UKC

I'm enjoying reading Eric Jones' autobiography; A Life in the Edge. It was a nice Christmas present; but after having Mick Coffey introduced for the fifth time and the term 'bergschrund' explained for the fourth time I began to wonder.

Surely Eric wouldn't forget that he'd introduced Mick Coffey, his old climbing buddy, again and again. And then he wouldn't say what a bergschrund was repeatedly in different chapters? And then included it in a technical term list at the end of the book. The guy's still got all his mental marbles and then some.

I checked the front cover. It said "A Life on the Edge" by Eric Jones. Inside, the very first page has an introduction by a Greg Lewis. Who is he? It's not a familiar name in climbing circles. Then, turning that page, there is an inside cover page which says this is the autobiography of Eric Jones by "Eric Jones with Greg Lewis"; <smacks head> could it be a ghost-written autobiography?

Sure enough Greg Lewis has a website which says he is a ghost writer amongst other things; http://greglewisinfo.com , and that A Life on the Edge is one of his books.

So someone at the Gwasg Carreg Gwich publishers hasn't proof-read the book and got rid of repetitive character introductions and climbing term explanations. Sloppy work boys; big editing fail here. You and your ghost writer have let Eric down.

Are there any other known sloppy ghost-written autobiogs of climbers?

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

Whilst I have no idea if it was Ghostwritten, I remember reading Ranulph Fiennes 'Cold' and whilst a good read there were a fair few errors. One that comes to mind was him describing the human body as having a core temperature of 99°C.

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

I too received the book for Christmas and I too am having some issues with the text. The number of repeat introductions and sloppy errors in spelling and the like hinder the reading of a what should be a phenomenal tale.

If it's ghostwritten, fine; but the ghostwriter should turn his spell-checker on. And the book needed the services of an editor as well as a ghostwriter. I know that since I edited and managed publication of some things back in the days of galley proofs and page proofs that I sometimes expect too much from a desktop publishing world, but surely someone from Carreg Gwalch, the publishers, read through this before agreeing to print?

The fact that the story of Eric Jones still shines through is testament to a life lived more fully than most; that he's probably the nicest chap to have sold me a cup of tea hasn't influenced my opinion at all...

T.

In reply to Pursued by a bear:

Clearly I was enjoying his tales too much, as I missed all the above errors...

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

I like the fact that you talk about proof reading and the title of the book is

A Life on the edge......Not A life in the edge.

In reply to Ian Archer:

It's well-nigh axiomatic that, when someone comes on here discussing copy-editing or proofreading, they make a little slip themselves. (Indeed I'm probably doing so, right now!) I don't think that little slips, particularly on here, matter too much - and, after all, the OP is a reader, not a publishing professional.

What does matter, very much indeed, is poorly edited copy in books. Sadly I see evidence of this all the time, even in books from major publishing houses. To me, it displays contempt for the reader who, presumably, 'either won't notice or won't care'. But many readers do notice and do care - very much indeed. Their pleasure from reading the book is sharply diminished.

A conservative estimate is that some 50% of non-fiction books are ghosted. My guess is that it's more like 80%. Yes, the reader can be cynically short-changed. But it doesn't have to be like this. A good ghostwriter will work very closely indeed with his/her client to ensure that the client's distinctive 'voice' comes through.

I look forward to reading Eric Jones' book. He's nurtured the spirit of adventure for over 50 years - an inspiration to all of us.

Mick

In reply to Mick Ward:

Reading the book, it strikes me that Greg Lewis, the ghostwriter, has interviewed Eric Jones a number of times and then typed up what has been said. Which is fair enough, and what I'd do if I were a ghostwriter. But what can pass muster when someone is telling a story verbally just doesn't work on the page. For example, on page 126 when discussing an expedition to Patagonia that included Don Whillans, we're told that Don Whillans did 'little or no load carrying or climbing' on the expedition twice within the space of five paragraphs. If you were being told this tale verbally this wouldn't be a particular issue but on the page it stands out; it suggests that the ghostwriter has typed up his recording of an interview, thought 'That'll do', and not bothered to re-read what he's typed. I suspect the same problem lies behind some of the other issues in the book, and that's where a good editor should have stepped in.

Which is a shame. Yes, you can get the 'voice' of the person telling the story but sometimes the text hinders this rather than helps it.


Despite the difficulties with the text, the tales are worth the telling and I'm very pleased someone has captured them. Eric Jones is, as you rightly say, an inspiration.

T.

In reply to Mick Ward:

Not just on here, it's Muphry's Law.

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

That's much more helpful than most of the ones on Amazon.

In reply to Pursued by a bear:


Well it's a start, no more.



Fatal, if so.

