Quick quessie for authors

A friend just emailed to ask me what the pencil capital Ps all over her manuscript mean.¹ How many of you knew what copyeditor’s marks were before you sold your first book?

Those of you who did know was it because you’d worked in publishing before you sold a book?

I had no idea what I was looking at when the copyedited manuscript of Battle of the Sexes arrived. Fortunately, the ms. came with a guide explaining the marks. I guess uni presses are used to newbie authors who know nothing about publishing. Doubly fortunately I’m married to someone who worked in publishing for years and had published three books.² Bless you, Scott!

I still turn to Scott to explain the obscurer marks to me.

Is there anything else you didn’t know before you sold your first book that you wish you had known?

New paragraph. [↩]
At that time. He’s now published so many I’ve lost count. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 17:31, 17 April 2009 under Publishing business | 26 Comments »

Comments

Rick O Says:

Now I’m curious if they were just capital P marks, or if they were actual pilcrows.

I’ve never been an editor, but we had an in-depth review of editor’s marks back in high/secondary school. It’s stuck with me ever since. I doubt I could pass as a real editor, but I remember enough to be able to fake it.

April 17th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Amy Says:

I am not published but I totally know copywriters marks, and even occasionally use them on my own stuff when I’m making line edits on a print out. I learned them in high school and they just stuck!… many years later.

I guess that means if I get published I will find at least one thing not terrifyingly new.

April 17th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Carrie Says:

Seriously, I wouldn’t even know where to begin answering this question. Rather, it’s probably easier for me to list what I did know before I sold my first book. Let’s see… I knew what word length to shoot for in my manuscript, how to format said manuscript, and how to go about getting an agent — everything past that point was shrouded in mystery.

Really, I knew nothing. Just ask Diana — she’s the one who had to field all my dumb questions. It astounds me now when I look back on it how much I’ve learned and how much I have left to learn.

April 17th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Joelle Says:

Hi. Well, I just got my first edited manuscript last month for my first novel and there was no explanation for the marks with it. I had an idea what they were, but I really don’t know why I knew that. Anyway, I just got online and did a google search for “copy editing marks” or something like that and in seconds I had a key. As this was just the first round of edits, most of it was actual notes from my editor, but she’d used the marks for things she wanted cut or moved. Thank goodness for the key as she’d gone out of town before it arrived! I’m sure my agent would’ve helped me though. He’s very accessible.

April 17th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
JohnO Says:

They’re really useful. I learned them as a magazine editor, but I use them when I edit my own stuff on paper … for example, writing “stet” is a million times faster than writing “wait, I didn’t really mean to cross that out, so don’t delete it.”

April 17th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Carrie Says:

specifically re: the CE marks… my editor included a sheet explaining them with my manuscript. She also included a green pencil because everyone who edited the manuscript got a different color (I wouldn’t have known that either!). I did learn copy editing marks at some point at school but had loooong forgotten them. And when I started using them in my day job (law) I got a lot of strange looks.

April 17th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
DLDzioba Says:

I’ve not been published yet, but I’ve known the copyeditors’ marks since grade school. Kinda stuck with me and on top of that I collect books on writing and such many of which include a guide to them.

April 17th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Q Says:

Like the two before me, I am not published but I know some copyediting marks.

April 17th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Brenda Says:

I have published lots of non-fiction books over the years, but learned the copyediting marks back in college (while getting an English degree). Useful things.

The second question – what do I know now that I wish I knew then? Mostly about how very long it takes to write a GOOD book. I still underestimate sometimes, but am getting better with each contract.

April 17th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Nalo Hopkinson Says:

I did know that copyediting mark before I was published (as a novelist, anyway), but I can’t now remember why. It may have been something I learned at Clarion.

April 17th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Becca Says:

I was lucky to be a proofreader in college, so not only did I know the marks, I knew the grammar rules — so I saw fewer of those marks when the manuscript came back.

Remember that publishing rule that says you really, really want an agent? I guess I heard that one, but I wish I’d believed it!

April 17th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Jenny Davidson Says:

I had worked as a copy-editor at Let’s Go, so I knew ‘em – must have learned ‘em in school at some point, too, I think (they are a standard inclusion in various style guides) – I am sketchy on the finer points, but there are a few proofreader’s marks of which I am particularly fond!

