Development — of in-print and on-line materials

Think of an editor at work. If you’re like most, you imagine someone sitting at a desk surrounded by stacks and stacks of papers — a red pen in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

That’s the most common sort of editor — the copy editor.

Another sort of editor is the developmental editor. That’s the editor who figures out what’s in those stacks of papers and how it’s all organized.

The developmental editor works with marketing to determine what the market wants, and with authors, editors, and artists to convert that demand into sales.

Here’s an example of what a developmental editor might do: Suppose you have a law firm that’s approaching its 100th anniversary. Some of the senior partners are talking about a book to commemorate the event.

Let’s say you’re the marketing department and it’s up to you to manage the effort. You do some research, and you find a book developer that’s done this sort of work for others.

Now, your partners might be set on some exceedingly boring history of the firm that nobody wants, written by some retired name partner who writes like some scholastic historian. And they might want a book that’s expensive to produce — hardbound, glossy paper, color photos, etc.

A developmental editor will work with you to come up with a compelling alternative to the partners’ plans to make the firm seem old-fashioned and self-absorbed.

First, she’ll do a bit of research into the firm’s history. She’ll interview retired and active attorneys. She’ll befriend the receptionist who’s been working at the firm for 30 years — the one who has all sorts of interesting stories to tell. She’ll track down some former clients, and she’ll review some of the firm’s cases.

Then, if she thinks it can be done, she might just recommend that the book be developed for the trade market; i.e., that it be the sort of book you can order from Amazon, or pick from a shelf at Borders — that the book be so interesting that people beyond the firm’s attorneys, their friends, and their families would buy it!

Wouldn’t that be something!