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I originally intended this blog to be about what I'm reading at the moment, but it's turned into a much broader discussion of my work at Publishers Weekly and all things related to books and publishing. I generally write at least one post every day that I'm in the office, though I usually do the actual writing at home in the evenings and save drafts to post during the following day. I'm certainly not using paid time for blogging, just like you're not reading this from work. Right?
This is very much not an official PW blog. (I hope to start officially blogging for PW sometime soon, but I'll probably have to tone myself down a lot.) I'm extremely opinionated--not surprising, given the work I do--and I post about anything that catches my eye, including politics, the serial comma, and other sensitive topics on which I may personally disagree with the official stance of PW. Please do keep this in mind while you're reading, and remember that I am not by any means an official spokesperson.
I should also note that I reviewed over 100 books for PW from 2002 to 2007, but now that I edit PW reviews, I no longer write them (though I still review for Strange Horizons, Lambda Book Report, and other publications). PW reviewers are anonymous, and we take that anonymity really seriously. I often write about my personal opinions of books here, and I want to make it absolutely clear that I did not review those books for PW.
Those who prefer to read blog posts via LJ can find my feed here. I also keep a personal LiveJournal, which may or may not be of interest. And if you're curious about my book reviews and other journalism, links to the bylined pieces available online can be found here.
Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
How I do PW stuff, part 5: editing reviews
This is a post I made a while back in my personal journal. I figure it's worth reposting here (with a few edits, natch).
We get about 160–180 words per review (it used to be more, but the magazine was redesigned with more white space, which meant reductions in our actual content) and every one of them needs to serve a purpose. These are three extremely general concepts designed to make reviews both shorter and more information-dense.
Death to "to be"
"The passive voice is boring. It should be avoided." -> "Avoid the boring passive voice."
I won't go so far as to say that I don't permit any forms of "to be" in the reviews I edit, but I come down pretty hard on it when I see it. Not only does it weaken the review, but it takes up a ridiculous amount of space. I would say that perhaps 40% of my editing is moving adjectives around, and this is the most common situation that requires it.
"Campbell is tall and strong and likes to sing." -> "Tall, strong Campbell likes to sing."
This is a particular construction that I see all the time. In a publication that omits the serial comma because all those commas add up to a lot of column inches and ink, two consecutive "and"s are inexcusable. They're also unnecessary. (Replacing the first "and" with a comma is also incorrect, of course, as "likes to sing" is not an adjective.)
"This is an elegant fable that has lots of well-drawn characters in it. The setting descriptions are sketchy but still intriguing." -> "This elegant fable, full of well-drawn characters, lacks strong descriptions of its intriguing setting." -> "This elegant, character-driven fable lacks atmospheric detail."
"This is a noun that verbs. It also verbs" is a big flag that two sentences can probably be combined into one that begins "This noun, which verbs, also verbs". Even better is "This adjective noun verbs". Don't get attached to your words; ruthlessly replace them as necessary. "Atmospheric detail" doesn't mean exactly the same thing as "setting descriptions", but it gets the idea across.
The critic's job is to criticize
"This book from an award-winning author follows the adventures of two plucky teenagers..." -> "This uneven third Plucky Teen escapade (after 2006's The Plucky Teen Adventure) from Nebula-winner Jones follows series heroes Mike and Micaela..."
Sometimes our reviewers get caught up in plot summaries and forget that their job is to say something that can't be found in the jacket copy. Unless the review opens with some sort of pithy play on words, there must be a critical description somewhere in the first sentence and another one in the last sentence (which theoretically summarizes the rest of the review, though in practice that doesn't happen much). One of my favorite parts of my job is coming up with precisely the right adjectives. Every connotation is considered; for example, we don't call a book "stellar" unless we're making it literal by giving it a starred review.
Note that it's the uneven third escapade, not the third uneven escapade. It's fine to compare to the author's past work, but only directly review the book you're reviewing.
Who are you and why should I care?
"Ivana and Hoos fall in love, but then Hoos, Egbert, Marv, Cindy, Luis and Hans go to Boringland, battle sentient mushrooms, get sunburnt, argue, trim their nails, and eventually stumble upon the Plot Coupon." -> "Just as hard-bitten soldiers Ivana Bealone and Hustani 'Hoos' Yermamma confess their love, snotty Prince Egbert commands Hoos to join his quest through the swamps of Boringland for the long-lost Plot Coupon needed to cure the Prince's ailing German shepherd, Hans."
Names and places are useless without context. It's very tempting to cut that context in the interests of space, or on the assumption that the reader has read earlier books in the series. Do not give in to temptation! Instead, cut long lists of minor characters, locations, and plot points. Give full names and professions the first time you mention characters, and be generous with the adjectives. Don't worry about hitting every single plot point, and definitely don't spoil the ending; it's good to leave some surprises.
EDIT: Greetings to all my new readers over from LiveJournal! You can read my blog posts via your friends page if you like what you see here. Feel free to look up my personal LiveJournal too, if you like; I'm there (and everywhere) as 'rosefox'.
We get about 160–180 words per review (it used to be more, but the magazine was redesigned with more white space, which meant reductions in our actual content) and every one of them needs to serve a purpose. These are three extremely general concepts designed to make reviews both shorter and more information-dense.
Death to "to be"
"The passive voice is boring. It should be avoided." -> "Avoid the boring passive voice."
I won't go so far as to say that I don't permit any forms of "to be" in the reviews I edit, but I come down pretty hard on it when I see it. Not only does it weaken the review, but it takes up a ridiculous amount of space. I would say that perhaps 40% of my editing is moving adjectives around, and this is the most common situation that requires it.
"Campbell is tall and strong and likes to sing." -> "Tall, strong Campbell likes to sing."
This is a particular construction that I see all the time. In a publication that omits the serial comma because all those commas add up to a lot of column inches and ink, two consecutive "and"s are inexcusable. They're also unnecessary. (Replacing the first "and" with a comma is also incorrect, of course, as "likes to sing" is not an adjective.)
"This is an elegant fable that has lots of well-drawn characters in it. The setting descriptions are sketchy but still intriguing." -> "This elegant fable, full of well-drawn characters, lacks strong descriptions of its intriguing setting." -> "This elegant, character-driven fable lacks atmospheric detail."
"This is a noun that verbs. It also verbs" is a big flag that two sentences can probably be combined into one that begins "This noun, which verbs, also verbs". Even better is "This adjective noun verbs". Don't get attached to your words; ruthlessly replace them as necessary. "Atmospheric detail" doesn't mean exactly the same thing as "setting descriptions", but it gets the idea across.
