From: Raymond E. Feist
Date: 15 January 2010
Let me see if I can do this without turning it into a clinic on publishing. Editors are like account executives these days; they shepherd projects through from acceptance of ms. to publication of book, and a lot of their time is spent in meetings. I have four editors because my original editors on both sides of the pond got promoted to publisher, but they still have a hand in the book. The story work I do with an editor is mostly done with one in New York, though I do bounce ideas off my UK publisher. Copy editor is a completely different critter, a person who comes in once the ms. has been accepted and starts going though it looking for typos and continuity errors. Editors in the UK now do copy edit for their books,which is brutal because of the time involved and in the US they still have a different person.
The books would have fewer glitches if one person alone did it, IMHO, but those days are long gone. Your solution would actually make things worse, not better. I wish I knew a better way to do it, but I'm stuck with an imperfect system these days.
Best, R.E.F.
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