I. INTRODUCTION

THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES

The Author-Editor Relationship

For an author, the act of writing a book-length manuscript and watching it progress through the publishing processes may be, to paraphrase Charles Dickens, the best of times, and the worst of times. It is the best of times, of course, because a creative intellect brought forth the book; the project; the germ of individuality. It may be the worst of times because any number of actual or imagined tragedies may befall the project during the editing and design and publishing stages; the book, even after being completed in manuscript, may not ever reach the book-buying public at all. The author may feel that he is at the whim of a merciless editor and publisher. Even if the manuscript is accepted for publication by a reputable company, the manuscript may be edited by a reputable editor away from the direction the author wished it to take.

The author too, may think that the design of the book itself, the printing, publication, distribution and attendant advertising and promotion may cause the book to fail rather than to succeed; he may believe that the editor and publisher are conspiring to hinder, rather than help him. For some authors, the act of publishing, whether in fiction or non-fiction, may be the worst of times, either in actual fact or in their imagination.

Publishing never has been a process which can be calculated precisely, either in terms of sales of various titles, or in terms of successful author-publisher-public relationships.

Yet one of the indefinable relationships most crucial to the success of the work and the success of the author is the author-editor bond. This bond—acceptance by the editor of the author’s work and acceptance by the author of the editor’s judgment—is an ethereal one at best. The author-editor relationship has existed in a