The critic's job is to criticize
"This book from an award-winning author follows the adventures of two plucky teenagers..." -> "This uneven third Plucky Teen escapade (after 2006's The Plucky Teen Adventure) from Nebula-winner Jones follows series heroes Mike and Micaela..."
Sometimes our reviewers get caught up in plot summaries and forget that their job is to say something that can't be found in the jacket copy. Unless the review opens with some sort of pithy play on words, there must be a critical description somewhere in the first sentence and another one in the last sentence (which theoretically summarizes the rest of the review, though in practice that doesn't happen much). One of my favorite parts of my job is coming up with precisely the right adjectives. Every connotation is considered; for example, we don't call a book "stellar" unless we're making it literal by giving it a starred review.
Note that it's the uneven third escapade, not the third uneven escapade. It's fine to compare to the author's past work, but only directly review the book you're reviewing.
Who are you and why should I care?
"Ivana and Hoos fall in love, but then Hoos, Egbert, Marv, Cindy, Luis and Hans go to Boringland, battle sentient mushrooms, get sunburnt, argue, trim their nails, and eventually stumble upon the Plot Coupon." -> "Just as hard-bitten soldiers Ivana Bealone and Hustani 'Hoos' Yermamma confess their love, snotty Prince Egbert commands Hoos to join his quest through the swamps of Boringland for the long-lost Plot Coupon needed to cure the Prince's ailing German shepherd, Hans."
Names and places are useless without context. It's very tempting to cut that context in the interests of space, or on the assumption that the reader has read earlier books in the series. Do not give in to temptation! Instead, cut long lists of minor characters, locations, and plot points. Give full names and professions the first time you mention characters, and be generous with the adjectives. Don't worry about hitting every single plot point, and definitely don't spoil the ending; it's good to leave some surprises.
EDIT: Greetings to all my new readers over from LiveJournal! You can read my blog posts via your friends page if you like what you see here. Feel free to look up my personal LiveJournal too, if you like; I'm there (and everywhere) as 'rosefox'.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
How I do PW stuff, part 4: starred reviews
A brief preamble: please to note that these posts are about how I do PW stuff. Other editors may work very differently.
A starred review from PW is a big deal. Like diamonds, their value is in their scarcity. Also like diamonds, that scarcity is to some extent artificial. The question of how many books to star is necessarily going to have a rather vague and arbitrary answer: few enough that a star really means something, while making sure that really outstanding books get the recognition they deserve.
As far as I'm concerned, a star means "This is better than others of its kind". It's useless without context. I might give a star to a decent book that's head and shoulders above others of its subgenre. I might withhold one from a consistently superb author who's kind of coasting on their superbness. These evaluations change all the time as the genre changes. Last year we got in a whole bunch of "year's best" anthologies at once, and I think four out of five were starred. That tells me that the bar should be raised. When the next round comes through, I'll be starring those that don't just stand out from the crowd of anthologies--because just about all of them will do that simply by virtue of being the year's best--but that stand out from the crowd of YBs. Otherwise the value of the star is diluted.
I can't read every book that we review, so I rely on reviewers to recommend stars. It's important to remember that reviewers are in this business because they love books, and they especially love good books. I'm with them on that, personally. When I saw Ratatouille (a gloriously entertaining movie, which anyone interested in reviewing should watch), I frowned slightly at the statement that negative reviews are more fun to write and read than positive reviews. I've always enjoyed writing positive reviews much more. When I was reviewing for PW, I took particular delight in rewarding good books with highly quotable reviews, and later in seeing those reviews excerpted on author websites and book jackets. The highest reward a PW reviewer can give is a recommendation for a starred review. My job now, as reviews editor, is to decide whether to go with those recommendations.
I keep an eye out for reviewers who love to gush. For some people, a book is either wretched or exalted, with nothing in between, and since I take care to match books with reviewers who are likely to appreciate their nuances, that may lead to a lot of exaltedness. When I get star recs from those reviewers, I hold my judgment until I've edited the review and looked through the book.
Some reviewers will suggest a star as an "A for effort" sort of thing, which I really prefer not to do. The truth of that suggestion will usually reveal itself in the review or the accompanying notes from the reviewer, which will reluctantly admit that perhaps the book is flawed in some significant way. Even if the author was trying very hard, even if it's a substantial improvement over their past work, significantly flawed books don't get stars in my section.
There are also reviewers who are bitter old cynics. I take their star recs very seriously, because they're stingy. If they start seeming too stingy, I'll ask whether I've been sending them the right books; if someone hates epic fantasy and I've been sending nothing but, those books probably aren't getting a fair shake. The flip side of that is keeping an eye out for reviewers who are super huge fans of a particular author and request all their books. I usually agree to requests, because it's great to have a review from someone who knows all the author's work and can give a detailed critique of the new book in context, but it's one thing to appreciate someone's work and another thing to recommend a star for everything they write. If necessary, I'll start sending that author's books to a different reviewer to ensure that they get an honest look without any rose-colored glasses in the way.
Finally, I look at each section and the ones planned for the next month, and I space the stars out so that we don't have three one week and none the next week. In general, each section has between five and eight books (usually closer to eight than five), and one or two of those will be starred. I'd say I star around 15% or 20% of reviews. That seems a little high to me, though maybe it's not if you consider that a book generally has to be at least halfway decent for us to review it in the first place. Still, I should probably keep it closer to 15%. Maybe I am a soft touch after all.
A starred review from PW is a big deal. Like diamonds, their value is in their scarcity. Also like diamonds, that scarcity is to some extent artificial. The question of how many books to star is necessarily going to have a rather vague and arbitrary answer: few enough that a star really means something, while making sure that really outstanding books get the recognition they deserve.
As far as I'm concerned, a star means "This is better than others of its kind". It's useless without context. I might give a star to a decent book that's head and shoulders above others of its subgenre. I might withhold one from a consistently superb author who's kind of coasting on their superbness. These evaluations change all the time as the genre changes. Last year we got in a whole bunch of "year's best" anthologies at once, and I think four out of five were starred. That tells me that the bar should be raised. When the next round comes through, I'll be starring those that don't just stand out from the crowd of anthologies--because just about all of them will do that simply by virtue of being the year's best--but that stand out from the crowd of YBs. Otherwise the value of the star is diluted.
