11 ms·

I have read several self-published non-technical books and the lack of professional editing smacks you right in the face from the first page. Two that stood ou

I have read several self-published non-technical books and the lack of professional editing smacks you right in the face from the first page. Two that stood out in that aspect were "Unix: A History and a Memoir" by Brian Kernighan and "Not All Fairytales Have Happy Endings" by Ken Williams (of Sierra, Space Quest, etc.) Had really high hopes for both and they were an absolute chore to read. The "Unix" was excruciatingly boring, despite the underlying material. The "Sierra" was just over-board quirky and poorly structured, more like a collection of random notes stapled together and padded to target thickness. Both could've been much better given a bit of professional editing attention.

TillE 5y ago
Likewise, I've attempted many self-published novels, some with high praise from independent readers, and found nearly all to be of miserably poor quality - Andy Weir being the sole exception. Even if you have the bones of a good story, even if you're a talented writer, a good editing process can transform your work from an unreadable mess to an actual solid novel.
- chillfox 5y ago
  Editors does a lot less for quality of the writing than people tend to think. Also, there’s nothing stopping someone self publishing from getting an editor to polish their manuscript before publication. The truth is that most authors who self publish are simply not good at writing. I am generally a fan of self publishing, it’s great for good writers as they get to keep more of the money and for the ones on the border it allows them to get something out there that might be good enough for a small audience.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dpwm 5y ago
    Editors vary. A good editor can take something rough and polish it, retaining the voice of the author. A bad editor can suck all the life out of the writing, never having noticed the author’s voice in the first place. It seems to me there has been a decline in the quality of editing by major publishers in recent years – though it may be that I have become better at noticing prose that would benefit from editing. Self-published stuff is normally worse, but it’s no surprise: hiring an editor would turn many self-published books from a modest profit to a heavy loss. The thing is that writing can be bad in a multitude of ways, and a good editor can fix at least one of those — and, at the very least, help ensure that the ideas on paper are written according to the norms and conventions of the language.
- theragra 5y ago
  We demand examples
  - baby 5y ago
    Stephen king in his book on writing has some examples.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
csdvrx 5y ago
Counter take: did Kernighan and Williams made a profit from their self published books? If yes, why do you want to monday morning quarterback them? They may have made more profit from hiring an editor, or engaging in regular book publication, but that's not 100% guaranteed. Also, they may have self-published just for fun. There's more than one way to do it, and I don't think we're qualified to judge ex-post if what Brian Kernighan chose to share his memoirs was the best way.
- passivate 5y ago
  I think you're misreading the comment. The comment is simply about a lack of quality in the text, not necessarily about money and profits. I think we all understand that quality doesn't necessarily translate to money and vice versa.
  - csdvrx 5y ago
    What reason to publish except 1) make profit or 2) have fun? Self-publishing can cover both. Quality might be a constraint for either, but again, it's not guaranteed
    - buescher 5y ago
      Maybe they want people to read what they have to say! In which case, communicating more effectively is worth time, effort, and money.
      - csdvrx 5y ago
        That's a valid 3rd reason!
derefr 5y ago
Self-publishing doesn't have to imply self-editing. It just implies that a professional editor's services should be paid for out of the author's pocket, rather than by some third-party publisher on the author's behalf. Of course, in practice, this doesn't seem to happen very often. I'm not sure why. It's not like your average self-published author is poor (they're generally the type of people who are well-off enough to dedicate a good fraction of their time to writing!) I assume many people just don't realize that "hiring an editor to help you fix up your own book" is something you can do. Or maybe they've never cultivated a "spend money to make money" mindset.
- geerlingguy 5y ago
  And many people don't realize as well that only top-tier publishers actually staff or hire 'professional' editors. A lot of the books you'll find from 'real' publishing companies are just peer-edited by a group of people who were told they'd get their name stamped in the imprint if they read through an advance copy. Not much better than self-editing, but still...
  - derefr 5y ago
