The Job of an Editor

[huntress]

I've been wondering about this for a while now and was hoping someone (or several people) would be willing to answer this for me.
What exactly does an editor do?
I think know a little bit about it, but I'm hoping someone could explain it to me.

Thanks a lot ^__^

[Blu_Moon]

I can't speak for all my fellow editors, but here's a day in my life as a novels editor:

I wake at 6:30 and workout. I'm at work before 9am. I answer emails, talk to translators and rewriters, go into meetings about our novel lines and what to evaluate/acquire, update our records, and then I plant myself at my desk and I open up the rewritten (polished) translation of whatever title I'm working on that week, and I read. And I edit (like a beta, for fan fics).

I edit, and I edit, and I edit. Sometimes, I eat lunch (at my desk, of course. ^_^) Then there's usually another meeting, about cover design or ads for my titles, or maybe a discussion on the style guide for a particular book (it's called TWIN BLADE, not Two Sword, or, it's an X-Number or a G weapon, don't capitalize G, OMG, let's fix this now!!!) and then I sit back down at my desk. I read, and I edit some more.

Time passes. It gets dark. I try to leave the office by 6. I go home, pet my cats, check my email, plunk dinner down in front of the computer, and open up the document again. And I edit, and edit, and edit. Sometimes, there's a movie on in the background, and this makes me feel like I'm having a "life" that I hear all the cool kids talking about. Usually by 11, I'm tuckered out, and I go to bed. And I dream. About editing. I edit in my sleep. That's a typical day for me. Sometimes, I workout at night too, or go for a walk at lunch and feel the sun on my face. Sometimes, there's fun trips to Japanese book stores to see what's the latest hot property. But mostly it's just me, and words, even on the weekends, trying to make things shiny enough to sell, and please the fans, of course!

If you're asking what does *editing* entail, I would say to think of an editor as the captain of a ship. (Not the admiral of the whole fleet, mind you, just the captain of a ship.) The captain (editor) makes sure everything about the ship (book) is going well. Everything you can think of. Translators. Rewriters. Style guides. Cover colors. Typeset. Fonts. Letting. Diction. Advertisements. Marketing campaigns. Distribution. Print runs. Profit and Loss statements. We're either advising or considering these things. An editor is pretty much married to their title for however many months it needs a polish, before it goes to the printer. Once it's at the printer, it's pretty much set sail, and you hope fate will be kind to your baby. You wait, naturally a little anxious, to see if your ship will sink or swim.

Yours, Kara Stambach

[KingdomShade]

I use to be an editor (Content then Copy) for my High School newspaper. You can imagine then that I find this rather interesting. However, I was also curious as to how do you become one, mangas in particular? What type of college background would you need? Do you need to know Japanese or is that merely a bonus? Things of that nature.

[kazuchiyo]

I use to be an editor (Content then Copy) for my High School newspaper. You can imagine then that I find this rather interesting. However, I was also curious as to how do you become one, mangas in particular? What type of college background would you need? Do you need to know Japanese or is that merely a bonus? Things of that nature.

I would say that the TP editors have all different kinds of academic backgrounds though they've all got a degree of some sort.
Additionally, Japanese, though very useful, is no where near necessary, as most of the editors aren't fluent in Japanese.

[herchuckness]

What type of college background would you need? Do you need to know Japanese or is that merely a bonus?

Tokyopop's layout artist job description (http://www.tokyopop.com/aboutus/layoutartist.pdf) requires a college degree, and I'd imagine most other companies demand the same. Personally, I don't think it's necessary - it's entirely possible to have the skills with no degree, and have the degree with no skills - but it probably helps narrow down the amount of prospective applicants.


What exactly does an editor do?

I've not edited manga professionally (yet!), but I've done it as a hobby for 2 years now. Some of the things manga editing involves:

scanning of artwork
cleaning of artwork, recreating parts of images
text placement and design (love of fonts/typesetting helps)
editing, correcting and double-checking of text for accuracy, tone & readability
obsessive attention to detail
quality control - uniformity, legibility, etc.
knowing details of distribution process (ie. limitations of printing technology and how to work within them)
a passing familiarity with Japanese language (romanization systems & kana, if nothing else)
digital file manipulation - saving, compressing, emailing, etc.
lots and lots of time with Photoshop

[JimDeVico]

I can't speak for all my fellow editors, but here's a day in my life as a novels editor:

I wake at 6:30 and workout. I'm at work before 9am. I answer emails, talk to translators and rewriters, go into meetings about our novel lines and what to evaluate/acquire, update our records, and then I plant myself at my desk and I open up the rewritten (polished) translation of whatever title I'm working on that week, and I read. And I edit (like a beta, for fan fics).

I edit, and I edit, and I edit. Sometimes, I eat lunch (at my desk, of course. ^_^) Then there's usually another meeting, about cover design or ads for my titles, or maybe a discussion on the style guide for a particular book (it's called TWIN BLADE, not Two Sword, or, it's an X-Number or a G weapon, don't capitalize G, OMG, let's fix this now!!!) and then I sit back down at my desk. I read, and I edit some more.

