Edited Collections: From Book Idea to Book Production

Working on an edited collection highlights general truths about editing that likewise pervade ideals and pragmatics of authorship. First, writing involves navigating individualism while dealing with questions of cultural and societal understanding – not least of a potential readership, and not unexpectedly in relation to that readership’s levels of understanding and engagement. Secondly, by navigating the individual-societal exchange, editing employs assumptions about how to ‘speak’, how to structure, how to pattern, how to appeal and how to produce an overall effect that will support and promote shared values and a community of interest. Practitioner and theoretician consumers at every level in the academy and beyond need to understand that comprehensive type of editing, which they will draw on throughout their writing lives. For the editors of this collection, identifying shared values and similar working methods among contributors within a book’s community of interest clarifies the editing process. This collaborative agreement revolves around ideas associated with ‘coherence’, ‘schema’, ‘rapport’ and ‘transference’. The provocative chapters included here on the theory and practice of editing a range of genres does not intend to provide an exhaustive overview, but rather to set the groundwork for future study.