I can't read every book that we review, so I rely on reviewers to recommend stars. It's important to remember that reviewers are in this business because they love books, and they especially love good books. I'm with them on that, personally. When I saw Ratatouille (a gloriously entertaining movie, which anyone interested in reviewing should watch), I frowned slightly at the statement that negative reviews are more fun to write and read than positive reviews. I've always enjoyed writing positive reviews much more. When I was reviewing for PW, I took particular delight in rewarding good books with highly quotable reviews, and later in seeing those reviews excerpted on author websites and book jackets. The highest reward a PW reviewer can give is a recommendation for a starred review. My job now, as reviews editor, is to decide whether to go with those recommendations.
I keep an eye out for reviewers who love to gush. For some people, a book is either wretched or exalted, with nothing in between, and since I take care to match books with reviewers who are likely to appreciate their nuances, that may lead to a lot of exaltedness. When I get star recs from those reviewers, I hold my judgment until I've edited the review and looked through the book.
Some reviewers will suggest a star as an "A for effort" sort of thing, which I really prefer not to do. The truth of that suggestion will usually reveal itself in the review or the accompanying notes from the reviewer, which will reluctantly admit that perhaps the book is flawed in some significant way. Even if the author was trying very hard, even if it's a substantial improvement over their past work, significantly flawed books don't get stars in my section.
There are also reviewers who are bitter old cynics. I take their star recs very seriously, because they're stingy. If they start seeming too stingy, I'll ask whether I've been sending them the right books; if someone hates epic fantasy and I've been sending nothing but, those books probably aren't getting a fair shake. The flip side of that is keeping an eye out for reviewers who are super huge fans of a particular author and request all their books. I usually agree to requests, because it's great to have a review from someone who knows all the author's work and can give a detailed critique of the new book in context, but it's one thing to appreciate someone's work and another thing to recommend a star for everything they write. If necessary, I'll start sending that author's books to a different reviewer to ensure that they get an honest look without any rose-colored glasses in the way.
Finally, I look at each section and the ones planned for the next month, and I space the stars out so that we don't have three one week and none the next week. In general, each section has between five and eight books (usually closer to eight than five), and one or two of those will be starred. I'd say I star around 15% or 20% of reviews. That seems a little high to me, though maybe it's not if you consider that a book generally has to be at least halfway decent for us to review it in the first place. Still, I should probably keep it closer to 15%. Maybe I am a soft touch after all.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Feast or famine
As I just posted over on James Nicoll's LJ:
In the meantime, I get to decide whether to put shorter drops (five or six books) in our first two February issues in case this is a real drought, or to bulk them up (eight books) on the expectation of a late-month flood. Fortunately I don't have to decide that for certain until next week, as right now I'm working on wedging every possible March book into our last January issue. Too bad I can't hold some of those over another week or two.
Right now on the "slated for magazine reviews" list I have thirteen April titles, three May, and no June. At the very least we should have more April books than that, and I have no idea where all the late spring/early summer titles are.By December 7th, we had sent out 23 March titles for review, so it's kind of nuts to only have 13 April titles out on January 7th. Those three May books were sent to reviewers on 11/30, 11/30, and 12/17, so we certainly should have gotten several more May titles and at least one or two June titles by now. I guess everyone's taking extra care with their big summer releases this year.
In the meantime, I get to decide whether to put shorter drops (five or six books) in our first two February issues in case this is a real drought, or to bulk them up (eight books) on the expectation of a late-month flood. Fortunately I don't have to decide that for certain until next week, as right now I'm working on wedging every possible March book into our last January issue. Too bad I can't hold some of those over another week or two.
How I do PW stuff, part 3: which books get reviewed
A brief preamble: please to note that these posts are about how I do PW stuff. Other editors may work very differently.
I was going to do starred reviews next, but it makes more sense to first talk about how I decide which books to review, since that's the first level of quality control.
The simplest criterion is this one: I have to get two copies of the galley, three months or more before the title is due to be published. If books aren't sent to me, I don't review them. If books are sent late, I don't review them (with a very few exceptions, about which more below). If I only get one copy of the galley, I might email the publisher and request a duplicate, but that's somewhat time-consuming and I only do it if there's plenty of lead time, the book looks really interesting, and the publisher clearly doesn't know about the two-galley requirement. Repeat offenders in this area eventually get ignored, on the principle that if you're that sloppy or cheap about promoting your books, you're probably that sloppy about choosing which books to publish. (Publishers take note: poor behavior on the part of your publicity staff reflects badly on your entire company. Yes, we pay attention to this sort of thing.)
Assuming that first hurdle is successfully crossed, the next question is whether my shelf is the right one for them to be on. I may get biographies of SF authors, for example, which I generally wouldn't cover with a full review. Some of those books go in our monthly "notes" column, where they get quick blurbs rather than full reviews. Others are passed along to the editors of relevant sections (e.g. speculative poetry would go to our poetry section editor, mass market first editions go to the mass market editor). For the most part, though, the books I get are trade paperback and hardcover originals of speculative fiction novels, collections, and anthologies: just the sort of thing I want to cover.
At this point I need to determine whether a book is good enough, interesting enough, or important enough to review. I review good books because our readers count on us to tell them about the good books. I review interesting books because I like drawing attention to them and they make for good reviews. (I never forget that PW lives and dies by the quality of its reviews.) I review important books--books by major authors, lead titles, books that are going to get a lot of press--because our book-buying readers care about our opinion and will want to have it to compare with other review venues, and also because it's a service to the publishers. Maintaining good relationships with publishers is vital to our business and I wouldn't dream of pretending otherwise. Of course it's also vital to maintain our independence, which is why I will almost always review an important book but I will never guarantee a favorable review.
So, the next step is to ask a series of questions about the books to determine whether they meet one of those criteria. Again, I want to emphasize that this is how I do things. Other PW editors undoubtedly have their own criteria.
1) Who's the publisher and what do I know about them?
The answer to this question can vary a lot, but in general there are four groups of publishers in my head: those who can be relied on to provide quality books, those who have some hits and misses, those who mostly publish poor quality books, and those I don't know well enough to judge. Books from publishers in group 1 get reviewed. Books from publishers in groups 2 and 4 get further consideration. Books from publishers in group 3 get a quick going-over (because every once in a while you scrape up gold from the bottom of the barrel) and if I don't see something that really grabs me, I reject them.
This has nothing to do with my personal tastes, incidentally. By "quality books" or "good books" I don't just mean books I like, but books that are well written (even if I don't like what they say) and appealing to readers (even if I'm not in their target audience).
2) Who's the author/editor and what do I know about them?
Authors and editors fall into the same groups as publishers, and I treat them the same way.
