Once again Seth Godin is my inspiration for blogging this week. I read him every day – sometimes what he has to say is relevant to me, sometimes not, but he is always interesting.
This post on the different types of editor (in a journalistic sense) struck a chord with me this week:
“The copy editor will fix a misstated fact, spot a typo and get your prose clean.”
“The line editor will rearrange a paragraph and help you organize a thought more clearly.”
“And the editor who is your partner will tell you that the chapters are in the wrong order, that you must delete a third of what you wrote, or perhaps consider writing for TV instead. This kind of editor is the one who will tell you your time is better spent doing something else entirely.”
I read this a couple of days after we presented some recommendations to a client which were not perhaps entirely what they wanted to hear.
Afterwards I reflected that there are at least a few benefits to age and possible maturity. In the past, I was far more ready to tell the client what they wanted to hear. Now, I have faith that the best thing for everyone is to share what we think is the right course for them, even if it is not necessarily comfortable.
If this means we get less short-term ‘copy editing’ work then that’s a risk. But, in the long-term, it leads to more honest client relationships.