Doesn't this boil down to how much you care about your craft and what your skill is in practising it? A couple of months ago, on here, there were threads about routesetting and coaching respectively. Shortly afterwards, I was lucky enough to encounter a top routesetter and a top coach. No disrespect to our forums but what these guys were bringing to the table was light years beyond what people typically think of as routesetting and coaching. And surely the same applies to writing? I've never expected an editor to do my job for me. I've always aimed at perfect copy. For me, the editor is the last resort, not the first resort, necessary as nobody can produce perfect copy every time.

Sorry to go on - but I care deeply about the erosion of standards, particularly in writing. 'The limits of our language are the limits of our world.' (Wittgenstein)

Mick (who must have made a typo or two by now!)

In reply to Mick Ward:
I also think it is the responsibility of the author to check the text. Slips are inevitable, but reading through what is purportedly yours to see that it is satisfactory is the least the author can do, whether ghost written or not.

In reply to jcw:

John, I couldn't agree more. One of the enduring pleasures of your book, 'A Passion for Climbing' is the care which has so evidently gone into it. With 52 years of climbing (1962 - 2014), the checking of names, dates, grades and locations must have seemed a never-ending task. Yet you managed it.

Right now I'm looking at the photograph entitled, 'Cloggy mon amour'. As with the other photo of you by the lake, it utterly captures the allure of climbing. Thank you once again.

Mick

In reply to jcw:

Whoops! Given the context, I should have made it clear that 'A Passion for Climbing' is emphatically not ghost-written. My apologies.

Mick (clearly needing an editor by now)

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

I'm enjoying reading A Life on the Edge hugely, and ignoring the repetitive stuff. It's interesting comparing it to Jules Lines' Tears of the Dawn autobiography. The Lines' book is a hardback and, it seems to me, a more professionally-produced book.

Both guys, through soloing were somewhat out of the mainstream climbing/mountaineering current. It's also fascinating to me how their climbing developed and separated off from what became the mainstream.

The description of Cliff Phillips' fall while soloing on the Mot and how he got to hospital is mesmerising, as is Phillips' subsequent Alpine activities. What is he doing now?

Onward to to the parachuting/base jumping section ....

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

I was looking forward to reading this,just hope I don't ruin it by looking for the mistakes you've mentioned.

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:


I know that Fiennes does not do all his own research, sending others to do it, so him doing it for the writing also would not be a stretch, given his style of doing things.

A colleague of mine helped out Messner with some stuff years ago (1990?) and RM introduced to my friend another guy whom he called 'my ghost writer' (and not in a joking way).

Barry Blanchard's recent BT winner, The Calling, had - at least in my edition - an appalling number of typos and misspellings. I lost count after a while and it did spoil it for me. Luckily Barry has such a good story and is generally a good writer that it's still worth it.

The other thing about that book, and others, is that some of the chapters are quite different pieces, written at quite varying times, edited by various people, then all combined at the end. This can introduce the type of repetitions and inconsistencies noted above, though of course, like the typos, a good copy editor / editor should pick those up.

Some really do go beyond the acceptable. 'On Top of the World: The New Millennium', the 2012 update to Sale and Cleare's excellent 1999 'On Top Of The World', chronicling all the 8000ers, has the photo topos wildly wrong, with completely wrong mountain faces shown, with lines seemingly made up. Unbelievably sloppy and makes you wonder what else is wrong in the book that you don't know about.

In reply to Pursued by a bear:



Present for me too, and the same issues. Not just the repeat introductions and explanations, but basic editing errors (uses of "were" for "where" etc). As you say though, Eric's life story shines through the sloppy editing!

In reply to Chris_Mellor:
I've got the version in Welsh, Anthur i'r Eithaf, and I can't find a credit to Greg Lewis. Introduction by Llion Iwan, edited by Arthur Thomas. I haven't got the English version to make a comparison - possibly Greg Lewis only had a hand in the English version??

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

I actually think the book is not very well written. The stories are good and I will finish it but it comes across as a bit amateur.

I was thinking it was written directly by Eric, and thought well, that's fair enough, it's probably the first time he's written a book. But now I know there was a ghostwriter I am surprised how poorly written it is.

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

Sometime economics comes into it too (not that this is justification for blatant errors). Low volume runs like climbing books may only expect to sell less than 1,000 copies, and with a publisher, retailer, ghost writer etc to pay, the author my only take £1 per book. A good copy editor can cost £1,000, and a similar amount if you want a proof reader too. So many choose to do it themselves - sadly reading your own work, especially when you know the story so well in your head, can make you immune to even glaring problems.

When I wrote a book a year or so ago, a went through it three times before sending to my editor - who presently filled every page with perfectly valid red ink!

In reply to Mick Ward:


Do you know that it’s really as high as that, Mick? – I can readily believe it for political and sporting ‘autobiographies’, and that sort of stuff, but I’d find that deeply dismaying if it’s true for non-fiction in general or for climbing in particular.

