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WORKING WITH A DEVELOPMENT EDITOR
Posted July 16, 2003
| SUMMARYPublishers have different job descriptions for development editors. Some even left the DEs themselves define what they do. Even so, there are 10 domains in which textbook authors can expect help from a development editor: Market, audience, organization, content, apparatus, pedagogy, authoring tasks, managing tasks, presentation, and package. |
By Mary Ellen Lepionka
Atlantic Path Publishing
A development editor has a different role from the acquisitions editor and the copyeditor. The acquisitions editor sponsors your book -- signs you on, proposes budget considerations for the project, often is responsible for arranging professional peer reviewing, and decides whether to invest in development. The copyeditor checks your writing style, spelling, punctuation, grammar, sentence construction, paragraphing, and other mechanics. The development editor (DE), on the other hand, analyzes your competition and reviewer feedback, works with you on your organization and content, helps create a heading system, develops a pedagogy plan, reads and comments on your manuscript, represents your project to marketing managers and production coordinators, helps manage the drafting schedule and manuscript length, and oversees the preparation of your manuscript for release to production.
In some houses, development editors may be responsible for other tasks as well. They may be involved in commissioning reviewers, developing an art and photo program, assisting with permissions research, presenting your book to a book designer, checking stages of proof, developing a supplements plan and commissioning supplement authors, and tracking and routing all the paperwork for your project. In some houses, DEs might help you revise or rewrite, or as content experts might even contribute original material for your book. Every house defines the role of a development editor differently, and DEs also vary among themselves in how they define their role. In most publishing houses, however, DEs are not expected to do content research or perform other authoring tasks.
Understanding the DEšs Role
The DE represents both the publisher and the customers for your textbook and in that capacity helps to answer the questions in the 10 domains of development: Market, Audience, Organization, Content, Apparatus, Pedagogy, Authoring Tasks, Managing Tasks, Presentation, and Package. Development involves the following decisions, among others:
Market and Audience
What is the bookšs market? Whom will the book be for?
How will it take away business from the competition?
What will be the intellectual level, style, and tone?
On what basis will the book be marketed and sold?
Organization and Content
What topics will the book cover and in what order?
How many parts and chapters of what length will the book need?
How will content be organized in terms of headings and subheadings?
What figures and tables will be included and how many?
Apparatus and Pedagogy
How will chapters consistently open and close?
What pedagogical features will be included and how frequently will they appear?
Will there be pedagogical captions? A glossary? Marginalia?
What will be in the frontmatter and endmatter?
Authoring and Managing Task
How will each authoring task be accomplished?
Who will review manuscript, how many reviewers will there be, and to what questions will they respond?
What will be the schedules for drafting, reviewing, and revising?
Presentation and Package
What photos and illustrations will be included and how many?
What will the book look like? What will be on the cover?
How will the book be promoted and advertised?
What will be the supplements, who will do them, what will be in them, how will they be done, and when?
Note that some of these questions are in the publisheršs purview. The publisher typically reserves final say on all aspects of the bookšs appearance, for example.
Working with a development editor usually involves frequent contact, collaborative or consensual decision making, and adherence to manuscript length requirements and schedules for submitting work. Working with a DE also involves trying to have a positive attitude and an appreciation for what the editor needs from you and what he or she can do for you and your book. This editor traditionally and normally is, above all, your ally, your champion. The professional development editor's chief allegiance probably is to your book and the people who will use it. For as little as a few days to as much as a year or more, the DE works for them as well as for you and the publisher. Making an excellent textbook that will benefit its users and achieve its full market potential is the goal.
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MARY
ELLEN
LEPIONKA
Lepionka, of Gloucester, Massachusetts, is the founder of Atlantic Path Publishing and author of its 2003 frontlist title, Writing and Developing Your College Textbook.
Forthcoming titles include her Writing and Developing College Textbook Supplements and Frank Silverman's Self-Publishing Textbooks and Instructional Materials.
E-mail: Mary Ellen Lepionka.
Telephone: (978) 283-1531
This article is excerpted from Chapter 4, "Development and Why Your Textbook Needs It" from Writing and Developing Your College Textbook by Mary Ellen Lepionka (ISBN: 0-9728164-0-2; Atlantic Path Publishing, 2003; all rights reserved). |
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