Partners: Lionel Browne and Janet Browne
Telephone: +44 (0)1252 877645
Fax and modem: +44 (0)1252 890508
Email: mail@sand-con.demon.co.uk
Words are our business. We offer a complete editorial service. As you can see from our list of current clients, much of our work is in science or technology, but we have handled projects as diverse as bibles, biography, travel guides and corporate reports. Commercial confidence, of course, prevents us from describing our current work, but the list of typical projects will give an idea of the breadth of coverage. Much of our work is handled on screen, using clients’ disk files, and we can transfer files by email or FTP when required. To discuss how we can be of service to you and your organization, please contact us by phone, fax or email, or complete the reply form.
Editorial development
We can work with an author or a publisher before a manuscript is put into production, advising on structure, presentation and overall style. Two recent projects of this nature, both military autobiography, were John Shipster’s The Mist on the Rice Fields (Pen and Sword Books), and David Wilson’s The Sum of Things (to be published by Spellmount Publishers). In both cases we were approached by the authors to work on their manuscripts before the authors sought a publisher.
John Shipster’s book is the story of his experiences in battle, from the Burma campaign against the Japanese to the struggle against the Chinese in Korea. Fergal Keane, writing in The Independent (23 September 2000), says of it: ‘I have spent some time in battle zones, but until I read John’s book had little sense of the true horror and fear of close-quarter combat in the jungle. … As an account of a soldier’s life in the forgotten war of the Burma campaign, The Mist on the Rice Fields is a worthy addition to the body of recorded history. But John Shipster has a humour and a humanity that take it beyond the usual account of military exploits. The sorrow and pity of war are there, and a determination not to indulge in hatred of the enemy after the battle.’
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Project management
We can take a book right through the editorial process if required, dealing with the copy-editing, proofreading and collation of authors’ corrections. This service is particularly valuable for publishers faced with the problems of processing large, multi-author works.
We also deal with the editorial production of learned and specialist journals.
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Writing
Recently published by Todtri Productions Limited, New York, is Lionel’s book Bridges in their Masterpieces of Architecture series. From the breathtaking boldness of a Roman aqueduct to the soaring elegance of a modern suspension bridge, the history and development of bridge design and bridge-building over the centuries have paralleled our increasing understanding of the strength of materials and the interplay of forces in structures. Lavishly illustrated with full-colour photographs throughout, Bridges presents a pictorial history of mankind’s architectural and engineering achievements.
For details, contact the publishers:
Todtri Productions Limited
PO Box 572
New York
NY 10116-0572
USA
Fax: (212) 279-1241
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Rewriting
A particularly interesting project was the reshaping of Square Feet, the autobiography of property developer Jack Rose, published by RICS Books. The book began life as a transcript of interviews recorded for the National Life Story Collection. It made fascinating reading, but needed some restructuring for it to ‘work’ as a book, while preserving the style and character of the author’s writing. Office boy, property developer, author, academic, philanthropist... Jack Rose played many parts in an extraordinary career spanning more than 60 years. Square Feet is his story of those years.
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Copy-editing
What does the copy-editor do? Put very simply, he or she marks a typescript: to make it intelligible to the typesetter, and to make it intelligible to the reader. It is vital to have someone else look at what you have written, and preferably someone who is trained and experienced in what to look for. As Judith Butcher, author of probably the best book on copy-editing (Copy-Editing, Cambridge University Press, 3rd edn, 1992), puts it:
‘The main aims of copy-editing are to remove any obstacles between the reader and what the author wants to convey, and also to save time and money by finding and solving any problems before the book is typeset, so that production can go ahead without interruption... authors are so familiar with their subject, and may have written a book over so long a period, that they cannot see it as it will appear to someone else...’
Judith’s book, which we thoroughly recommend to anyone who hasn’t come across it, is devoted to copy-editing books. But for ‘book’ substitute ‘brochure’, ‘leaflet’ or ‘catalogue’, and the message is the same. The copy should be right before it goes into production; don’t wait until the proofs to get things right. This was always true in the days of traditional typesetting and printing, and even in these days of on-screen editing, DTP and electronic page make-up, it is still a good discipline to work to. It is what Don Manley, in an article in the journal Learned Publishing, called ‘editing with style’:
‘The editor has to manage a script that he or she may not fully understand, help the reader to understand it, and at the same time manage to keep happy the author, the typesetter, the artist, the designer, the production people, the marketing people - and (ultimately) the accountant. To produce something that reads well and sells well in this sort of environment is a triumph.... Consistency (in terms of getting it right with the style manual) is important, but "getting it right in print" means so much more than that. And "getting it right with people" adds another dimension to editing. That is what I mean by editing with style.’
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Proofreading
In these days of computer-processed text, is proofreading necessary? The answer must be a resounding ‘yes’. One of the first proofreading jobs that we took on when we set up our business was the UK edition of the International Children’s Bible (the New Century translation). The US text had been put through a sophisticated computer program to change the spelling from American English to British English, but the result needed careful checking to ensure that the result was correct and appropriate.
Another bible project (not one that we handled) offers a good example of the sort of linguistic nuances that no computer program could be expected to pick up. The Living Bible is what is called a paraphrase rather than an accurate translation. The editor working on the British edition came to the passage in 1 Samuel where King Saul was chasing David all over what we now know as the West Bank. David and his men were hiding at the back of a cave near the Dead Sea. Saul didn’t know this, and went into the cave to answer a call of nature. Well, we assume that’s why he went in, because the Good News Bible, the New International Version and the New Century Edition all tell us that he went in ‘to relieve himself’. The King James version has it as ‘Saul went in to cover his feet’: make of that what you will. But in the original American edition of the Living Bible, and remember that the event in question happened about 1000 BC, Saul went into the cave ‘to go to the bathroom’!
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