Ralph's Business Guide for Editors   (Really more of a make-you-feel-good guide, since there's not really much that can be done to improve an editor's "business.")   Copyright, Ralph, 2002. All rights reserved. That's business.     AUTHOR-COPY EDITOR RELATIONS   One of the first things in the above title that the author, and more so the editor, is going to notice is that the word author comes first, which will cause the average author to hoist his—or her—chest out a little (perhaps we can skip the attempted political correctness and omit the her here, since the bit about the chest, while only metaphorical, probably makes the sentence politically incorrect with her anyway) and swagger on one foot, causing the copy editor to turn a pale shade of purple and begin hyperventilating. (As author and editor of this Web site, I am frankly dizzy and feeling carsick right now.)   The solution of course is simple: “It is alphabetic.” But nothing is so simple as that.   Here lies the problem: Copy editors tend to look upon writers as arrogant, conceited, overpaid, egotistical illiterates who cannot place commas with even the slightest of accuracy, and who got their revered positions as the result of some very uninteresting degree or some very interesting uncle or other relation.   And in most cases, way down deep, the authors and writers know that the copy editors are right.   At the same time, writers tend to view copy editors as lazy, layabouts (which should actually probably be lieabout) who have neither the enthusiasm nor the ambition to get up off their behinds and do research or run around town collecting information, stories, and facts, and who, to make up for this deficiency, sit about all day (while others do all the real work) and read grammar and usage books so that they can claim a superior understanding of the language, which through a serious case of self-importance they imagine to be more important than the information the language in question is communicating . . . and, if this does not get them the top pay scale in an organization, they can at least make the lives of the writers and authors miserable . . . and so that when they see, for instance, Bob Woodward or William Manchester on TV, they smile and say, childishly, “yeah, but this clown couldn’t punctuate a nursery rhyme.”   And in most cases, the copy editors know, way down deep, that the authors are right.   There is another component to this complicated relationship: The publisher or production editor or other person representing the money behind the project—these people tend to consider both the writers and the copy editors as unneeded headaches, who they deeply wish could just meet their deadline s quietly for once.   And in most cases, they know fully well that they are right, and that the only sane person, and the only person who deserves any credit for brilliance on most projects, is none other than they themselves.   All the same, these money-representing people ("the money people" we will call them) must be practical. They know they need the author, without whose name the book will not sell. And they know they need the copy editor, not so much because of their brilliant revisions, but because they are the only people in the office who can type without making typos and without complaining about bad backs and so forth.   Think of this: No one would buy a self-help business book called Jack Smith, Plumber: How to Succeed in Business, and no one would preach from a book entitled The Bibble.   No. The money people are dependent on these two headaches; the headaches are—out of need—necessary occupational hazards.   But, they know, the authors are similarly dependent upon the copy editors. A book entitled How to Suckseed in Business would not likely succeed any better than a book called The New Testiement.   And, the money people know, the copy editor is equally dependent upon the writer. If there were no writers, the copy editor might be expected to get up off his—or her—behind and actually do some work.   And the money people, who are the only ones with time to spend sitting at their desks thinking, have learned to use this interdependency to their advantage.   These evil ones (where have I heard this profound descriptive before?) pit the writers and copy editors against each other. The writer might comment absent-mindedly, "Oh, a comma is needed here . . ." and the money people will report to the copy editor, "The writer said only a stupid ignoramus would even dream of putting a comma here." As well, the copy editor might say to a money person, "This is a brilliant manuscript, but on page 763 the phrase the fact that could be trimmed down to that, and that money person will report to the writer, "The copy editor said you are a wordy, superfluous (which is itself superfluous) jackass."   So what the writers and editors must do is get together over coffee or beer, make friends, say do things to each other about each other's work, and then pit ways to irritate the money people.   While it might not earn either of them more money or more respect, it would make the world more beautiful.   TO BE CONTINUED             Editors and Others; Why People Hate You To be Discontinued . . .   Copyright, Ralph, 2002.