What Is an Acquisitions Editor?

If you're at all interested in authoring a book of any kind, whether it's a textbook, collection of short stories, or the greatest novel ever written, you'll end up working with an acquisitions editor, sometimes called a sponsoring editor. Here's a quick rundown on what acquisitions editors (AEs) in healthcare publishing do.

Find 'n' sign

AEs essentially "find and sign" authors. They try to find the right author for the right book at the right time for the right market and in the right format (the 5 Rights in publishing).

Beyond the 5 Rights of publishing, AEs are also responsible for guiding the overall vision for a book and making sure that once the vision is clear and mutually agreed to by the author, the vision is followed throughout the entire publishing process.

AEs are responsible for knowing all about their assigned markets, including what they are, how they work, what kinds of products they need, and how they'll respond to the products we create. AEs build the company's publishing plan for each market. A publishing plan explains explain in detail what the market is and how the company should address it for optimal results.

Most AEs I know visit schools and attend conferences throughout the year in their disciplines, meeting people and learning about trends, curricula, books in use, and many other matters. They base decisions about which publishing projects to pursue and which to let go partly on that knowledge.

The AE is, in effect, the captain of a ship. Authors supply the cargo for that ship, and the captain guides the ship through the many possible hazards at "sea."

Essential duties

• Develop with the author an overarching vision for the product


• Oversee the author's creation of a proposal, table of contents, and sample chapters


• Manage the proposal review process


• Guide the author in revising the proposal to most effectively meet market needs


• Champion the author's proposal to the decision-making body


• Work through contractual issues between the company and author


• Guide the development of the book from the time the proposal is approved until the book publishes


• Support the marketing department to prepare relevant promotional materials


• Support the sales department in their efforts to gain sales


• Plan revisions of existing books

Oh, and just so you know…You needn't say, "Aye-aye," to the captain.

"Your Royal Highness" will do just fine.

Here's to You, Marti

Born today, February 18, and died May 2, 2009, our dear friend Marcia "Marti" A. Lewis, an F.A. Davis author for nearly 30 years, a wonderful author, a mentor, a teacher, a friend.

Rest in peace, Marti.

[caption id="attachment_818" align="alignnone" width="129" caption="Marti Lewis"][/caption]

15 Most Misspelled Words

Last night my wife, a fifth-grade teacher at a local elementary school, was telling me about a little memory aid she had developed to help her students learn to spell a lot correctly. "They always spell it as one word," she said.

As I recall, that's when she grrrr-d.

Take heart, my love, your students are not alone in their misspelling of a lot.
Spellchecker.net recently published their list of the 15 Most Misspelled Words in the U.S., and guess which word came in second?

Right, alot.

(Perhaps the whole nation needs that little memory aid.)

Here, then, the full list from Spellchecker.net.

Misspellers, beware.

Tidbittles from an Editorial Mind

Odd bits and pieces of editorial wisdom. (Or stupidity, depending on how you look at it.)

• Don't use colons after a heading. I mean, it's a heading, it's already separated from the body text. Why add a colon? It's redundant.


• While we're at it, stop using underline in headings too. Also redundant. And annoying.


• We ought to stop using "upon" when "on" works just as well and doesn't sound quite so pretentious.


• A reminder: Quotation marks go OUTSIDE the punctuation in nearly all instances. Outside. Outside. Outside.


• Stop using "and/or." That's just plain lazy. Writers should know the difference between the two. And if you think I'm the only person who fights against and/or, check this out: http://writingmatters.typepad.com/blog/2010/01/using-andor-in-a-sentence-is-just-plain-dumb.html


• Hopefully, no one will use "hopefully" to mean "I hope." It means "full of hope." If you hope something will happen, say that. Don't say "Hopefully something will happen." Oh, ugh.