What was the process of making that book? Here, it mainly starts with the responsible editor getting the author's complete manuscript. Because there are some differences in the operation methods of different publishing houses, I mainly take our publishing house as an example.
1. Preliminary review
After the chief editor (chief editor, deputy chief editor, editor and assistant editor can all be chief editors) gets the manuscript from the planning editor, the first thing to do is to make a preliminary review. The preliminary examination can be modified directly in the document, or printed out and modified on the paper draft.
The electronic version revision has one advantage: it can unify some words, clarify the hierarchy and save paper, but it hurts the eyes even more, and people's attention is not as good as reading the paper version, so many editors still print it out for revision.
What are the main changes in the preliminary examination? Because the preliminary review is the responsibility of the responsible editor, it needs comprehensive consideration. In addition to basic vocabulary and expressions, there are also political and ideological checks. For example, our society is mainly academic publishing, so there are many citations, involving ancient prose, which requires considerable energy in editing.
Some people say that the author is responsible for the quotation. But this time is different. The author is Party A and the publisher is Party B, many of which are for publishing books and evaluating professional titles. Either it doesn't matter, or they can't find the original text themselves, because the author also extracts from others.
As a responsible editor, from the perspective of quality, he will also check the quotations through various channels, such as reading shows and HowNet. Of course, some editors are unwilling to spend their energy on this work. However, every year, clubs and provinces will conduct spot checks on books published in the market the year before last, and have corresponding punishment measures. Coupled with personal professional ethics, many editors will try their best to do their books well.
In fact, there is an editing process before the preliminary review. Editing refers to the processing and polishing of articles to meet the publishing requirements. But now, special editing is rarely done, but in the first example. Because there are many problems to be dealt with in the preliminary examination, the quality of the manuscript is often poor, so the workload of the preliminary examination is the largest.
Because one of the assessment of editors is the workload, that is, the number of words, and editors have to follow up all the time, the price of preliminary review is the highest compared with that of peer review, final review and proofreading.
Step 2 review
Review is generally carried out by the editor-in-chief (or deputy director) or the editor-in-chief and deputy editor-in-chief entrusted by the publishing house leaders. Editors with intermediate titles in our society can review the manuscript. The review is less responsible than the preliminary review, and there is no need to follow up the process. After reading the manuscript, it only needs to ask questions and modify the manuscript.
3. Final review
The final review can not be carried out by ordinary editors, but by editors and deputy editors entrusted by the president or editor-in-chief or social leaders. There are less than ten people in our club who can do the final review, usually the office director or the deputy senior editor. There is no need to read all the manuscripts in the final review.
Here is a sentence to explain a situation involving a major topic that needs to be sent to the provincial bureau for review after the third trial. General inspection takes two or three months. Some maps or professional contents need to be sent to relevant departments for review.
4. A school
In fact, there is no essential difference between these three corrections in the operation process. Although the responsibility proofreading system is implemented, a school in our society is responsible proofreading, but we only looked at the proofreading time once and did not follow up the whole proofreading process, but the editor did it for us.
The first school in our club is a responsible school, with slightly higher price and better service proofreading level. Some publishers need to proofread manuscripts first, that is, check manuscripts and proofread similarities and differences. In fact, proofreading plays little role in contemporary publishing. After all, most authors give electronic manuscripts directly, not handwritten ones.
Editors and proofreaders should bear corresponding responsibilities for the quality of a book, but most of them are borne by editors. In our society, if the quality inspection is unqualified, those who participate in the three trials and three schools will be deducted; And excellent quality inspection, there are corresponding rewards.
5. No.2 Middle School
The second school is a relatively neglected school. There are no special requirements, depending on the individual's ability. Eliminate mistakes more, and people in grade three will be relaxed.
6. Three schools
Many publishing houses are responsible for the three schools, also known as the final school, and are held by people with certain qualifications and good proofreading level. The mistakes in the book have been basically eliminated in the third grade, but it is a great responsibility for him to ensure that the error rate is controlled below one ten thousand to reach the qualified level. Therefore, many publishers think that the third grade is the most important and the highest price.
It is worth mentioning that the three schools can be partially outsourced, that is, by professionals outside the organization, which can not only save labor costs, but also promote part-time jobs.
read through
After the three trials and three schools, there is another link, that is, reading through. Reading through is usually the responsibility of the editor or the school. Our society is generally full of editors, and some people regard it as four schools, that is, proofreaders proofread more than one school. It seems unnecessary to read through, but it still plays a certain role, especially for editors. After many revisions in the middle, it is also a kind of check to avoid mistakes other than revision.
7. Final trial
Many publishing houses have not set up this link, and our club mainly gives the certificate to the deputy editor-in-chief for final review. The final review is relatively simple, mainly to look through it and check whether there is any sensitive content.
If there are peers, the book involves the "Cultural Revolution", which is the memory and evaluation of the villagers during the "Cultural Revolution". Obviously, this villager has a personal color. Perhaps his account is true feelings and actual situation, but it is not rigorous enough, like a joke. At the time of the final review, the deputy editor-in-chief read it carefully and asked to delete some sensitive contents.
A book decides the fate of a publishing house. Such examples have appeared before, and leaders have to strictly control and act cautiously.
8. Quality inspection
In prepress quality inspection, it is reasonable to extract100000 words from a book, and the error rate is below 1/10000. But there are too few quality inspectors in our organization, only two. They didn't sample100000 words, maybe only 20000 to 30000 words. If there is no problem, they can make blue samples.
9. Blue sample
The last step of editing is to look at the blue sample. A blue sample, as its name implies, is a sample book made of blue paper. How about the blue sample? All the books in the future are similar, so the blue sample is the last check.
Generally, the blue sample stage is not modified, but if mistakes are found, especially hard injuries, they must be modified. It is a great blessing to correct mistakes or avoid losses before printing.
The blue sample needs to be signed by the editor-in-chief, editor-in-chief and editor-in-chief before it can enter the printing stage. And the task of editing is basically completed.
10. Printing
Printing is usually left to the printing house. However, some publishers still need to go to the printing factory to follow up, especially in terms of color, and need to confirm whether the color is appropriate. Moreover, our club has a publishing department, which is responsible for typesetting and printing, so there is a special person to follow up.
Some people may think that the manuscripts of famous writers can be published directly. Some books with particularly good quality can really go faster, but every link cannot be omitted.
Another cruel fact is that some writers have many titles and look like famous writers, and their manuscripts may be bad. Some manuscripts are just edited word for word to meet the publishing requirements. The works of some well-known professors have also been revised by checking quotations and textual research on historical facts.
Therefore, every book is the patience and hard work of the editor, and the edited book is just like your own child. Of course, irresponsible editors are not excluded.