I have SO many books I didn't sell. Some my agent rejected outright, others made it all the way to my editor to be turned away. Not everything is a winner, which is tough when you've devoted eight or nine months of your life to something.
My books have been translated into various languages and sold in other countries, but I never have any contact with the foreign publishers and am so disconnected from that process that it seems almost imaginary. With 'How to Save a Life', I worked closely with Usborne editors and have been involved in the publicity.
I do a lot of brainstorming with my editors. Sometimes it just comes out in the writing. I'll get an idea as I'm writing the chapter. I try to go for maximum surprises in PLL, stuff you don't see coming. It's a lot of fun!
First, the three of us holed up in winter in a cabin and took the 500 hours down to twelve hours. Then we found an editor, Lambis Haralambidis. He took that twelve hours and brought it to five. Then we get together and started taking the ax and chopping off different parts of our film.
Fiona McCrae is a really amazing editor. Really smart and very astute about what a story needs.
When I was editor of the Erotic Review I fielded endless phone calls from elderly readers who thought I might like to pop round in my spare time and thrash them
The relationship between a director and an editor in documentaries is so important.
A reckoning is coming on the state of the internet journalism, because right now, the way it's set up, there is so much room for libel to squeak through that you're going to see...they're going to rewrite the rule book on journalism very soon. They have to, because the bloggers are getting away with so much rumor-mongering about public officials and even private figures because they don't have editors and they don't have fact checkers and they don't have lawyers. There is going to be a price to pay somewhere down the line.
When both my editors say 'This is really bad, you need to change this,' I ignore that at my peril.
I've learned a heck of a lot this way [making Dark Tower comics]. I've also learned a lot from the editors at Marvel, who are always an equal part in the creative team.
I walked all around it [the Guggenheim Bilbao] and couldn't find one clear, clean shot. To make things worse, the weather was lousy. Nothing about this rang commercial money shot. In a situation like this there's only one thing to do: forget about pleasing editors, please yourself.
People think you get one idea for a cartoon every week, and that's not the way it works. You usually get 10 or 15, and you're - certainly when I was a cartoonist, before I was a cartoon editor, you're rushing to do what is called the batch. When I was doing that, I liked to have, in general, about 10 cartoons.
As a cartoonist I do what I find funny. As an editor I have a broader approach realizing that humor is inherently subjective and I don't want my preferences to rule out what others might like.
If you are a good editor, your relationship with every writer is different.
Publishers have in-house editors, but I hire my own before I submit the work to publishers. They appreciate it and I feel more confident about the material.
I pay editors. I never ask friends or colleagues to work for free.
I always read what I write out loud, and I did that long before any radio thing. My editor finds that unusual.
As an editor, I must often tell writers that their stories "do not fit our present needs." But there are times when I want to reply: "Sir, I would not trust you to write a ransom note."
I was interested in creating things that I could be proud of and so, you know, I was interested in being an editor of a magazine, things that I could be proud of, and so, you know, I was interested in being an editor of a magazine, but in order to be an editor of a magazine I had to become a publisher as well. I had to pay the bills. I had to worry about the printing and the paper manufacturing and the distribution of that magazine.
So I became a publisher by mistake - well, not quite by mistake, because I wanted to be an editor but I had to make sure the magazine would survive. The point is this: Most businesses fail, so if you're going to succeed, it has to be about more than making money.
I was the editor of the News of the World; I was the editor of the Sun and chief executive.
I personally made lots of mistakes during my 10-12 years as a newspaper editor. Some of which I felt were big mistakes I have tried to address.
Start with something messy, get to the point, get an editor, and make it good.
Democrats in Louisville were led by Courier-Journal editor Henry Watterson and were implacably opposed to blacks voting.
I'd forgotten - perhaps preferred to forget - that I'd caved in to the interference of some copy-editor... somebody anonymous whose commitment to finding something wrong would not disgrace an Eastern European clerk.
