in all.

It's all very well the powers that be saying (as another commenter has said) that they are going to be looking into the matter - as you say, this problem has been well known by everyone for such a long time - it should have been addressed a long time ago. People have said to me that it's unfair of me to mention the editing problems when I review, but I don't agree - and you'd think that when reviewers are consistently pointing this problem out, TQ would bend over backwards to address it.

I know that if PD Publishing (or any of the other publishers I've worked with) had this problem then (as you say) they would be taking it seriously and working out how to improve it, not all patting each other on the back on an author's group!

The onus IS on the author to produce as clean a MSS as he or she can, but authors AREN'T editors (in the main). I'm certainly not, and have the skills to see things that immediately sets an editor's mind into a frenzy. I have problems with punctuation and I try, but admit that use an editor like a safety net.

And the website is awful - the first page has nothing on it at all to state what you do next.I've complained to Shawn about the site before when he/she emailed me to ask me to link to TQ rather than to Fictionwise. I have been doing that since, but have checked some of the links I used and they've moved already! So I may go back to Fictionwise.

[megleigh.livejournal.com]

I think the number of passes varies with story length. I can only speak from my most recent experience which was with a novella length and my memory is sketchy on it.

As I recall, there were two passes by the editor, one pass by a proof reader and then a final galley.

I think the novel length I have out with BBA got the same. I am shocking at remembering such details.

However, since those two pieces and one other of mine got through with errors, I have now upped my own personal standards and use beta readers before submitting.

The more eyes, the merrier IMO.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well, if they are doing four edits and there are still the level of mistakes getting through that I recently found in three books I reviewed for AdC, then perhaps they need a new set of editors!!!

[megleigh.livejournal.com]

That is only as I recall it. At 2:35am I am not at my sparkiest.

I think that the editor I had is pretty good, although, yes, the mistakes were still in there and that's why I decided that as a matter of my own pride, I need to have more eyes look my work over pre-sub.

Editors are human (this is not an excuse, just a statement) and make mistakes, overlook things, and get tired like the rest of us.

Authors, when it comes to their own writing, can be downright blind, because we read what we wrote, and not what we typed, most of the time and those can be two entirely different things.

I do think that TQ needs to look at this issue, and from where I stand, they're moving in the right direction.

*not blocking her ears, and not saying la la la* :)

[emmyjag.livejournal.com]

The only time I don't mention errors in editing are when I'm looking at ARCs. I'm assuming the book will be edited again prior to release.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I don't get ARCs, but I'd do the same if I did get them.