At this point, if I'm still undecided about whether to review a book, it's some combination of hit-or-miss and simply unfamiliar. This means it's probably not important (though I will keep an eye out for a promo letter that hints otherwise) and it has about a fifty-fifty chance of being good or interesting.
3) What does the promotional copy say?
I take this with a great big grain of salt, but it is useful for some things. It will give me a sense of subgenre, which can be useful if, say, I know that the the author writes very good epic fantasy and very bad hard SF. Often there's a letter from the publisher, editor, or publicist, telling me why they think the book is awesome, and something in there may catch my attention or make me roll my eyes. Blurbs are useful for categorization; a blurb from Laurell K. Hamilton indicates one sort of book, a blurb from Greg Egan indicates another sort, and blurbs from people and publications I've never heard of will still tell me something about the author's publishing history. It's all data.
4) What does the galley look like?
This is a bit of a tricky one, but in very broad terms it will help me figure out how to classify an unknown publisher. If there's no publisher or imprint logo on a bound galley, for example, I will suspect either a very new publisher or thinly disguised self-publishing; ditto certain styles of cover design. I'll also check whether the page count and ISBN are displayed on the cover of the galley. Sometimes we receive manuscripts (publishers, if you send us mss, please run down to Kinko's and have them spiral-bound rather than sending a heap of paper with a rubber band around it!), in which case I'll look at whether there's evidence of layout or it's all in Courier 12 with one-inch margins, which will hint at the publisher's editorial process.
5) How's the prose?
I'll look at the first page or two and then flip to somewhere in the middle and read another page or two, to get a sense of the writer's style, the plot, and the characters.
Now I have a much better sense of whether the book is likely to be good or interesting. If it is, I'll send it off for review, carefully selecting a reviewer who's open to books from unfamiliar sources (on the assumption that if I haven't heard of an author or publisher, my reviewer probably hasn't either) and willing to give a nuanced review of a book that will probably have both significant merits and significant flaws. If not, I'll take a pass.
If a book arrives late but looks spectacularly good, interesting, or important, I'll either rush the review--which means choosing a reviewer who isn't necessarily ideal but can reliably turn a review around in a short time--or put it on our website. In the long run, it doesn't really matter whether a review appears on the web or in the magazine; either way, it's a PW review. I tend to be reluctant to commission reviews that I know are going to go on the web, but I should probably get over that.
That's quite long enough for one post. Starred reviews next, I promise!
I was going to do starred reviews next, but it makes more sense to first talk about how I decide which books to review, since that's the first level of quality control.
The simplest criterion is this one: I have to get two copies of the galley, three months or more before the title is due to be published. If books aren't sent to me, I don't review them. If books are sent late, I don't review them (with a very few exceptions, about which more below). If I only get one copy of the galley, I might email the publisher and request a duplicate, but that's somewhat time-consuming and I only do it if there's plenty of lead time, the book looks really interesting, and the publisher clearly doesn't know about the two-galley requirement. Repeat offenders in this area eventually get ignored, on the principle that if you're that sloppy or cheap about promoting your books, you're probably that sloppy about choosing which books to publish. (Publishers take note: poor behavior on the part of your publicity staff reflects badly on your entire company. Yes, we pay attention to this sort of thing.)
Assuming that first hurdle is successfully crossed, the next question is whether my shelf is the right one for them to be on. I may get biographies of SF authors, for example, which I generally wouldn't cover with a full review. Some of those books go in our monthly "notes" column, where they get quick blurbs rather than full reviews. Others are passed along to the editors of relevant sections (e.g. speculative poetry would go to our poetry section editor, mass market first editions go to the mass market editor). For the most part, though, the books I get are trade paperback and hardcover originals of speculative fiction novels, collections, and anthologies: just the sort of thing I want to cover.
At this point I need to determine whether a book is good enough, interesting enough, or important enough to review. I review good books because our readers count on us to tell them about the good books. I review interesting books because I like drawing attention to them and they make for good reviews. (I never forget that PW lives and dies by the quality of its reviews.) I review important books--books by major authors, lead titles, books that are going to get a lot of press--because our book-buying readers care about our opinion and will want to have it to compare with other review venues, and also because it's a service to the publishers. Maintaining good relationships with publishers is vital to our business and I wouldn't dream of pretending otherwise. Of course it's also vital to maintain our independence, which is why I will almost always review an important book but I will never guarantee a favorable review.
So, the next step is to ask a series of questions about the books to determine whether they meet one of those criteria. Again, I want to emphasize that this is how I do things. Other PW editors undoubtedly have their own criteria.
1) Who's the publisher and what do I know about them?
The answer to this question can vary a lot, but in general there are four groups of publishers in my head: those who can be relied on to provide quality books, those who have some hits and misses, those who mostly publish poor quality books, and those I don't know well enough to judge. Books from publishers in group 1 get reviewed. Books from publishers in groups 2 and 4 get further consideration. Books from publishers in group 3 get a quick going-over (because every once in a while you scrape up gold from the bottom of the barrel) and if I don't see something that really grabs me, I reject them.
This has nothing to do with my personal tastes, incidentally. By "quality books" or "good books" I don't just mean books I like, but books that are well written (even if I don't like what they say) and appealing to readers (even if I'm not in their target audience).
2) Who's the author/editor and what do I know about them?
Authors and editors fall into the same groups as publishers, and I treat them the same way.
At this point, if I'm still undecided about whether to review a book, it's some combination of hit-or-miss and simply unfamiliar. This means it's probably not important (though I will keep an eye out for a promo letter that hints otherwise) and it has about a fifty-fifty chance of being good or interesting.
3) What does the promotional copy say?
I take this with a great big grain of salt, but it is useful for some things. It will give me a sense of subgenre, which can be useful if, say, I know that the the author writes very good epic fantasy and very bad hard SF. Often there's a letter from the publisher, editor, or publicist, telling me why they think the book is awesome, and something in there may catch my attention or make me roll my eyes. Blurbs are useful for categorization; a blurb from Laurell K. Hamilton indicates one sort of book, a blurb from Greg Egan indicates another sort, and blurbs from people and publications I've never heard of will still tell me something about the author's publishing history. It's all data.
4) What does the galley look like?
This is a bit of a tricky one, but in very broad terms it will help me figure out how to classify an unknown publisher. If there's no publisher or imprint logo on a bound galley, for example, I will suspect either a very new publisher or thinly disguised self-publishing; ditto certain styles of cover design. I'll also check whether the page count and ISBN are displayed on the cover of the galley. Sometimes we receive manuscripts (publishers, if you send us mss, please run down to Kinko's and have them spiral-bound rather than sending a heap of paper with a rubber band around it!), in which case I'll look at whether there's evidence of layout or it's all in Courier 12 with one-inch margins, which will hint at the publisher's editorial process.
