Author Wanted

Greg Bockelman

Greg Bockelman

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
11,101
Location
Lone Jack, MO
Display Name
Display name:
Greg Bockelman
Anyone know of anyone that would be interested?

I've been asked by a major publisher to help them find an author who will write a book about aviation applications and the iPad.

I don't know how easy this will be but it's certainly a challenge. The editor is serious about this project and would like to move forward fairly soon.

This is a major, internationally known publisher so the door is open to a fairly wide audience resulting in a pretty decent financial benefit.
Click to expand...

If so, drop me a PM here and I will forward it.
 
Hmmm.

An aviation-qualified person, who knows how to write and edit.

Whomever could it be?
 
Let me clarify, I am asking on behalf of another party. I have nothing to do with this personally.
 
Tech how-to books can be a challenge. Too much detail and no one reads. Not enough and everyone complains.

The best tech publishers have a template (e.g Worx) and everybody uses it.
 
dmccormack said:
Tech how-to books can be a challenge. Too much detail and no one reads. Not enough and everyone complains.
Click to expand...
They outsourced the editing on my last book to India. Good English skills, a rather poor understanding of aviation and even some of the other technical points. Wanted to spell out "Federal Aviation Administration" every time I used the term, "FAA." Changed the slashes in my tool sizes to dashes ("Use a 9/16" wrench" became "use a 9-16" wrench").

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
They outsourced the editing on my last book to India. Good English skills, a rather poor understanding of aviation and even some of the other technical points. Wanted to spell out "Federal Aviation Administration" every time I used the term, "FAA." Changed the slashes in my tool sizes to dashes ("Use a 9/16" wrench" became "use a 9-16" wrench").

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...

Do you have an "author's override" on stuff like that?

What book, BTW?
 
kyleb said:
Do you have an "author's override" on stuff like that?

What book, BTW?
Click to expand...

"Airplane Ownership." The editor didn't squawk about correcting stuff, it's just that there were so many of them. I even started keeping a list.

For instance, I had to explain that "handling" was a term that referred to how an airplane responded to the pilot's control. I wrote, "Its handling was weird," they corrected it to, "It is handled so weird."

The fun thing was how they didn't understand American idiom. "Oshkosh is like old home week..." was changed to "Oshkosh is like old home work..." And the airplanes there weren't "Experimentals," they were "Experimentalists."

My favorite resulted when I referred to using a "GI knapsack." You can guess what they changed "GI" into....

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
They outsourced the editing on my last book to India. Good English skills, a rather poor understanding of aviation and even some of the other technical points. Wanted to spell out "Federal Aviation Administration" every time I used the term, "FAA." Changed the slashes in my tool sizes to dashes ("Use a 9/16" wrench" became "use a 9-16" wrench").

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...


Genius -- outsource editing to folks whose English is a second language.

:rolleyes2:
 
dmccormack said:
Genius -- outsource editing to folks whose English is a second language.

:rolleyes2:
Click to expand...

Well... in terms of editing skills, it might be better, in the sense that the person might have a fresher understanding of rules and syntax. Even if that's not the case, English might have been the editor's second language, but it the *official* second language of India. It's quite possible that the editor had learned it early.

Like I said, I had no issues with the grammar and punctuation editing by the Indian editor. The biggest problems were the lack of a technical background and, especially, the lack of understanding American idiom.

Finally, remember that from the publisher's point of view, it was a win-win situation. They probably paid the editor a flat rate, and didn't have to pay me at all, beyond my contracted royalties.

Ron Wanttaja
 
One of the editors of my last book changed "pitot" to
"pilot" throughout. It necessitated going back to a previous version, compare docs, etc, because I certainly wasn't going to do individual searches for each instance of "pilot"...
 
Ooh, look! A professional writer, oft-published and well-versed in aviation matters.

How about that!
 
Guys, keep in mind all I am doing is passing the info on. I have nothing to do with this other than that.
 
Ok, I've been dying to tell this story. I got a call once from the admin for a corporate CEO who had decided to write a book. She wanted a quote for "editing" it. I estimated the time, and since I was a little hungry gave them a relatively low hourly rate. Nonetheless, she was shocked and said, "How can it be so much? It's already written. You would just need to go in and put in some adjectives and stuff."

I wanted to say, "Oh, is that all? Well just hit ctrl-shift-F12 and Word will do that for you."
 
Ken Ibold said:
Ok, I've been dying to tell this story. I got a call once from the admin for a corporate CEO who had decided to write a book. She wanted a quote for "editing" it. I estimated the time, and since I was a little hungry gave them a relatively low hourly rate. Nonetheless, she was shocked and said, "How can it be so much? It's already written. You would just need to go in and put in some adjectives and stuff."

