The Academic Ego, Part 3: Authors' Expectations
This is the 3rd installment of a previously unpublished article I wrote for academic editors to help them gain a perspective on the authors they work with. Authors often come with (largely unjustified) positive or negative expectations of publishers, which can become a huge problem for editors. (Copyright Mary Ellen Lepionka: All Rights Reserved.)
Real-world disdain among some academics (especially the princes of ivory towers) sometimes includes misconceptions about the publishing industry, including editorial values and practices, and about commerce in general. Animadversions about publishing as an evil empire abound in academe and appear to center on two themes: 1) disgust over what is perceived as a capitalist conspiracy for profit through economic exploitation, and 2) outrage over perceived threats of censorship or abridgement of academic freedom by media conglomerates. In the first, the author may assume one of two views, equally naive: that publishers exist to disseminate new knowledge and care about the development of academic disciplines, or that publishers exist solely for profit and do not care about anything else, not even what they produce (as in, “They could be making widgets”).
Some academic egos easily accommodate dissonant expectations, holding naive and cynical views simultaneously.
In any case, editors must manage to tread a middle ground in this minefield of expectations. The best houses support their authors’ careers and the academic disciplines their lists serve, while nevertheless remaining profitable—ruthlessly, if necessary, in light of capitalism’s prime directive.
Authors' expectations about income from publishing range from naively high hopes to outright cynicism (as in, “If I wanted to make money I wouldn’t be doing this”). Acquisitions editors often take shocking advantage of authors who think it is both a necessity and a privilege to be published and who do not expect material gain. On the opposite front is the textbook author who expects to retire on $200,000 USD annually for his or her introductory undergraduate textbook, or the scholar or scientist who expects to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of his or her popularization in cross-over markets. (And, admit it, every high-end trade book editor probably dreams of signing a Rachel Carson, Carl Sagan, Daniel Boorstin, Camille Paglia, Jared Diamond, etc.)
Then, in a class by themselves, are the “anarchists,” authors who claim that scholarship is a moral enterprise that should not be expected or required to follow the dictates of (filthy) capitalism. Just as ideas cannot be copyrighted, all knowledge, they say, including that in books, should be free. As with religious fundamentalism, alternative views and practical realities have no defense. Some members of this class may very well be the people who in their youth felt entirely justified in purloining books, magazines, records, tapes, or CDs from corner stores and malls.
Anarchists, or perhaps iconoclasts is a more contemporary term, tend to be righteous, and many are drawn swiftly to wikis and open access publishing. Editors beware! Iconoclasts who stray into commercial publishing can become authors from hell. Some continually agitate for far more investment than the book can possibly afford based on projected sales. Worse, some come secretly or incognito and tend to produce unsalable POV books or masterpieces of disinformation, the whole time thumbing their noses at editors too stupid or ill-educated to recognize what is going down.
In addition, authors may naively or cynically focus on "capitalist exploitation" in publishers’ contracts and publishing decisions. Complaints about contracts often target meager (or lacking) advances or grants, low royalty rates with infrequent payouts, befuddling royalty reports, and unfavorable terms, such as taking all rights and then failing to return them in a timely fashion. Grievances about publishing decisions tend to focus on “acceptable manuscript” clauses, unrealistic drafting schedules, and cancellation policies. Failure to revise or reprint effectively kills a book—a bitter pill for authors, regardless of the strength of their academic ego. But there is no middle ground here. Publishers everywhere struggle to unload losers while attempting to maintain minimum industry standards for ethical practice.
Academic authors typically do not understand why their books may be losers and have no concept of the costs and risks involved in publishing. They often evince amazement, if not outright disbelief, to learn how small the margins actually are. Wise editors patiently educate their academic authors on these real-world matters. For example, authors are not aware of all the direct and indirect costs of publishing over which the publisher may have no control. They also may not grasp the complexity of issues that on the surface seem obvious. For example, authors may not appreciate the role of instructors, college stores, and students themselves in the pricing of textbooks. Complaints about prices, commonly referred to as price gouging, are in sympathy with students, who dispense inordinate sums for their burdensome course materials, especially textbook packages bundled with mandatory supplements (now a thing of the past since "debundling" has become mandatory instead). In any case, students and instructors then contribute to higher prices and loss of royalties by selling back their books.
Labels: A, academic authors and editors, Academic ego, author-editor relations, author-publisher relations, textbook publishing
Author-Publisher Relations--Part 3: Editorial Control
Aside from issues of trust and power, some authors fret over issues of control. Many control issues concern the manuscript. Some authors believe strongly that their words should not be subject to outside forces. Their thinking runs something like this: They are the experts and no one can tell them what to write. Reviewers have their own axes to grind or cancel each other out and thus can be ignored. Customers should have the good sense to want what they are providing. Authors who think lilke this also tend to see their editors as adversaries and treat every editorial request as an issue of ownership and control. If you tend to hold strongly Orwellian views, consider the following reasons other than thought control that editors might have for asking you to revise, add, or delete material.
Chief Reasons Editors Ask for Changes
to Organization or Content
• The book is too long for its intended market or its budget and has to be cut.
• Undocumented opinion is presented as fact.
• Undocumented facts seem inaccurate or misleading.
• Information seems outdated or lacks currency.
• Topical coverage seems unbalanced or biased.
• Material is judged to be strongly offensive to some or all readers.
• Abstractions or conclusions are insufficiently supported by concrete examples.
