Status: PreLaunch

I've been a textbook editor for five years.  My books have been big and small, Math books and Sociology books, a few textbooks about construction materials, and one book with a scene from Swingers on the cover.

Every day, I act as the point person for our production team, our sales team, our manufacturing team, and authors either gruntled or disgruntled. I grease the cogs and make sure everyone has the information they need.  I make sure that person A's instructions will be clear to person B.  I harass when books are running late, and I praise when authors submit materials early.

The end result is a textbook that fits the needs of students, professors, and teaching assistants.  A good textbook helps a class to stay organized.  We provide technology supplements to help students learn.  I chose this career because I love education, and I wanted my work to, in some small way, enrich the world.

My editorial career began with a niche quarterly magazine in South Bend, Indiana, through a publishing seminar in Denver, Colorado, and is now comfortably settled in an East Coast cubicle as part of a leading publishing corporation.

That is, until I learned I would be traveling to India as part of an exchange program.  Four months as an editor in a new custom publishing program being developed in Delhi.  Think The World is Flat meets Strunk and White's Elements of Style.

The details are being finalized now, and I should have a plane ticket booked next week. In the meantime, I decided to start a blog.  There are a few reasons for this:  first, to keep in touch with friends and family back home.  Let's be honest, a 9 1/2 hour time difference is not conducive to personal contact.  I'm cheating a little bit. Second, to organize my thoughts on the experience.  You'll see a lot of posts here about new publishing models, unfamiliar business practices, piracy, print-on-demand, and the role printed books still play around the world. 

Lastly, and most importantly, I started this blog because I don't want to go it alone.  I invite you to read through, read the comments, and by all means - contribute.  There are a lot of smart people out there who have been in similar situations.  I know I have a lot to learn.