    Also, 'professional' editors are, at most, just people who've attended a one-year degree program. (And probably not one that's anywhere as thorough as you'd imagine.) A friend of mine attended, and passed, such a degree program, from a respected university; they learned basically nothing from it. And the piece of paper did nothing to help them become an editor, either; people seem to do just as well getting editing gigs with no degree at all. Which means, more than likely, no particular education in editing at all!
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      >Also, 'professional' editors are, at most, just people who've attended a one-year degree program I don't think this is true of people who work for the big publishing houses. I've watched podcasts talking about it - there's a lot of fancy school names and knowing the right people involved, but 1 year programs aren't really whats going on there.
LegitShady 5y ago
the biggest thing about publishing is publishing, not editing. You might be the most correct entertaining writer ever but if you can't convince a publisher that they should publish your book, your book is going to have a hard time ever getting published. At least, that used to be true, until self publishing online came about and the entire publishing model was tranformed by it. I think this author is writing about publishing a book, not having a book edited, which are very different things. The mistakes a good editor (or beta readers, etc) would have caught. Boring writing would never have made it through the slush pile at a publisher. But it would also be accompanied by many great books the publisher doesn't think are in style or didn't hook the editor in the first 5 pages so will never get published...
bachmeier 5y ago
I'm not going to dispute what you're saying, but I can't say I've had that much luck with any type of non-technical book. Many are boring. Many are dumb. My opinion is that it's more about having good content than putting the content in the right order.
- huhtenberg 5y ago
  Flow matters as much as the content. Some people can just talk about X in a far more enjoyable manner than others. Isaacson is really good - his Jobs' biography, the Innovators, the Code Breaker - all are firmly footed in facts, but very easy and interesting to read. "Kitchen Confidentials", "Blind Man's Bluff" and "Seizing the Enigma" are really good in the same sense. Level down there are "Skunk Works" and "The Soul of a New Machine" - interesting, but dense and sluggish. At the bottom, to me at least, there's "Unix" and "Most Secret War" - very difficult to get through with all joy lost to being buried in facts and no connective tissue.
AlbertCory 5y ago
(First of all, my editor is someone I got from Michael Lynch, who blogged about her. She's now become quite expensive, and you get what you pay for. She's certainly been a "developmental editor" as well as "copy editor" -- she's the guardian of the character of Janet in Inventing the Future [1], for one thing, and doesn't hesitate to tell me when a chapter needs work. And yes, I do pay out of my own pocket.) Secondly, I also noticed that Kernighan book on the web, and my first thought was "that is such an amateurish cover!" It does not sell the book at all, and I'm not at all surprised that the writing is equally weak. Third, the Reedsy site is invaluable for finding good professionals. But you have to be the judge of what's good. If you don't have good taste, then you'll just need to be very lucky. Lastly, Clifford: your friend who said the book was about the people you interacted with did you a tremendous favor. That's what the readers want, even in non-fiction, unless you're writing a purely how-to book. [1] https://www.albertcory.io https://www.albertcory.io
- justin66 5y ago
  > It does not sell the book at all, and I'm not at all surprised that the writing is equally weak. I think anyone with even a passing familiarity with Kernighan's work would be surprised by an instance of weak writing.
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    K&R was a real masterpiece. This book, though, attempts to be something different. Writing history that's accurate and making it interesting is not easy. If it's non-fiction and a long time ago, you find that most people can't remember much of anything, and certainly not any dialog. I found from my book's reviews that a couple people wanted something more like Kernighan's. Oh well. That's not what I wanted to do, so I'm not sorry. Other people have done that. Like one of the reviewers said (a 5-star review): There’s no doubt that this book has a limited audience. In my opinion, to find the book interesting, you need to have a pre-existing interest in computer history, Unix, and programming (in that order). If you already have some familiarity with using Unix (or its derivatives) from the command-line, that will certainly help you understand the significance of many of the items that Kernighan discusses. If you have no prior experience with Unix, then I don’t know why you picked up this book or read this review!
j2kun 5y ago
I read "Unix: A History and a Memoir" and I thought it was great! Not the most gripping narrative but still a very enjoyable read. "Smacks you in the face" is going a bit overboard...
gommm 5y ago
While I agree with you that the Sierra book could have used a better editor, I still rather enjoyed it anyway. I finished it in one evening and was engrossed in the history of Sierra.

