Unconscionable liberties
Nov. 10th, 2007 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceMmph. How happy am I, at being asked to redraft a manuscript entirely on spec, for an editor who has made no commitment whatsoever to the project?
And how happy ought I to be, am I being unreasonably snarly here?
What she says is that despite her own enthusiasm, the book will be a hard sell internally (by which I guess she means to the marketing department, above all), and it'll have a better chance if I make cuts and rewrites now, before the rest of the team gets to see it. Which I guess makes sense. It's just the atavistic old pro in me getting grumpy, feeling that cuts and rewrites are the matters we address after the publisher has committed to the novel by making, you know, an offer for it...
Also she's an old friend who has worked on many books with me before, so she does know that I'm good for rewrites. It's not like I'm a newbie who has to prove himself. It's not her, I guess, it's the system; and because she is an old friend, and because she holds a very senior position in a major publishing house, I will do as she asks. But grumpily.
*grumps*
And how happy ought I to be, am I being unreasonably snarly here?
What she says is that despite her own enthusiasm, the book will be a hard sell internally (by which I guess she means to the marketing department, above all), and it'll have a better chance if I make cuts and rewrites now, before the rest of the team gets to see it. Which I guess makes sense. It's just the atavistic old pro in me getting grumpy, feeling that cuts and rewrites are the matters we address after the publisher has committed to the novel by making, you know, an offer for it...
Also she's an old friend who has worked on many books with me before, so she does know that I'm good for rewrites. It's not like I'm a newbie who has to prove himself. It's not her, I guess, it's the system; and because she is an old friend, and because she holds a very senior position in a major publishing house, I will do as she asks. But grumpily.
*grumps*