Sunday, February 08, 2009

Edits on Book

I got back edits on my book, and some of the comments are pretty interesting. Clearly, my usage of "that" and "which" is almost as bad as guessing. Did you know that it is correct to say "435 BC", but then, "AD 800"? Or that there were two Rochefoucaulds? Further, somehow he/she was able to find my quotes of others, and though I thought I generally cut and pasted them directly from online texts, I made an unusual number of errors, perhaps as I re-wrote some parts from memory. Anyway, I'm spending a lot of time on it because I get only two weeks, and this is my last chance to make changes. I do find that having not had my manuscript for a while and looking at it anew, there are some plain errors, some really poor explanations.

It's funny because while I basically had the book done last spring and was very eager to get it out asap, the time since I got Wiley to publish it has really allowed me to make it much better, with often major substantive changes in my arguments. The process of a book, the time, the scope, the depth, make them a unique way to present an argument in a way that articles or blog posts simply can't match, because its a sustained, consistent argument. My hope is that the argument is consistent and concise as possible, because rarely do I read a 300 plus page book without thinking it could have been a 200 page book, where some chapters seem unnecessary.

3 comments:

jsalvati said...

I'm looking forward to this.

Anonymous said...

This is priced like a textbook and not a mass-market book. I guess that makes sense given the topic but it is not what I'm used to for "idea" books I read.

Anonymous said...

but I will ask my library to buy it