TillE 5y ago

Likewise, I've attempted many self-published novels, some with high praise from independent readers, and found nearly all to be of miserably poor quality - Andy Weir being the sole exception. Even if you have the bones of a good story, even if you're a talented writer, a good editing process can transform your work from an unreadable mess to an actual solid novel.

chillfox 5y ago
Editors does a lot less for quality of the writing than people tend to think. Also, there’s nothing stopping someone self publishing from getting an editor to polish their manuscript before publication. The truth is that most authors who self publish are simply not good at writing. I am generally a fan of self publishing, it’s great for good writers as they get to keep more of the money and for the ones on the border it allows them to get something out there that might be good enough for a small audience.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dpwm 5y ago
  Editors vary. A good editor can take something rough and polish it, retaining the voice of the author. A bad editor can suck all the life out of the writing, never having noticed the author’s voice in the first place. It seems to me there has been a decline in the quality of editing by major publishers in recent years – though it may be that I have become better at noticing prose that would benefit from editing. Self-published stuff is normally worse, but it’s no surprise: hiring an editor would turn many self-published books from a modest profit to a heavy loss. The thing is that writing can be bad in a multitude of ways, and a good editor can fix at least one of those — and, at the very least, help ensure that the ideas on paper are written according to the norms and conventions of the language.
theragra 5y ago
We demand examples
- baby 5y ago
  Stephen king in his book on writing has some examples.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

csdvrx 5y ago

Counter take: did Kernighan and Williams made a profit from their self published books? If yes, why do you want to monday morning quarterback them? They may have made more profit from hiring an editor, or engaging in regular book publication, but that's not 100% guaranteed. Also, they may have self-published just for fun. There's more than one way to do it, and I don't think we're qualified to judge ex-post if what Brian Kernighan chose to share his memoirs was the best way.

passivate 5y ago
I think you're misreading the comment. The comment is simply about a lack of quality in the text, not necessarily about money and profits. I think we all understand that quality doesn't necessarily translate to money and vice versa.
- csdvrx 5y ago
  What reason to publish except 1) make profit or 2) have fun? Self-publishing can cover both. Quality might be a constraint for either, but again, it's not guaranteed
  - buescher 5y ago
    Maybe they want people to read what they have to say! In which case, communicating more effectively is worth time, effort, and money.
    - csdvrx 5y ago
      That's a valid 3rd reason!

derefr 5y ago

Self-publishing doesn't have to imply self-editing. It just implies that a professional editor's services should be paid for out of the author's pocket, rather than by some third-party publisher on the author's behalf. Of course, in practice, this doesn't seem to happen very often. I'm not sure why. It's not like your average self-published author is poor (they're generally the type of people who are well-off enough to dedicate a good fraction of their time to writing!) I assume many people just don't realize that "hiring an editor to help you fix up your own book" is something you can do. Or maybe they've never cultivated a "spend money to make money" mindset.

geerlingguy 5y ago
And many people don't realize as well that only top-tier publishers actually staff or hire 'professional' editors. A lot of the books you'll find from 'real' publishing companies are just peer-edited by a group of people who were told they'd get their name stamped in the imprint if they read through an advance copy. Not much better than self-editing, but still...
- derefr 5y ago
  Also, 'professional' editors are, at most, just people who've attended a one-year degree program. (And probably not one that's anywhere as thorough as you'd imagine.) A friend of mine attended, and passed, such a degree program, from a respected university; they learned basically nothing from it. And the piece of paper did nothing to help them become an editor, either; people seem to do just as well getting editing gigs with no degree at all. Which means, more than likely, no particular education in editing at all!
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    >Also, 'professional' editors are, at most, just people who've attended a one-year degree program I don't think this is true of people who work for the big publishing houses. I've watched podcasts talking about it - there's a lot of fancy school names and knowing the right people involved, but 1 year programs aren't really whats going on there.

