Just recently I received the first set of comments back from the editors on my third book. As an author, you always expect comments back from the editors that examine your work. If they’re doing their job they’ll give you what changes are necessary in order to make your book even stronger. Usually, recommended changes involve the addition of something for clarification, consolidating items that are mentioned in several sections of the book into a major section so the reader gets the full impact of your idea, and other modifications that provide a smooth flow of the authors ideas. The changes almost never involve changing data, as the editors publishing your book already consider you to be an expert in your business area.

The editor has one advantage over the author in that they’ve never seen the entire manuscript before and therefore can view the book much as a first time reader. The author, on the other, almost has the manuscript memorized. Therefore, it’s difficult to be the editor of your book.

One of the changes the editor asked me to make was to delete some of the extensive Chinese history I provided. In doing so, the editors felt, those using the book as a reference would be better able to access the business information they were looking without first immersing themselves in historical context. The editors still wanted the background history, just not as much. They were right, of course. Therefore, I’ve been shortening up the history lessons within the book and keeping my narrative on historical events much shorter. I’m through chapter 8 of the 14 chapters in the manuscript and hope to have the remainder of the revisions done in a week or two. After that, on to the next editor as I’m still hoping to make my end of September or beginning of October publication date.

Alan Refkin

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