The Secret Weapon of Great Books

With all of the hoopla and emphasis on authors, it's rare to find an author who will acknowledge the careful work of his or her editor. In my view, that active involvement from an editor for every part of the manuscript--but in particular the title and the text--is the secret weapon for great books.

There are some fiction authors where I've given up reading their material. Once I was a real fan and read everything they produced yet today I barely give their new titles a glance. I wondered what had changed and as I thought about it, I realized these particular authors had switched publishing houses and lost the strong developmental and editor touch. It's a shame in many respects because I suspect I'm not the only reader from these authors who feels this way. In fact, the authors that I'm thinking about have almost disappeared off the market.

I want to encourage you to read James Grippando's Soapbox called Untitled in the June 23rd issue of Publishers Weekly. It is a beautiful tribute to his editor.