LegitShady 5y ago

the biggest thing about publishing is publishing, not editing. You might be the most correct entertaining writer ever but if you can't convince a publisher that they should publish your book, your book is going to have a hard time ever getting published. At least, that used to be true, until self publishing online came about and the entire publishing model was tranformed by it. I think this author is writing about publishing a book, not having a book edited, which are very different things. The mistakes a good editor (or beta readers, etc) would have caught. Boring writing would never have made it through the slush pile at a publisher. But it would also be accompanied by many great books the publisher doesn't think are in style or didn't hook the editor in the first 5 pages so will never get published...

bachmeier 5y ago

I'm not going to dispute what you're saying, but I can't say I've had that much luck with any type of non-technical book. Many are boring. Many are dumb. My opinion is that it's more about having good content than putting the content in the right order.

huhtenberg 5y ago
Flow matters as much as the content. Some people can just talk about X in a far more enjoyable manner than others. Isaacson is really good - his Jobs' biography, the Innovators, the Code Breaker - all are firmly footed in facts, but very easy and interesting to read. "Kitchen Confidentials", "Blind Man's Bluff" and "Seizing the Enigma" are really good in the same sense. Level down there are "Skunk Works" and "The Soul of a New Machine" - interesting, but dense and sluggish. At the bottom, to me at least, there's "Unix" and "Most Secret War" - very difficult to get through with all joy lost to being buried in facts and no connective tissue.

AlbertCory 5y ago

(First of all, my editor is someone I got from Michael Lynch, who blogged about her. She's now become quite expensive, and you get what you pay for. She's certainly been a "developmental editor" as well as "copy editor" -- she's the guardian of the character of Janet in Inventing the Future [1], for one thing, and doesn't hesitate to tell me when a chapter needs work. And yes, I do pay out of my own pocket.) Secondly, I also noticed that Kernighan book on the web, and my first thought was "that is such an amateurish cover!" It does not sell the book at all, and I'm not at all surprised that the writing is equally weak. Third, the Reedsy site is invaluable for finding good professionals. But you have to be the judge of what's good. If you don't have good taste, then you'll just need to be very lucky. Lastly, Clifford: your friend who said the book was about the people you interacted with did you a tremendous favor. That's what the readers want, even in non-fiction, unless you're writing a purely how-to book. [1] https://www.albertcory.io https://www.albertcory.io

justin66 5y ago
> It does not sell the book at all, and I'm not at all surprised that the writing is equally weak. I think anyone with even a passing familiarity with Kernighan's work would be surprised by an instance of weak writing.
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  K&R was a real masterpiece. This book, though, attempts to be something different. Writing history that's accurate and making it interesting is not easy. If it's non-fiction and a long time ago, you find that most people can't remember much of anything, and certainly not any dialog. I found from my book's reviews that a couple people wanted something more like Kernighan's. Oh well. That's not what I wanted to do, so I'm not sorry. Other people have done that. Like one of the reviewers said (a 5-star review): There’s no doubt that this book has a limited audience. In my opinion, to find the book interesting, you need to have a pre-existing interest in computer history, Unix, and programming (in that order). If you already have some familiarity with using Unix (or its derivatives) from the command-line, that will certainly help you understand the significance of many of the items that Kernighan discusses. If you have no prior experience with Unix, then I don’t know why you picked up this book or read this review!

j2kun 5y ago

I read "Unix: A History and a Memoir" and I thought it was great! Not the most gripping narrative but still a very enjoyable read. "Smacks you in the face" is going a bit overboard...

gommm 5y ago

While I agree with you that the Sierra book could have used a better editor, I still rather enjoyed it anyway. I finished it in one evening and was engrossed in the history of Sierra.