5) How's the prose?
I'll look at the first page or two and then flip to somewhere in the middle and read another page or two, to get a sense of the writer's style, the plot, and the characters.
Now I have a much better sense of whether the book is likely to be good or interesting. If it is, I'll send it off for review, carefully selecting a reviewer who's open to books from unfamiliar sources (on the assumption that if I haven't heard of an author or publisher, my reviewer probably hasn't either) and willing to give a nuanced review of a book that will probably have both significant merits and significant flaws. If not, I'll take a pass.
If a book arrives late but looks spectacularly good, interesting, or important, I'll either rush the review--which means choosing a reviewer who isn't necessarily ideal but can reliably turn a review around in a short time--or put it on our website. In the long run, it doesn't really matter whether a review appears on the web or in the magazine; either way, it's a PW review. I tend to be reluctant to commission reviews that I know are going to go on the web, but I should probably get over that.
That's quite long enough for one post. Starred reviews next, I promise!
Friday, January 4, 2008
At last!
A quick addendum to the timeline I posted here.
Day 57: The galleys being reviewed in this issue go in a cabinet, where we can access them if there are any questions about the review. They stay there for five weeks.
Day 92: Those galleys have hung around long enough. I put the ones I don't want on the Free to a Good Home cart near the office front door, and stack the ones I want on a shelf over my desk. That shelf fills up about every four to six weeks (since I also snag interesting galleys from other sections off the cart), at which point Josh and I bring in a bunch of sturdy cloth bags and haul it all home at once. This is why we keep buying new bookshelves.
This week I put the galleys for issue 1 of 2008 in the cabinet and took out the galleys from issue 47 of 2007. One of the books reviewed in 47 was Wastelands, which I've been dying to get my hands on ever since our reviewer emphatically starred it (you can read the review if you scroll down the Amazon page to the lowermost blog entry). Finally, three months after it first arrived in our office, I can sit down and read it in the comfort of my own home. Yay! Now I just have to find time for reading.
Those of you who envied me for getting to see nifty books way before everyone else may note that Wastelands is already in stores. The reviewers are the ones to envy. Thanks to the sitting-around-in-a-cabinet phase of the process, I end up reading things on pretty much the same schedule as everyone else.
Day 57: The galleys being reviewed in this issue go in a cabinet, where we can access them if there are any questions about the review. They stay there for five weeks.
Day 92: Those galleys have hung around long enough. I put the ones I don't want on the Free to a Good Home cart near the office front door, and stack the ones I want on a shelf over my desk. That shelf fills up about every four to six weeks (since I also snag interesting galleys from other sections off the cart), at which point Josh and I bring in a bunch of sturdy cloth bags and haul it all home at once. This is why we keep buying new bookshelves.
This week I put the galleys for issue 1 of 2008 in the cabinet and took out the galleys from issue 47 of 2007. One of the books reviewed in 47 was Wastelands, which I've been dying to get my hands on ever since our reviewer emphatically starred it (you can read the review if you scroll down the Amazon page to the lowermost blog entry). Finally, three months after it first arrived in our office, I can sit down and read it in the comfort of my own home. Yay! Now I just have to find time for reading.
Those of you who envied me for getting to see nifty books way before everyone else may note that Wastelands is already in stores. The reviewers are the ones to envy. Thanks to the sitting-around-in-a-cabinet phase of the process, I end up reading things on pretty much the same schedule as everyone else.
How I do PW stuff, part 2: all imprints great and small
A brief preamble: please to note that these posts are about how I do PW stuff. Other editors may work very differently.
One of the things I love about my job is that I get to send out letters like this.
On the flip side, I don't hesitate to pass over titles from major houses that arrive too late for review (though if they look really spectacular, I'll give them a review on the web). A certain big name publisher who should know better just sent us copies of one of their February titles. December's over and done, so they went straight onto the reject shelf. Right now I'm scrambling to get quick reviews for interesting March titles that just showed up. Don't make me scramble! No one wants a rushed review.
It's PW policy to ignore self-published books, and I think that's probably a very reasonable policy. I'm also not shy about passing on books that look really dreadful or are clearly unedited; we don't pay our reviewers enough to waste their time. What I don't do is reject the unfamiliar out of hand. Think you've got something really great? Send it on over. I promise to give it the same consideration I give everything else.
I've been out of the office for most of the last few weeks due to holidays and illness, but everything's back on track now; look for more "How I do PW stuff" entries soon.
One of the things I love about my job is that I get to send out letters like this.
Dear [independent publisher]:I mean every word. If you're a publisher, fill in your own name there and then send us galleys. (If you're a writer, make sure your publisher does this!) I don't care if you only put out one book a year, or one book every five years. If you can get us two galleys three months before publication, do. I can't promise we'll review them, but I'll certainly give them my full consideration. As an editor, I want my section to really reflect what's being published. As a critic, I want to support the independent presses that keep the publishing industry vibrant. As a reader, I want to encourage publishers and writers who take chances. I also consider it a matter of honor and fairness to give books from independent publishers the same treatment--which is to say, honest reviews by appropriate, unbiased reviewers--that I give books from Tor and Ace and Baen.
I've been seeing a lot of buzz about [title] lately, and I was a bit surprised to realize that as far as I could tell, Publishers Weekly has never received galleys for it or any other [publisher] publication. I'd like to encourage you to send us galleys for review. I have a firm policy of reviewing books from new writers and independent presses, and you seem to be putting out a lot of interesting titles that we'd want to pay attention to.
Our submission guidelines are here:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/info/CA6428088.html
If there's a specific reason you haven't been sending us review copies, please let me know; and if you know of any other publishers who have hesitated to send us galleys for whatever reason, please pass this link and my contact information on to them. We welcome all submissions from all sources, as long as they follow those guidelines, and I would be happy to answer any questions or concerns you have.
Cheers,
Rose Fox
Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Reviews Editor
Publishers Weekly
On the flip side, I don't hesitate to pass over titles from major houses that arrive too late for review (though if they look really spectacular, I'll give them a review on the web). A certain big name publisher who should know better just sent us copies of one of their February titles. December's over and done, so they went straight onto the reject shelf. Right now I'm scrambling to get quick reviews for interesting March titles that just showed up. Don't make me scramble! No one wants a rushed review.