From chat on the hill with the late lamented Peter Hodgkiss at the Ernest Press, I do know that some quite notable books by well-known climbers were substantially re-written by other writers at the publisher’s request (though none of the Ernest Press books were). I know of a couple of anonymously re-written examples myself (authors still extant, so discretion advisable), so I can believe it’s not all that uncommon. I can think of one case where different books by the same author are conspicuously uneven in their quality of writing, depending on whether or not they were given this treatment.

The difficulty of making a living as a full-time writer is such that even established authors will sometimes take on this kind of jobbing work of re-writing to help keep their head above the financial water. For instance, W.H.Murray did it for his publisher Dent. But I should have thought it was probably done more in the past, since the margins in publishing are now so very tight that - as this thread shows - even professional copy editing and proof-reading are far too often dispensed with altogether nowadays.

Some Journal articles too can be very thoroughly 'edited' - Geoff Dutton and Robin Campbell admitted that they 'improved' various articles for the SMC Journal back in the 1960s and 70s, including some by Tom Patey ...

In reply to The Bantam:


I'd say this would be the favourite as to why. Not enough money in the market for proof readers and if the author himself didn't have family or friends who he felt like asking to proof read it, then if he isn't a very experienced writer anyway, there are probably going to be errors of one kind or another.

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

This is almost certainly not due to the presence of a ghost writer - although you could argue that it has to do with the ghost writer not being very good. It is the result of not having a decent proof-reader or editor.

In reply to Bob Hughes:


Issues of the sort described in the OP should have been sorted out by a competent editor before the manuscript got anywhere near a typesetter. Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, the costs of decent editors are often beyond the scope of small specialist publishers, and far too often, it seems that the editing process consists of little more than a bit of a read and maybe a few changes here and there. Without wishing to romanticise the past, editorial standards are a long way short of what they would have been 20-30 years ago.

In reply to tony:


This goes two ways though - 20/30 years ago Eric Jones, not being that mainstream, probably wouldn't have found a publisher willing to publish his book. Now, with print on demand services it is much cheaper and easier to publish a book and so more people are able to do so. But they either can't afford the additional step of editing, or don't realise that they won't pick up all their own errors.

At the end of the day, the OP is enjoying reading a book that in my view they wouldn't have been able to 20/30 years ago. The cost of that is editorial standards.

In reply to The Bantam:


Quite agree with that, and it was something I'd been thinking about when I started reading this thread. Books are much easier to produce now than they were 20 years ago. The very simplicity of going from a simple manuscript to a published title does mean it's easier for anyone to do the job, and as you say, the real value of a good editor is often not recognised or understood.

It's also the case that even when a publisher does employ a decent editor, the rates of pay are so poor that it's hard to do proper justice to the work. It's simply not possible for an editor to spend the time that is often needed to put everything right.

In reply to tony:
I've been pondering what you said; about books being easier (cheaper) to produce and publishers failing to pay enough to hire a decent editor. That seems right but publishers putting out a book in obvious need of a good editorial going over, a sloppily produced book, seems plain wrong. The publisher of Eric's book is Gwasg Carreg Gwalch (established in Llanrwst, Dyffryn Conwy in 1980 by Myrddin ap Dafyd.)

According to Wikipedia "Myrddin ap Dafydd is a Welsh editor ..." and I love the irony of that. His workforce in February 2011, consisted of five editors, three printers, seven compositors and seasonal and marketing staff ( http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/company-ofmyrddin-ap-dafydd-ma... ). A quote of his from that article reads; £A business grows with its staff £ customers respond to the care they are given by our staff; our product reaches higher standards because of our staff£s skills and passion for their work. All of the aspects are important.£

Jen Llywelyn was the almost full-time English language editor at Gwasg Carreg Gwalch from 2007 to 2014 but would seem to be no longer in that role ( http://www.wbti.org.uk/12915.html ). Ghost writer Greg Lewis sent the text to Gwasg Carreg Gwalch around 19 February 2015, according to his Twitter account (@gregjlewis). It could be that there was an editorial function hole at the publisher because Jen Llywelyn wasn't there at that point.

In "A Life on the Edge" the publisher's higher standards were obviously not reached. I have emailed the publisher ( llanrwst@carreg-gwalch.com ) to say so. If I get a reply I'll add it to this thread.

Gwasg Carreg Gwalch has a (mainly Welsh language) twitter account by the way - @CarregGwalch.

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:


That's either a typo or a moment of absentmindedness though as body temperature is
99°F (well 98.6 to be precise).

In reply to pec:

I'm sure it was a moment of absent-mindedness, but I remember the book having lots of these.

In some ways it was nice because it made you feel like the book was taken directly from his pen. It did make me feel like it was lazily edited however, it makes you wonder if anyone actually read the book before it went to print.