I’m anticipating an off-the-grid day, but before heading out I couldn’t help myself from pointing to this instant blog-post classic from Seth Godin — a public dress-down of a newly assigned copy-editor from his book publisher. It’s the post authors and writers who blog dream of writing, but never due: discretion being the better part of valor, and all.
I’m sure there will be authors and writers all over the world bookmarking this post and e-mailing it around today.
Here’s a snippet:
“Just got some work back from a new copyeditor hired by my publisher. She did a flawless job. She also wrecked my work. Totally wrecked it. By sanding off every edge, removing every idiom, making each and every fact literally correct, she made it boring and dry and mechanical. If they have licenses for copyeditors, she should have hers revoked.”
I guess an e-mail from Seth to the editor would have conveyed the message, but I’m very glad we all got to be spectators on this one.
Later: As a clarification (thanks to the comment Seth made below), read the entire post and you’ll see that Seth’s point is this: an author has the power to respond with STET.