• Language or expression seems inappropriate to the subject, course, or audience.
• Digressions, redundancy, or lack of transitions compromise meaning or coherence.
• There are errors of grammar, punctuation, spelling, or usage.
• The manuscript departs significantly from the agreed book plan.
• New intelligence about the market or competition suggests changes.
Editors, too, are experts. They can save you from yourself and help you craft a successful book--the editor’s true purpose. Reviewers and customers also are experts. Authors uninterested in satisfying the people who will order, buy, and read their textbook should consider self-publishing or custom publishing instead. Positive author-editor relations are built on mutual respect, benefit-of-the-doubt trust, power-sharing, and rationally negotiated control over content. In my next post I will explore nuances of author-editor relations from both perspectives. As before I certainly welcome readers' responses or input on these topics.
All the best,
Mary Ellen
Labels: author-publisher relations
Author-Publisher Relations--Part 2: Power
POWER
My last post was about issues of trust (or mistrust) between authors and publishers. In part, I guess I was trying to advance the idea that publishing is no more of an evil empire than any other corporate enterprise bent on succeeding in a capitalist economy. Textbook publishers bend to market forces, it's as simple as that, and any resulting erosion of intellectual quality or integrity (real or assumed) is strictly collateral damage.
This is not to say that publishers in higher education only follow market trends, however. They innovate to create demand, sometimes making it difficult for customers to stick with tried and true ways. For example, the revolution in electronically delivered instruction, which instructors certainly never asked for, was spearheaded by publishers. Nevertheless, some academics are insulted or disappointed to discover that textbooks are products and obey the dictates of a market economy. They may treat requests for changes to their manuscripts as Faustian confrontations in which making any amendment is selling out.
It is true that publishing companies have market-derived power over content. A common misperception, however, is that marketability requires textbooks to be dumbed down and that publishers are to blame for this. Actually, textbooks need to address their true readers--students for whom the book is intended, those whose learning is at stake. These students need to be addressed where they are. That is, textbooks need to be brought to market level, wherever that level is, and if instructors demand low-level textbooks, publishers will supply them. Bringing readers to intellectual level is a different problem. For most introductory college courses, the reader is an 18- or 19-year-old person in late adolescence with little or no prior exposure to your field. Authors who do not wish to write for this audience, but prefer to maintain the language and style of discourse they use in journal articles, monographs, and graduate seminars, they should not attempt to write an undergraduate textbook.
Another common misperception is that books must be made into clones of all the other books on the market. On the contrary, publishers know that each title needs to be unique or special or innovative in some way to distinguish itself among competitors. At the same time, they know that textbooks that are too different or too far before their time, even great ones, like other great ideas for which the world is not ready, will fail.
I'd like to talk more about reasons for editorial requests for content changes and the dumbing down syndrome. These involve more than the issues of trust and power; they hinge on the issue of control. And that will be the subject of my next post.
All the best,
Mary Ellen
Labels: author-publisher relations
Trust, Power, and Control in Author-Publisher Relations
Sorry to have taken so long to post again. I'm deep into a revision of my first book, Writing and Developing Your College Textbook. Thought I would share some of my new material (all rights reserved) on author-publisher and author-editor relationships. This is the first post on issues of trust, power, and control in publishing. Any feedback from readers is most welcome. --Mary Ellen
Establishing a Positive Relationship
A prospective author’s attitudes and ability to work well with other professionals are important factors for the success of a project. In addition to teaming with an acquisitions editor and possibly a coauthor or two, you also might be working with a development editor or managing editor, production coordinator, copyeditor, photo researcher, packager, marketing manager, supplements authors, and others. Through interpersonal conflicts and misunderstandings about the roles of all the players, projects can fail to meet their potential or can altogether crash. Legendary cases involve lawsuits. Your sponsoring editor therefore has a stake in establishing friendly rapport with you and gauging your cooperative spirit. Unproductive author attitudes toward publishers and editors usually relate to issues of trust, power, and control.
TRUST
Mistrust about contracts and the publisher as capitalist are common. It is true that publishers try to cut themselves the best possible deal and some are not above misrepresentation. So-called standard contracts favor the publisher. You should be aware, however, that there are industry standards regarding ethical practices, and reputable publishers take those standards seriously. Normally, it is not in a reputable publisher’s long-term interests to be underhanded with authors.
In abnormal situations, however, such as small subsidiaries being squeezed for profits, things can change. Also, in giant mergers large numbers of books on the same subjects change hands, and publishers routinely discontinue less profitable titles by putting them out of print. Discontinued authors justifiably feel abused, although, as mentioned previously, all rights are reassigned to them eventually and they can seek another publisher. In the balance, authors should be wary of potential ruthlessness but should not assume that author-publisher relations are predicated on opportunities for exploitation.
Trust issues may also arise over the role of publishing in society. Some see the publishing industry is a threat to academic freedom, not to mention democracy, and portray publishing conglomerates as bastions of thought control. The reasoning seems to be that by determining or censoring what gets published, unscrupulous plutocratic monopolists can amass wealth and global political power and influence through the control of information. Certainly the control of information is a crucial concern of the twenty-first century, but in mass media such control is more a by-product of business than the goal, even for a Rupert Murdoch. The goal is, simply, profit. As in all media, it’s the ratings that count, and this dynamic more profoundly affects the quality of information than the control of it.
Labels: author-publisher relations