I wanted to say, "Oh, is that all? Well just hit ctrl-shift-F12 and Word will do that for you."
Click to expand...

Putting on my best Brooklyn accent: "You want some adjectives? I'll give you some adjectives...." :D
 
Ken Ibold said:
Ok, I've been dying to tell this story. I got a call once from the admin for a corporate CEO who had decided to write a book. She wanted a quote for "editing" it. I estimated the time, and since I was a little hungry gave them a relatively low hourly rate. Nonetheless, she was shocked and said, "How can it be so much? It's already written. You would just need to go in and put in some adjectives and stuff."

I wanted to say, "Oh, is that all? Well just hit ctrl-shift-F12 and Word will do that for you."
Click to expand...

Or say "Call Greg Brown." :)
 
gprellwitz said:
:dunno: What are you saying, that Greg is descriptive in his language and ghis work doesn't read like a manual?
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong. I like Greg Brown's articles. Also, I listed to an old Pilotcast with Greg over the weekend, and he mentioned you. He seems like a cool guy.

Still, his writing can get a little too "flowery" for me. This is from November's Flight Training magazine:

Gawking, we bypass a fearsome gunmetal-gray rain column, then steer for Flagstaff down a wide but imposing gauntlet. Now the sun squints through misty veils from beneath an ebony overcast. Soon it kisses the horizon, spashing iridescent color into the murky clouds and transmuting silvery rain to gold.

Spellbound by crimson rain shafts spilling from ginger and sapphire clouds, I ponder the way nonpilots so often quiz us, trying to comprehend the lure of flight based on practical measures of time, efficiency, and expense.

...

"Now look!" says Jean. Ahead through this pinball passageway of now-ruby showers, hulking black mountains jab an indigo sky. Is that a pinch of fairy dust at their feet, sprinkled with colorful sparkles like a magical cupcake? Or just the glow of our little city, and the welcoming lights of its airport? Tonight we've discovered new meaning in "the magic of home."
Click to expand...

Again, I like his columns, but I could only imagine I would be docked a grade by my college creative writing professor for padding my word count with too many adjectives.
 
You guys are so damn lucky. Nobody edits my books but me. I'd kill for a good editor. Mrs. Steingar proofreads them, but she's no pro (though she's damn good). And the beta testers did such a lousy job with my latest book, it's riddled with errors.
 
nddons said:
Don't get me wrong. I like Greg Brown's articles. Also, I listed to an old Pilotcast with Greg over the weekend, and he mentioned you. He seems like a cool guy.

Still, his writing can get a little too "flowery" for me. This is from November's Flight Training magazine:



Again, I like his columns, but I could only imagine I would be docked a grade by my college creative writing professor for padding my word count with too many adjectives.
Click to expand...
He can paint word pictures; I'll certainly grant you that, but that's what that column is all about. It's more poetry than expository writing. Read some of his other books, though. Or, for that matter, look at some of his landscape photography!
 
steingar said:
You guys are so damn lucky. Nobody edits my books but me. I'd kill for a good editor. Mrs. Steingar proofreads them, but she's no pro (though she's damn good). And the beta testers did such a lousy job with my latest book, it's riddled with errors.
Click to expand...
How does one get to be a pro at editing?
 
I've done a lot of writing and more than a bit of editing over the years, and for me, editing unquestionably is the more difficult of the two.

I'm not talking about punctuation and grammar. That's easy if you went to a decent grade school and managed to stay awake during most of your "language arts" classes, as they're called these days.

The hard part is more difficult to define, but it comes down to understanding and maintaining the author's context for the work, and then making sure that the author's expression consistently and clearly articulates what he or she is trying to say within that context.

What I mean by this is that decent writers have a "feel" or "mood" that they're trying to create, which establishes the context within which their topic will be taught or their story will be told. Trying to decide whether a specific passage makes sense or is expressed well requires that the editor be aware of that context.

For example, some authors use humor of various kinds to liven up otherwise dry material. This can work well provided that a context has already been created that allows for the occasional use of humor, so the reader will immediately recognize it as such without having to be told, "Hey, that was a joke."

I've found that maintaining contextual consistency is one of the more challenging aspects of editing. It takes a lot more time to write something than it does to read it, and subtle differences in context (usually attributable to the author's mood and so forth when particular sections were written) become much more evident when the work is read. Smoothing out these differences requires a good understanding of what the author intended the context to be, and gently applying revisions to passages as needed to maintain consistency.

The other challenge of editing is trying to help the author to clarify specific passages in such a way that preserves his or her authorship. That's more of an art than a science, but it's a lot easier once contextual consistency has been established.
 
Last edited:
Editing is an art. It can be taught/learned to a certain extent, but like any other field, there are those who feel it on a visceral level, and those who don't.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top