Reviews and Reviewers
I've written a book. It's my seventh book, so you'd think that I've got this down by now. However, for me, every book is a new adventure and requires new skills. All my books are non-fiction, so I've thankfully not had to learn to write dialogue. I've written two software development books, so, very technical. I've written three books on the history of cryptology, so, a mix of technical and story telling. I've done one book that was an edited collection of (other people's) short stories all related to cryptology in one way or another.
All these books were different, and all were easy and difficult in different ways. I've used two different publishers, and both had different requirements for the manuscripts.
My latest book is a biography of three of the most important cryptologists of the first half of the twentieth century. So it's way different from any of the other six. The book started as the joint biography of two of these three people, William Friedman and Herbert Yardley, and most of my early research was into the lives and careers of these two men. But it didn't take long for me to realize that there was another person who just had to be in the book, William Friedman's wife, Elizebeth. Elizebeth Friedman was every bit as important to early twentieth century American crypto as her husband and very nearly as talented, so I just couldn't leave her out. Needless to say, adding Elizebeth to the book lengthened both my research time and, when I finally got around to it, my writing time.
I'm probably one of the few people who (kind of) enjoyed the pandemic because, since I was cooped up in our house for the better part of a year and a half, I had lots of time to write. I finished the first draft of my new manuscript in mid-November 2021. I let it sit over the holidays and did a second draft in January 2022, after my wife had read and commented on the original. At that point I wrote up a book proposal, did some research on publishers, and picked a couple to send my proposal to.
One of the publishers sent me a rejection within a couple of weeks. The acquisitions editor at the other publisher responded at about the same time and complained that the book was longer than what they usually published; including text, notes, and references my manuscript was about 170K words. Their maximum was usually about 100K words. Regardless, they asked for the complete manuscript to review. A publisher asking for the complete manuscript is a good sign because it means that the acquisitions editor likes your proposal and wants to see more.
In book publishing, you usually send a completed chapter or two to publishers along with your proposal. It's also OK to send queries to several publishers at once, as long as you tell them what you're doing. But, when you send a complete manuscript, you're pretty much obligated to wait until that publisher gives you a decision one way or another before you send out proposals to anyone else. I sent my complete manuscript along to the editor around the end of February. The acquisitions editor would then send my manuscript out to two or three reviewers that the publishing house contracts with to review the book. The reviews would be blind (I would not know who the reviewers were).
While I was waiting for the publisher's response I took a good hard look at my manuscript and did another draft, this time cutting out a lot of the text. By the end of March, the manuscript draft was down to 128K words for text, notes, and references. I felt pretty good.
Eighteen weeks (yes 18) after I first sent this publisher my manuscript I got a response from them. It was "Well, we kind of like your book, but we won't accept it until you make a ton of changes to it and we're happy with the changes. Take a look at the reviewers comments." This brings me to reviewers.
The acquisitions editor had enclosed two documents, the reports from each of the two reviewers to whom they had sent my complete manuscript. Remember, that the reviewers had my original 170K word manuscript.
Reviewer #1 wrote a detailed 10-page review of the manuscript. They gave an overview of their review and their top-level impressions. Overall, they thought it was a pretty good effort, "workmanlike" was one word used. Their top-level statements were pretty positive. But. They complained about the length, and said that the narrative was too taken up with technical details, duplicated some stories in places, spent too long on topics not directly related to the subjects, and strayed over and over again from what should be the main narrative about the three cryptologists.
I had to agree. In fact, I'd removed some of those technical details in my first cut-and-slash editing of the manuscript, but there were other technical pieces and other stories that the reviewer thought could be improved, shortened, or just removed. Reviewer #1 then went on to go through the entire manuscript and made critiques and suggestions for improvements for each and every chapter. It turns out these comments and suggestions are a gem. In practically every set of chapter comments there are suggestions that will markedly improve the book. If I made these changes correctly, the book will be shorter, more focused, and in many other ways better. Clearly this reviewer took the time to think about what they were reading and made a real effort to give me positive, honest feedback. I am very grateful that this person reviewed my manuscript.
Reviewer #2's review of the manuscript was only half the length of Reviewer #1's. The acquisitions editor described the review as "harsh." I can not disagree with that. From Reviewer #2's comments it seems as if they have several basic, I may say visceral, disagreements with some of my opinions and thinking in the text about Friedman and Yardley. As opposed to Reviewer #1, who thought I had too much technical detail in the manuscript, Reviewer #2 dinged me for not having enough. There are a number of claims of various historical mistakes (some of which are accurate, some are not). The reviewer ends up suggesting I pretty much just throw away the entire manuscript and start afresh on a biography of just William Friedman. Friedman's only other biography was published in 1977 and most crypto historians agree that it is very flawed. But I'm not that interested in William Friedman. So, while Friedman probably does need a new biography, I'm not interested in being the person to do it. All that said, reviewer #2 did have a couple of suggestions that I will likely incorporate in my next draft of the manuscript.
The bottom line here is that I was fascinated with both reviewer's comments. They really came at the job from two different perspectives and their reviews show that quite clearly. I've written enough papers, presentations, essays, and books to be pretty used to getting reviewed and to getting reviews that are pretty critical of my work. I like to think that I take critical reviews as opportunities for me to improve my work; they don't make me upset, and I hope they make me a better researcher and writer every time I produce a new manuscript.
I'll be moving on with a new draft of the manuscript, paying careful attention to both reviewer's comments and hoping that what I produce is better than the previous drafts. I'll likely send the new draft back to the original acquisitions editor and see if they are interested. If not, I'll move on to another publisher. Wish me luck.
UPDATE (Labor Day): This original post was written in mid-June, but I held onto it because I was still corresponding with the publisher. I set about making changes to the manuscript and by early August I had a new draft of about 125K words that incorporated nearly all the review suggestions. It really was a better book now but I thought the manuscript was really near the point that it was about as short as I could make it and still tell my story properly. I communicated with the publisher and sent them the latest complete draft the first week of August.
Crickets.
After two follow-up emails from me, I finally heard back from the acquisitions editor three and a half weeks later that the book was still too long and what was I going to do about it?
I'm looking for another publisher.