It's PW policy to ignore self-published books, and I think that's probably a very reasonable policy. I'm also not shy about passing on books that look really dreadful or are clearly unedited; we don't pay our reviewers enough to waste their time. What I don't do is reject the unfamiliar out of hand. Think you've got something really great? Send it on over. I promise to give it the same consideration I give everything else.
I've been out of the office for most of the last few weeks due to holidays and illness, but everything's back on track now; look for more "How I do PW stuff" entries soon.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Everything in its place
I'm getting a real sense of my new work routine. Last week's schedule was all messed up because of Thanksgiving, but now I have regular hours--1 to 5 p.m. every day--and I'm getting settled in to the best way to spend that time. I have a good organization system in place, too: different colored stickers for different publication months (Mar/Apr/May are blue/green/red and then it repeats, since I rarely have four months' worth of books to deal with at once) so that I can tell when a book is coming out and make sure my drops* are sorted by pub month without having to open each book and check, yellow stickers for "review received", checkmarks in the yellow stickers when I've edited the review, little folded paperweights with month names written on them for the stacks of books sent out for review, more little folded paperweights that say THIS WEEK and NEXT WEEK and TWO WEEKS for future drops, a shelf for the drops from last week (now being edited onscreen) and the week before (now in layout), and a spreadsheet that runs my life tracks which reviews are out and when they're due and which reviewers don't have any assignments right now and also archives the year's drops in a convenient format so that I can easily copy and paste them into the magazine-wide weekly archive of copyright data. It all works very smoothly and makes me happy.
* Drop == the week's batch of reviews. No more than 10, no fewer than five. This time of year, a drop is usually six reviews; not much coming out in Feburary.
Next week I have five meetings in four days, which will make things interesting; I'll have to edit at a slightly faster pace than I did this week. I finished this week's drop today, and it's unofficially not due until tomorrow and officially not due until Monday, so I'm ahead of the game; but next week I have another six-book drop plus two or three notes about interesting January publications that don't get full reviews for whatever reason--things like major new editions of classics, or biographies of SF/F/H authors, or reader's guides--and I'm trying to give my reviewers line-by-line breakdowns of my edits so that they understand why I make the choices I do and can write reviews that need less editing, so I may have to push a bit to make it all happen. That's okay, though. I thrive on deadline pressure. *grin*
Some week when I have a little more free time, I should write up a post or three about how the PW system works, in general. I'm always surprised by how little people know about it. It's not like it's a big secret. I mean, yes, we try to maintain an aura of Olympian aloofness, but I think it's to our benefit--or to mine, anyway--if publishers and authors and agents know what goes on here and what to expect.
It feels very good to be regaining my mental equilibrium. My manager may make fun of me because I'm so enthusiastic about getting to be in the office every day**, but really, it's doing wonders for my state of mind.
** Excerpt from yesterday's department meeting:
Me: Mm... I don't really like that idea.
Boss: Well, I'm sorry, Rose, but people who enjoy being in the office five days a week don't get to state their opinions.
Also:
Other editor: I think they're hoping--
Boss: How do you know?
Other editor: Because I know everyone's hopes and dreams. It's my job. Associate Hopes and Dreams Editor.
I love working here, have I mentioned? The kidding is enough to keep people on their toes, but there's never any animosity under it. We just don't see any reason to be serious all the time.
* Drop == the week's batch of reviews. No more than 10, no fewer than five. This time of year, a drop is usually six reviews; not much coming out in Feburary.
Next week I have five meetings in four days, which will make things interesting; I'll have to edit at a slightly faster pace than I did this week. I finished this week's drop today, and it's unofficially not due until tomorrow and officially not due until Monday, so I'm ahead of the game; but next week I have another six-book drop plus two or three notes about interesting January publications that don't get full reviews for whatever reason--things like major new editions of classics, or biographies of SF/F/H authors, or reader's guides--and I'm trying to give my reviewers line-by-line breakdowns of my edits so that they understand why I make the choices I do and can write reviews that need less editing, so I may have to push a bit to make it all happen. That's okay, though. I thrive on deadline pressure. *grin*
Some week when I have a little more free time, I should write up a post or three about how the PW system works, in general. I'm always surprised by how little people know about it. It's not like it's a big secret. I mean, yes, we try to maintain an aura of Olympian aloofness, but I think it's to our benefit--or to mine, anyway--if publishers and authors and agents know what goes on here and what to expect.
It feels very good to be regaining my mental equilibrium. My manager may make fun of me because I'm so enthusiastic about getting to be in the office every day**, but really, it's doing wonders for my state of mind.
** Excerpt from yesterday's department meeting:
Me: Mm... I don't really like that idea.
Boss: Well, I'm sorry, Rose, but people who enjoy being in the office five days a week don't get to state their opinions.
Also:
Other editor: I think they're hoping--
Boss: How do you know?
Other editor: Because I know everyone's hopes and dreams. It's my job. Associate Hopes and Dreams Editor.
I love working here, have I mentioned? The kidding is enough to keep people on their toes, but there's never any animosity under it. We just don't see any reason to be serious all the time.
Friday, November 16, 2007
A winnar is me!
Ooh, ooh, now that it's Friday I can finally post about this! I have been biting my tongue until everything was sorted out and official and all, but now everything is sorted out and official and all, so finally I get to announce:
As of Monday I will be in charge of science fiction, fantasy, and horror book reviews at Publishers Weekly. Peter Cannon, who has handled the section brilliantly for the last several years, will be shifting his focus to mystery and thriller reviews. He's left me a tremendous legacy, and I'm still floored that he's supported me so enthusiastically and been so willing to hand the section over to me.
I will be bringing on some new reviewers, so if you've been dying to write for PW, now's your chance to send me your resume and clips. I'm specifically looking for people who read and write quickly--our deadlines can get very tight--and who have had their work published in some fashion. Fiction or non, online or off, doesn't matter, as long as you've gone through some sort of acceptance and editorial process. Unfortunately, company rules limit me to hiring people who live in the U.S.
How the hell I dropped out of college three times, started at least four different careers over the course of a decade, and still managed to acquire my dream job at the age of 29, I have no idea. I'm just thrilled beyond words, and deeply grateful to everyone who's supported my writing and editing and otherwise helped me to get here.
No raise, sadly, and I'll still be part-time for the nonce, but as of either this week or next, you'll be able to pick up a copy of PW and see my name in the masthead. That's good enough for me.
As of Monday I will be in charge of science fiction, fantasy, and horror book reviews at Publishers Weekly. Peter Cannon, who has handled the section brilliantly for the last several years, will be shifting his focus to mystery and thriller reviews. He's left me a tremendous legacy, and I'm still floored that he's supported me so enthusiastically and been so willing to hand the section over to me.
