How can
we be sure of the quality of editing when we don't get to see the
person doing the editing or know where the office is located?
This question can only be answered successfully by showing you the
quality of our work for you to judge. Our method of work is to ask you
to give us a few pages of the manuscript to be edited. We then edit to
your specifications and send it back to you. You can then judge for
yourself the quality of the work and we proceed only after getting the
approval from you. Therefore you are not being asked to trust our
assurances alone but actually get to see our performance before you
give us the order.
What specifically are the services that you offer?
Publishing consists broadly of three stages along the following lines:
1. Gathering information and writing about it. This is a service that
we do NOT offer as it has to be done locally.
2. Editing and improving the manuscript followed by formatting it to a
specified design. These are called "pre-press" services, meaning
services that are done before you take it to the printing press.
Current industry practice is to take the manuscript to the "PDF" file
level. Most printers can print a document in PDF style without any
alterations.
3. Printing - This is a separate industry which is capital intensive
and requires large pieces of machinery. We DO NOT offer these
services. However, if a client wants us to do a "one stop" service we
can liaise with other printers for such services. But in general, we
confine ourselves to "pre-press" services only.
How do you charge?
We charge according to the man hours required to finish it. When we
first get the manuscript we estimate the time required and the type of
people needed to do it and give you a quotation. If the quotation is
acceptable to the client then we proceed on that basis.
Why is it that editing in India produces better quality?
People often think of India as a "cheap" destination to do editing
work. While it is true that cost savings of up to 20% can be realized,
the real improvement occurs in that you get better editing in India.
The higher quality results from the fact that the quality of editors
in India is high as it is a much respected profession there. You can
also get better quality by employing not just English graduates to
look at the manuscript but also another person who is technically
qualified in the subject being written about. For example you can get
an English graduate and an engineer to look at a text book on
engineering to make sure that both the language and technical details
are correct.
To employ a language graduate and an engineering graduate to look at
an engineering text book would be prohibitively expensive in the US
and publishers of academic books, which have a circulation of only a
few thousands, cannot afford it.
The saying in India is that "foreigners come to India to save on costs
but stay on because of the quality".
