I’ve been struck of late with the lack of good editing in some of the newer books I’ve read. Marjorie Braman’s post on What Ever Happened to Book Editors opened my eyes to what I think is a disturbing trend–that editors in publishing houses are having to increasingly “double-down” as acquisition agents and publicists, and editing is something done on the side.

Braman highlights the work of Maxwell Perkins, who was the editor for Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I discovered that he was also responsible for the publication of Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country, one of my all time favorite works. What struck me as I read about Perkins (at least in Wikipedia), was that a critical part of his work with Scribners was acquisition. But it also seems that he played a huge editorial role with his authors, particular Thomas Wolfe, cutting 90,000 words out of Look Homeward, Angel.

It seems that part of Perkins genius was identifying skilled writing and nursing it along. This recognizes a critical truth–editors cannot make a mediocre work great. They can take good to great writers and make them better and part of the skill of a good editor must be the ability to recognize great writing “in the raw.”

One wonders where this will happen in the changing publishing world, particularly with the rise of self- and independent publishing. Publishers in the past served as a clearing house whose survival depended on editors who could identify writers. Braman argues that this might better happen these days with freelance editors working with the publishers. I wonder.

Jim Hoover

I learned recently of the retirement of Jim Hoover as an editor at InterVarsity Press, the publishing house associated with the organization I work for.  Once again, I learned that Jim was responsible for the acquisition of works by authors like Eugene Peterson (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction) and editing works by Richard Lovelace, James Sire, Ben Witherington III, and more. His last project was editing the Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity. His work was recently featured in a blog by fellow editor, Andy LePeau. While the books he edited served a far more limited audience than those edited by Perkins, they are marked as works of clarity and excellent, readable scholarship. Those whose books he worked on would describe him as both “careful” and “gracious”.

If the place of editors like Hoover and Perkins is marginalized in the publishing industry, I wonder whether the quality of books we will see in this century will measure up to the last (By the way, I don’t see this happening at InterVarsity Press!). And this is at a time when reading habits are changing and the public is turning to other forms of media.

What concerns me is the issue of quality. In an upcoming post, I will explore the issue of “platform” and how this is a substitute for quality (and no doubt, one of the things that de-values good editing).

I’d love to hear what my friends who write or publish think of all this. My vantage point is simply that of the humble, but necessary, reader.