A Day in the Life of an Editor

Most days, my work is not the stuff of movies, TV shows, or documentaries. Young people are not knocking down my door begging to job shadow as I appraise manuscript proposals, copyedit manucripts, write jacket copy, and fill out applications for CIP data. While my responsibilities are exciting to me, most people think that I basically read all day, and while that sounds like great fun, it would be a tortuous task for most people.

Today, however, I got to do some of my favorite "editorial" things. The day began with a publishing committee meeting, one of the most fascinating, intriguing events in a publishing house. In publishing committee meetings, which at our house occur perhaps two to three times a year, the editorial staff presents book proposals that have been submitted, and the publisher, editors, marketing people, and various others in leadership positions decide whether we should, in fact, publish these books. The proposals come from various sources: from authors whose books we have already published; from manuscripts I have acquired from manuscript services; from contacts the publisher and managing editor have; and--very rarely--from unsolicited manuscripts that people submit to us "out of the blue."

Today's agenda had four titles for consideration: two from our already published authors; one who had contacted us through our managing editor; and one that I had acquired from ECPA's Christian Manuscript Submissions. We also considered two already published books from outside vendors to include in our direct mail catalog and a "surprise" proposal that had not made it onto the agenda.

It's always interesting to see what manuscripts will appeal to which people and why and what reasons committee members have for objecting to a manuscript or finding it compelling. Today's meeting was no disappointment: one title was accepted with very little conversation; one author was asked to expand on the topic and resubmit; and the final two were overwhelmingly accepted. There were some interesting conversations about the proposals, and it was interesting to find out that one title in particular appealed far more to the men on the committee than the women (interesting).

We worked through the various proposals, and then it was time for the surprise, which was no surprise to me because I was presenting the surprise--I was submitting the proposal and assuming the role of author and editor all at once. Our music team is producing a CD to be released later this fall that has songs that tell the stories of people in other parts of the world who have been persecuted for their faith. We call it the IDOP (International Day of Prayer) project, and the music team is very excited about it. It will be well publicized with a seven-city tour. My marketing friend, K., and I were working together Tuesday morning and the conversation turned to the IDOP project, and I blurted out, "We should have a book that tells these stories to go with the CD." K. quickly picked up on the idea, and the ideas kept coming furiously.

To make a long story short, this idea quickly took on a life of its own. The next thing I knew, K. and I were in the music producer's office finding out if there were written sources for these stories, and within seconds we had a conference call with Greg Yoder of Mission Network News, who is working with our music team on the CD. The past two days have been a flurry of phone calls and emails with Greg and brainstorming and bouncing ideas around with different team members to determine if, in fact, we can "make" a book to be released on October 18, the same day the CD releases. We knew that we had to be able to present the proposal to the committee today in order to get a book done in time to release with the CD, so we had to move quickly. (On average, we spend about six months taking a book from manuscript to print, so even though that sounds like a long time, in book production time, it isn't.)

It would be an understatement to say that those of us involved are excited about this project, and our publisher asked us to be prepared to give a presentation at today's publishing committee meeting. The proposal was approved, and now I'm off! The next few months for me will be an intense exercise in taking radio newscripts and turning them into warm, passionate stories about people suffering for the name of Christ in other countries around the world.

And as if that weren't exciting enough, if a proposal I've acquired is approved, I get to call the author and let him or her know that a contract will be coming. And I got to do that twice today! Two authors were very happy people after my conversations with them.

It was definitely a great day to be an editor . . .