Customer Reviews

Editing Fact and Fiction: A Concise Guide to Book Editing

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an editor, I'm always amazed at how few texts are out there to teach young editors how to edit. I discovered this book, when it was first published years ago, and gave it to my junior staff to read and, hopefully, teach them the basic principles of editing. Which it did, really well. I went back looking for it again, and I was amazed and delighted that it's still in print (though it could indeed us an update in the tech chapter especially). But the core chapters--on principles, senses, and sensibility--are still solid, fresh, and very, very useful. I'm going to recommend it to this new generation of editors. And I'm so pleased it's still around!

One Stop shopping for editing information. This is a great tool for beginning editors and writers. The book is concise, easily readable and contains a wealth of information about the editing role in publishing. There is also great insight and tips for freelance editing and excellent reference information in the back. This is the best book of its type that I've come across to date.

While not much of a how-to book, it provides a fine overview of the publishing business, with details on specific editorial positions and what kinds of people will succeed in them. It's also good at describing/prescribing the editor-author relationship: how to write tactful queries, be a friend to authors, and generally get what you want. More of this would have been helpful. The final chapter, on technological advances in publishing, is out of date and mostly pointless.

I enjoyed the read, but I could easily have lived without this book. Glad I bought it used; it's not a book to which I will often refer.

P.S. One of the ugliest covers I've ever seen. What on earth was Cambridge thinking?

This is an editing book that practices what it preaches--it's well written as well as well edited.
Most of all, it's the first book I've found that tells exactly what editors do--or, more to the point, exactly what editors should do and just don't these days. That, is, edit, and not write--that is, intervene, without changing the author's words or meaning. At a time when both editing and writing are on the decline, this book seems to me to be even more relevant than
when it was published, nearly ten years ago. No wonder that it's still in print, but I would advise the publisher (Cambridge University Press) to get the authors to do a new edition. The chapter on technology is out of date, and the freelance chapter needs to be updated too. But for the core chapters on editing principles and philosophy, this book is the best I've read!

Frustrated legal secretary looking for new career as a copyeditor, fact-checker, and proofreader researched the subject at the public library and found this the very best on the subject - a must-have. I must have my own copy. Great resource.

I am both a wannabe writer and a freelance editor. With my writer's hat on I found that seeing the editing and publication process through the eyes of practicing editors was very useful. With my editor's hat on the broad details on how the various types of editor should act when dealing with writers, publishers and other people in the chain when a book in being produced was also very useful. My only problem with the book is that its age makes most of the material on computers and electronic publishing useless.

This was everything I was looking for for overall information and understanding of copy-editing and content editing. Very helpful.