'Twas ever thus, and another annoying little nods of the head

[desperance]

M'good-friend-'n'-colleague moshui has just learned that his editor has relocated to elsewhere in the US and elsewhere in the company, and is his editor no more. So he's been reassigned, for the second time; and - naive, sweet thing that he is! - he wonders if this is perhaps a record, to have three editors on a single book between commission and publication?

Needless to say, I laughed him out of court. To the best of my recollection, my own book Paradise ran through five editors during its process. And a wholesale takeover of the company. Oh, and three different publishing plans which would have set it in three different genres (without ever changing a word of the text).

Kids today. They know nothing, I tell you. Nothing...

Comments

[danjite.livejournal.com]

Wow- I want to see the war story comparisions of my favorite authors on this topic!

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

well you know - you could write a book explaining it all...


::runs away::

[autopope.livejournal.com]

There is a royalty processing computer that periodically sends me statements for a book ...

I signed the contract in 1996 for this title, about an obscure graphics extension to my favourite programming language. I signed it with Addison-Wesley, after talking it over with my then editor. Who promptly left on maternity leave just as my job disintegrated. Six months later she was back, briefly -- but then she left for good, handing the book to her boss. (I was then working in a dot-com and running a little behind schedule for side projects, shall we say.) Addison-Wesley then merged with Longman. $editor[2] left, and was replaced by $editor[3]. Then Addison-Wesley Longman was acquired by Pearson, and I got $editor[4]. This was circa 1998. Then Pearson Group closed down their European editorial operations and moved everything to the USA, and I haven't heard back from them. Except for the annual plaintive ping from the mainframe, the book is gone; it exists only as a record in a database.

Good thing I never wrote it then, isn't it?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. I think you should write it, simply for the pleasure of demanding the delivery advance...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, we've all got 'em (see Charlie, below...). Anyone who's been around publishing long enough has been through this particular mill (though it was the '90s that was most spectacular, with editors constantly shifting between companies that were themselves constantly being gobbled up by ever-larger conglomerates). I do think it's a bit rough on poor Daniel, though, trying to launch a new career via editors who keep slithering away from him.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Can't; I've been out of the programming game for eight years, which is, like, forever.

(Besides, the other 50% of the advance payable on publication is £500, and likely as not the book wouldn't earn out.)