Posted on the Squeetus Blog April 16, 2006 01:57 PM PST.
I get a lot of questions about this, so I thought it might be interesting to some to see what parts of a book I as the author control and what the publisher decides. This is according to my own experience and understanding, so it's probably not 100% accurate in all cases.
Author
- The words in the book. People often ask if I'm bothered by having an editor tell me what to write and what to change. She doesn't. She gives me great feedback and I make the changes I want to make. If a book's lousy, you can't blame the editor. Even after the copy editor looks over a manuscript and makes changes to misspelled words and misplaced commas, I still get to okay those suggested changes.
- The title. I choose my own title and a publisher can't change it without my permission. We will consult together on the best title, though. Now, for translated books, they can change the title.
Publisher
- All the business stuff with the book, such as the price, the release dates, when or if it's published in hardcover or paperback, number of copies printed, how it's marketed and publicized, shipping the book, doing returns, and a million other behind-the-scenes stuff I'm not even aware of. Some of these items might be negotiated in the author's contract (such as if there's a hardcover release or it goes straight to trade paperback), but mostly this is the publisher's world.
- The look of the book from cover art and jacket design to the font used inside the pages. Often a publisher will submit these choices to the author for consultation or approval (I get to see the stuff), but usually these decisions are soley the publisher's.