I will be bringing on some new reviewers, so if you've been dying to write for PW, now's your chance to send me your resume and clips. I'm specifically looking for people who read and write quickly--our deadlines can get very tight--and who have had their work published in some fashion. Fiction or non, online or off, doesn't matter, as long as you've gone through some sort of acceptance and editorial process. Unfortunately, company rules limit me to hiring people who live in the U.S.
How the hell I dropped out of college three times, started at least four different careers over the course of a decade, and still managed to acquire my dream job at the age of 29, I have no idea. I'm just thrilled beyond words, and deeply grateful to everyone who's supported my writing and editing and otherwise helped me to get here.
No raise, sadly, and I'll still be part-time for the nonce, but as of either this week or next, you'll be able to pick up a copy of PW and see my name in the masthead. That's good enough for me.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said
I have six reviews to edit in the next three hours. I've already done three today. It's making me a bit punchy.
Best sentence so far:
"[The author] discusses the characters that separate our species from other extinct hominids"
It's going to be a long day.
Best sentence so far:
"[The author] discusses the characters that separate our species from other extinct hominids"
It's going to be a long day.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Letter from the editor
Dear publicists:
When you send us galleys, please include the book's ISBN, price, and publication date. If I can't find that information on your website or on Amazon, I will assume the book has been removed from your line-up, and I will toss it.
If you do include that information on your galleys, please do not then cover it up with a sticker bearing the publicist's name and phone number. While it's useful to be able to call the publicist and say "Why does the back cover of the galley say this is $16.95 when the publicity materials say it's $13.95?", it would be even more useful to be able to see that under the sticker, the galley says "$13.95 / Canada " right before it says "$16.95".
Many thanks,
your tired, congested, easily irritated PW reviews editor
When you send us galleys, please include the book's ISBN, price, and publication date. If I can't find that information on your website or on Amazon, I will assume the book has been removed from your line-up, and I will toss it.
If you do include that information on your galleys, please do not then cover it up with a sticker bearing the publicist's name and phone number. While it's useful to be able to call the publicist and say "Why does the back cover of the galley say this is $16.95 when the publicity materials say it's $13.95?", it would be even more useful to be able to see that under the sticker, the galley says "$13.95 / Canada " right before it says "$16.95".
Many thanks,
your tired, congested, easily irritated PW reviews editor
Thursday, September 13, 2007
An abundance of commas
Today's words that are not the same:
depends
deepens
Today's punctuation marks that are not the same:
,
.
Today's words that are not words:
magicans
muscial
Spellcheck is not by any means a replacement for editing (as the first entry in this post makes clear), but there's a lot to be said for using it to at least give things a once-over and draw your eye to typos. And seriously, what is it with the commas? There are many punctuation marks that can be used to conclude sentences, but commas are not on the list.
depends
deepens
Today's punctuation marks that are not the same:
,
.
Today's words that are not words:
magicans
muscial
Spellcheck is not by any means a replacement for editing (as the first entry in this post makes clear), but there's a lot to be said for using it to at least give things a once-over and draw your eye to typos. And seriously, what is it with the commas? There are many punctuation marks that can be used to conclude sentences, but commas are not on the list.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Around the globe
Hm, been a while since I complained about work*. Time to fix that!
Today's word that is only technically a word and not actually fit for human consumption:
"globe-bestriding"
Amazingly enough, Word's spellcheck didn't flag "bestriding". I guess it's not actually wrong, just remarkably awkward.
I changed it to "globe-straddling" for now. The whole sentence will likely be rewritten once I finish my first pass (error correction) and start on the second (condensing for word count).
* Actually, I'm not complaining about work. I'm complaining about the ridiculous things people put in their writing. I love my work because it means I can keep some of those ridiculous things from ever seeing the light of day.
EDIT: Yep, took it out altogether. I feel better now.
Today's word that is only technically a word and not actually fit for human consumption:
"globe-bestriding"
Amazingly enough, Word's spellcheck didn't flag "bestriding". I guess it's not actually wrong, just remarkably awkward.
I changed it to "globe-straddling" for now. The whole sentence will likely be rewritten once I finish my first pass (error correction) and start on the second (condensing for word count).
* Actually, I'm not complaining about work. I'm complaining about the ridiculous things people put in their writing. I love my work because it means I can keep some of those ridiculous things from ever seeing the light of day.
EDIT: Yep, took it out altogether. I feel better now.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Just like a man
Today's phrases that are not the same:
her man fans
her many fans
Boy, am I glad I caught that one before it went off for copyediting. I'd never have lived it down.
her man fans
her many fans
Boy, am I glad I caught that one before it went off for copyediting. I'd never have lived it down.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Blink and you'll miss it
Today's words that are apparently the same:
empathic
empathetic
I think "empathetic" sounds far too much like "pathetic", and "empathic" is nicely similar to "telepathic", but the author of the book in question uses "empathetic", so into the review it goes.
Today's words that are not the same:
main
many
That one was my fault: not so much a typo as a disconnect between my conscious mind, which was very definitely thinking "many", and the part of my brain that controls my typing, which relied a bit too heavily on the autocomplete for MA__. Oops. I think I need to get more sleep.
sometimes
sometime
"Sometime" is a nice way of pushing "occasional" into the realm of "historical". I'm very fond of it. I admire the reviewer for using it, even if I did have to remove the erroneous s; it's one of those words that looks confusingly like a typo unless you're already familiar with it, so the mistake is understandable.
Today's pet peeve:
"Meticulously crafting a stark and terrifying setting, the story takes several unexpected turns..."
The story did not craft the setting. The author did. This is a dangling modifier, and I see them all the time, most commonly lauding or blaming a book for doing something that was actually done either by the author or by one of the characters. It's tricky to avoid unless you're looking for it, because we so often refer to books, stories, and plots as active entities; "the story takes several unexpected turns" is, on its own, an entirely blameless phrase, and much less awkward than "the author puts several unexpected turns into the story". (I might even let some of the borderline cases pass, like "Rarely mentioning popular series protagonist Getta Rhume, this prequel instead focuses on the adventures of her older brother, Maik." Technically, a book can't mention or focus on anything, but the meaning is clear enough.) I just keep an eye out for initial adverbial phrases with transitive verbs like "craft" and "write" and "create" that point to the author, not the story, as the one taking action.
empathic
empathetic
I think "empathetic" sounds far too much like "pathetic", and "empathic" is nicely similar to "telepathic", but the author of the book in question uses "empathetic", so into the review it goes.
