Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Penguin Canada accepts Watch

I have separate editors in New York and Toronto. Ginjer Buchanan, my New York editor at Ace, accepted Watch on Tuesday, March 17, and today Laura Shin, my editor at Penguin Group (Canada), accepted it, too, saying, "Watch is wonderful!"

Yay!

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

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7 Comments:

At March 25, 2009 7:56 PM , Blogger Nick Matthews said...

How would that work? Could they ask for revisions, which would make the Canadian and American versions of the book different?

 
At March 25, 2009 8:02 PM , Blogger RobertJSawyer said...

In theory, yes; in practice, no. They're sharing a print run, so the text ultimately has to be identical on both sides of the border.

 
At March 25, 2009 8:10 PM , Blogger Nick Matthews said...

Another advantage to having the Canadian rights being sold to a subsidiary of the American publisher, aside from the higher Canadian royalty percentages.

Do worldwide English sales go under the same level of editing, and potential for revisions? American and British diction and spelling could be different enough to warrant localized (or is that localised?) editions. I assume those would be minor copyedit revisions though.

 
At March 25, 2009 8:21 PM , Blogger RobertJSawyer said...

Yes, that's done sometimes. Famous examples include BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY and the first Harry Potter book.

 
At March 26, 2009 8:23 AM , Blogger John F said...

American and British diction and spelling could be different enough to warrant localized (or is that localised?) editions.

I've never understood the need for localized versions of books in English. When I read a novel from the UK, I want UK spelling and punctuation. It's jarring to read idiomatic dialogue with spelling from another country. Do people really have that much difficulty with single vs. double quotes or 's' vs 'z'?

 
At March 26, 2009 9:56 AM , Blogger RobertJSawyer said...

Hi, John F. Apparently, some American publishers think it is for some Americans. I've never understood it either.

 
At March 26, 2009 12:58 PM , Blogger John F said...

I've noticed another version of this involving TV commercials. Once in a while, a UK or Australian commercial for a product is aired in North America. They leave the original actors' voices intact on Canadian stations, and dub over them on American TV. Very odd.

 

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