Editing Fact and Fiction: A Concise Guide to Book Editing

Every month, it seems, brings a fresh crop of books on writing. Whatever it is you want to write, you can be sure there's a shelf's worth of books to guide you. But try to locate a book on editing, and you're likely to come up empty-handed. Editing is so dependent on instinct that a newcomer is expected somehow to just figure it out. We can imagine no finer introduction to book editing than Editing Fact and Fiction. Authors Leslie T. Sharpe and Irene Gunther explain what different editors (acquiring, copy, production, managing) do, as well as how those tasks vary depending on the type of book (fiction, nonfiction, children's, reference, textbooks, etc.). They address freelance editing, electronic editing, and publishing courses, and have compiled a terrific bibliography of useful books for editors.

But most important, they have "distill[ed] our philosophy of editing into a set of guiding principles," principles "that will inform every editing decision." These principles are all about restraint and respect and having a deep understanding of the elements of good writing. "Do no harm," the authors advise. "Change as little as possible." A book belongs, ultimately, to its author, and it is the editor's job to coax out the best version possible. An editor, they say, is like a baseball umpire. "The best umps, like the best editors, are invariably the ones you don't notice. They guide the game but don't intrude on it." --Jane Steinberg