Today's words that are not the same:
main
many
That one was my fault: not so much a typo as a disconnect between my conscious mind, which was very definitely thinking "many", and the part of my brain that controls my typing, which relied a bit too heavily on the autocomplete for MA__. Oops. I think I need to get more sleep.
sometimes
sometime
"Sometime" is a nice way of pushing "occasional" into the realm of "historical". I'm very fond of it. I admire the reviewer for using it, even if I did have to remove the erroneous s; it's one of those words that looks confusingly like a typo unless you're already familiar with it, so the mistake is understandable.
Today's pet peeve:
"Meticulously crafting a stark and terrifying setting, the story takes several unexpected turns..."
The story did not craft the setting. The author did. This is a dangling modifier, and I see them all the time, most commonly lauding or blaming a book for doing something that was actually done either by the author or by one of the characters. It's tricky to avoid unless you're looking for it, because we so often refer to books, stories, and plots as active entities; "the story takes several unexpected turns" is, on its own, an entirely blameless phrase, and much less awkward than "the author puts several unexpected turns into the story". (I might even let some of the borderline cases pass, like "Rarely mentioning popular series protagonist Getta Rhume, this prequel instead focuses on the adventures of her older brother, Maik." Technically, a book can't mention or focus on anything, but the meaning is clear enough.) I just keep an eye out for initial adverbial phrases with transitive verbs like "craft" and "write" and "create" that point to the author, not the story, as the one taking action.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
As you are we
Tagline spotted on an NBC article:
"A Maryland couple goes the extra mile looking for their lost dog."
This awkward sentence is, of course, all the fault of "couple" and its chameleon-like ability to shift from being singular to plural in the space of five words. "A Maryland couple go the extra mile" sounds a little odd in American English (though in UK English I think it would be perfectly fine; they tend more towards treating words like "couple" and "team" and "group" as plural). "A Maryland couple... looking for its lost dog" sounds considerably odder. It's hard to rewrite the sentence to omit the word "couple", since we don't have a good synonym for this context and even poor synonyms like "pair" have the same issue. For a news site tagline spot, there's certainly an issue of word count, too.
My off-the-cuff solution would be to leave "goes" as it stands and replace "their" with "a". That makes the couple's motivation slightly ambiguous, but it can generally be assumed that they wouldn't go the extra mile for a dog they didn't have some sort of significant attachment to. In fact, the actual headline doesn't state outright that the dog is theirs, so this level of ambiguity is clearly okay with whomever is writing headlines and taglines.
I would also personally be okay with changing "goes" to "go" and leaving "their" intact, but I'm betting AP style (on which many newspaper and news site styles are based) would shoot that down. Note that the headline begins "Couple Hires Detective"; couple-as-singular is the rule here, so "their" is the one that has to go.
The actual content of the article is beyond the scope of this discussion, and a good thing too. Some people have more dollars than sense.
"A Maryland couple goes the extra mile looking for their lost dog."
This awkward sentence is, of course, all the fault of "couple" and its chameleon-like ability to shift from being singular to plural in the space of five words. "A Maryland couple go the extra mile" sounds a little odd in American English (though in UK English I think it would be perfectly fine; they tend more towards treating words like "couple" and "team" and "group" as plural). "A Maryland couple... looking for its lost dog" sounds considerably odder. It's hard to rewrite the sentence to omit the word "couple", since we don't have a good synonym for this context and even poor synonyms like "pair" have the same issue. For a news site tagline spot, there's certainly an issue of word count, too.
My off-the-cuff solution would be to leave "goes" as it stands and replace "their" with "a". That makes the couple's motivation slightly ambiguous, but it can generally be assumed that they wouldn't go the extra mile for a dog they didn't have some sort of significant attachment to. In fact, the actual headline doesn't state outright that the dog is theirs, so this level of ambiguity is clearly okay with whomever is writing headlines and taglines.
I would also personally be okay with changing "goes" to "go" and leaving "their" intact, but I'm betting AP style (on which many newspaper and news site styles are based) would shoot that down. Note that the headline begins "Couple Hires Detective"; couple-as-singular is the rule here, so "their" is the one that has to go.
The actual content of the article is beyond the scope of this discussion, and a good thing too. Some people have more dollars than sense.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Very good, class.
Today's lesson is on the en-dash. The en-dash is the same length as a lowercase 'n', longer than a hyphen and shorter than an em-dash. It is used to hyphenate multi-word phrases.
"non-meringue fetishists" (hyphen) refers to fetishists whose fetish is not meringues.
"non–meringue fetishists" (en-dash) refers to people who are not meringue fetishists.
This is, sadly, a real-world example (not a real–world example), albeit with the fetishized noun changed to protect the writer. I will be editing it out altogether, as I feel one should do with most en-dash phrases, but figured I'd make an object lesson of it first.
The en-dash is also, more commonly and less egregiously, used inclusively between numbers, time periods, monetary amounts, etc. "The gallery is open Mon–Fri, 2–7 p.m., March–October. Admission is $15-20 sliding scale. For more information, see catalog pages 17–22."
These are the only uses that CMS14 allows, but other authorities use it to replace the word "to" in sports scores ("The Yankees beat the Red Sox 78–2"*) and other relationships ("Paris–London trip", "mother–daughter talk") as well as to connect any pair of proper nouns where both modify a following noun but do not modify each other ("McCain–Feingold bill"). I find all of that far too complicated, so I stick with the Chicago rules.
* I acknowledge that this example may be slightly gratuitous, but I couldn't resist.
"non-meringue fetishists" (hyphen) refers to fetishists whose fetish is not meringues.
"non–meringue fetishists" (en-dash) refers to people who are not meringue fetishists.
This is, sadly, a real-world example (not a real–world example), albeit with the fetishized noun changed to protect the writer. I will be editing it out altogether, as I feel one should do with most en-dash phrases, but figured I'd make an object lesson of it first.
The en-dash is also, more commonly and less egregiously, used inclusively between numbers, time periods, monetary amounts, etc. "The gallery is open Mon–Fri, 2–7 p.m., March–October. Admission is $15-20 sliding scale. For more information, see catalog pages 17–22."
These are the only uses that CMS14 allows, but other authorities use it to replace the word "to" in sports scores ("The Yankees beat the Red Sox 78–2"*) and other relationships ("Paris–London trip", "mother–daughter talk") as well as to connect any pair of proper nouns where both modify a following noun but do not modify each other ("McCain–Feingold bill"). I find all of that far too complicated, so I stick with the Chicago rules.
* I acknowledge that this example may be slightly gratuitous, but I couldn't resist.
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