Time passes. It gets dark. I try to leave the office by 6. I go home, pet my cats, check my email, plunk dinner down in front of the computer, and open up the document again. And I edit, and edit, and edit. Sometimes, there's a movie on in the background, and this makes me feel like I'm having a "life" that I hear all the cool kids talking about. Usually by 11, I'm tuckered out, and I go to bed. And I dream. About editing. I edit in my sleep. That's a typical day for me. Sometimes, I workout at night too, or go for a walk at lunch and feel the sun on my face. Sometimes, there's fun trips to Japanese book stores to see what's the latest hot property. But mostly it's just me, and words, even on the weekends, trying to make things shiny enough to sell, and please the fans, of course!

If you're asking what does *editing* entail, I would say to think of an editor as the captain of a ship. (Not the admiral of the whole fleet, mind you, just the captain of a ship.) The captain (editor) makes sure everything about the ship (book) is going well. Everything you can think of. Translators. Rewriters. Style guides. Cover colors. Typeset. Fonts. Letting. Diction. Advertisements. Marketing campaigns. Distribution. Print runs. Profit and Loss statements. We're either advising or considering these things. An editor is pretty much married to their title for however many months it needs a polish, before it goes to the printer. Once it's at the printer, it's pretty much set sail, and you hope fate will be kind to your baby. You wait, naturally a little anxious, to see if your ship will sink or swim.

Yours, Kara Stambach

Hmmm. Maybe I should post the job description. :D

[kazuchiyo]

I've not edited manga professionally (yet!), but I've done it as a hobby for 2 years now. Some of the things manga editing involves:

scanning of artwork
cleaning of artwork, recreating parts of images
text placement and design (love of fonts/typesetting helps)
editing, correcting and double-checking of text for accuracy, tone & readability
obsessive attention to detail
quality control - uniformity, legibility, etc.
knowing details of distribution process (ie. limitations of printing technology and how to work within them)
a passing familiarity with Japanese language (romanization systems & kana, if nothing else)
digital file manipulation - saving, compressing, emailing, etc.
lots and lots of time with Photoshop


It seems to me that what you are mentioning here falls more along the lines of what would usually be referred to as a layout artist.
As far as layout goes, I think one of the reasons that having a college degree, especially in design, can be good is that often layout is the first step to get up into design later on.

[Blu_Moon]

Hmmm. Maybe I should post the job description. :D


Just so long as you're not looking to replace me, Jim!

[PeterAhlstrom]

I've not edited manga professionally (yet!), but I've done it as a hobby for 2 years now. Some of the things manga editing involves:
scanning of artwork
Digital imaging specialists do this.
cleaning of artwork, recreating parts of images
text placement
Layout artists do this.

and design (love of fonts/typesetting helps)
Designers do this (and layout artists do a little)

editing, correcting and double-checking of text for accuracy, tone & readability
obsessive attention to detail
quality control - uniformity, legibility, etc.
Editors and copy editors do this.

knowing details of distribution process
Not sure what you mean--Sales people do distribution.

(ie. limitations of printing technology and how to work within them)
Production managers do this.

a passing familiarity with Japanese language (romanization systems & kana, if nothing else)
Not many people around the office do this--one of the copy editors, a few of the editors, one of whom is also a translator.

digital file manipulation - saving, compressing, emailing, etc.
Production artists do this.

lots and lots of time with Photoshop
Layout artists, designers, production artists do this.

So as you see, manga publication is much more specialized than scanslation.

[huntress]

I've not edited manga professionally (yet!), but I've done it as a hobby for 2 years now. Some of the things manga editing involves:


I also did some editing for a scanlation group for a short time, but it didn't really work out cuz fate decided that they would only give me projects when the real world demanded my attention....

I also realize that the editors position for places like Tokyopop don't do any of the work that an editor for a scanlation group does, which is why I wanted to ask.

Also, I was wondering if there is a particular education background editors should have.
(The reason I'm asking all this is because I've been interested in getting into the manga industry, but as I am no artist, I was thinking about looking into the editor's posistion...)

Thanks for all your help!

[Adrian_Alexander]

The Novel Editor Lady has a dream life! I am so jealous... Getting to read and edit so many novels... *Sighs deeply*

(OMG IT IS HERCHUCKNESS OF ZETTAI HENTAI!)

[PeterAhlstrom]

Take editing classes in college (these might be in the English department). Get involved with some sort of student publication like a magazine.

[herchuckness]

All that division of labor makes me wonder why a number of the TP volumes I've bought contain spelling errors and legibility problems. Exactly what are those editors doing all day? XD I'm teasing, I understand that professional editors oversee many projects at once. High volume is bound to result in a mistake here and there, and really, it's only the nerdy obsessive types (like me) that even notice. I must say that most TP manga dialogue has a nice readable flow to it, props to the editors on that.


manga publication is much more specialized
I would love to see some kind of org chart/timeline for professional manga production, showing who does what and when to any given title. Does such a thing exist? I've always wondered about that, along with staff size and exactly what kind of raw materials you receive to work with.

[xelloss_poo]

The Novel Editor Lady has a dream life! I am so jealous... Getting to read and edit so many novels... *Sighs deeply*

... Have you ever editted a translated piece of work? Its not as lovely as it sounds. You have to make sure that the tone of the work is right. That words are being translated correctly to get the correct feel across. How do you deal with words or phrases or ideas that English or the language you're translating to doesn't have. Its a lot of work. From the translators point of view and the editers.

I'm not a professional or anything. But that was one of the classes that I took at my University. That was what we did the entire time. Our teacher was a professional translator and editor for Chinese. Its a lot more involved and laborous than just "reading".