I wish I had known the OPPOSITE of what commenter #9 says – I sold my first novel WITHOUT an agent (to a small press where it was being read as a favor by a friend of mine, who liked it enough to want to buy it) – after having basically wasted 3 years trying to get an agent. I always say to starting-out writers with high-quality but not especially commercial books that it may well be worth their while sending the book directly to small press editors, assuming they target the right ones – I think that in certain important respects it is more difficult to get an agent than a publisher. Now, of course it is better to have an agent than not, but it is not as indispensable as some people (i.e. my past self!) imagine…

April 17th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Harry Connolly Says:

I worked as a proofreader for court reporters before I was published, so I was familiar with the marks. Still, I needed to freak out on my blog about them until someone provided me with a link.

Embarrassingly, the copy editor had addressed me as “Au” for “author” as in: “Au, is this okay?”

I figured the “A” stood for “author,” but for the life of me I couldn’t work out what the “U” stood for. “Unskilled?” “Undeserving?” Many were the possibilities.

The one thing I didn’t know was how stressful it would all be.

April 17th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Maureen Johnson Says:

I learned them in college.

April 17th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Adrienne V Says:

I had no idea about most of them, and I still just ignore the m-dash notes, since I can never figure out how to make them on my mac.

April 17th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Richard Lewis Says:

The most important thing, I reckon, is STET, those three dots that mean to the editor “No, leave it as it originally was.”

When I sent in my first copyedited novel, with my corrections made to the ms, it was a horrible mess of whiteout and strikethroughs…the second novel they finally sent me a guide.

April 17th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Jon Says:

Both of my book manuscripts were copyedited electronically in Word using Track Changes. I vaguely remember using copyeditor’s marks years ago for a couple of articles in academic journals but most of my recent publications in that context were edited electronically too.

April 17th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Belynda Says:

I knew of them, but only because I worked in an environmental office where I had to edit large environmental reports for remediation permits. (I know, glamorous stuff.)

I must say though, it comes in quite handy while I’m editing my novel! A friend of mine is doing my final round of edits on a hardcopy, so we’ll see what he makes of the “official” system of markups

April 17th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Diana Peterfreund Says:

I learned copyediting marks in high school, used them from time to time in editing my own papers, and then worked for a year as a copyeditor where we almost NEVER had to use them (except for our CE exam when we were first applying for the job) since we did everything using these weird macros on our computers.

As for what Carrie said, don’t believe her. She’s constantly talking about publishing stuff I have no clue what she means. “White box” and “gray list” and all kinds of other colors.

April 18th, 2009 at 8:06 am
Lauren McLaughlin Says:

I knew absolutely nothing. I.e. What are galleys? What are proofs? What’s an ARC? What does “sell-through” mean. What are “returns?” Also, what are the different steps of the editing process and when do these things happen? A simple guideline on all of this would have been immensely useful. But then, I just turn to you, Justine, to answer all of my publishing questions. Oh yeah, and what does it mean to earn out?

April 18th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Kelly McCullough Says:

I knew most of them because I’d been in a writers group for years with three already published novelists.

April 18th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Kameron Hurley Says:

I’d been exposed to copyediting marks in some English class or other back in the day. 8th grade? 7th grade? I don’t know. I had really great English and History teachers. I used them on my own for a few years as a part of early day jobs, then gave them up.

So, when I got the copyedited MS for my first book recently, they were pretty familiar. Just took a few pages to get back into the groove.

April 18th, 2009 at 10:40 am
simmone Says:

wider publishing world = eek. even when i have things explained to me I don’t understand them …

copyediting code ok – i especially love ‘transpose’… my favourite because it’s fun to write

also am partial to STET and STET STET

I learnt some from Strunk and White

April 18th, 2009 at 11:03 am
heather w Says:

@15: em-dashes are easy on a Mac; shift+option+hyphen. (leave off the shift for an en-dash)

Is there a keyboard shortcut for em-dashes in Windows? I’ve never researched that.

April 18th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
C Says:

I learned the basic copyediting marks early in school, maybe 7th or 8th grade. I always had to use them when revising papers for school. I’m not sure how in depth we went with them, I may have just forgotten all but the basic ones.

April 19th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Sarah Rees Brennan Says:

I’d worked in publishing so I was mostly okay, but this meant whenever there was something I didn’t recognise? Panic and mayhem!

April 20th, 2009 at 5:48 am