Here’s the funny thing: I probably wouldn’t have had very much trouble convincing them to make a few changes to their changes, since they’d been receptive to my prior suggestions about other less-than effective changes that had been made to my work previously. But, it became a question of just how much time and effort I wanted to put into a completed project — after having already gone put in far more time than I’d been paid for — simply because they didn’t seem to know when enough was enough. So, I decided not to pursue it further.

Lillie,

Your point is well-taken. Reading, reviewing, and commenting on a manuscript are not quite the same as editing or revising it.

You make many excellent points in this post. As you know, I am of the mind that, in writing, selling, and branding, minutae matters! In a professional context, close enough is never good enough. Careful attention to detail is what separates the professional from the amateur — or at least the professional image from the amateurish one.

I’ve had an interesting experience with rewritten web copy which I think underscores your point about “editing by committee.” Not too long ago, after I’d rewritten several pages of web copy for a client’s rebranding campaign, the company apparently decided to get further “input” and make numerous additions/changes to my rewrite. While the majority of the work remained as written, I have to admit that I wasn’t too happy with some of the changes that had been made. But, since I’d sold the copy outright, it really wasn’t my place to object.

While admittedly some of the changes improved the finished product in one sense (i.e., by adding further clarification of the company’s services), these changes and others lowered the overall writing quality immensely — and with it the company’s image — through clumsy phraseology — which was too bad. (I can only say that this is one instance where I’m glad my name isn’t on my work!)

If this company continues to use the “round-robin” approach to “improving” its web copy, after it’s already been satisfactorily completed and posted to its website, one hopes that, during one of its many rounds of “editing,” someone will finally hit upon the right words! I can’t say I’m optimistic that this will happen, though.

Sometimes, you just have to leave well enough alone; because too many cooks can indeed spoil the broth!

Jeanne

My novel that will be released later this year has had more input than you can imagine. I actually wrote it several years ago and got feedback from a critique group (three other authors) during the writing stage (which included several rounds of self-editing). After it was finished, two published authors read it and commented. After it was accepted by the publisher, the editor and I went through it together twice and each of us has edited it again separately. I asked for readers on my blog and had five different writers and editors volunteer to read. They all gave me a little input–not much at that stage but a few helpful ideas.

The editor and/or I will read it again after the layout is done to look for any errors that crept in during that stage, and the printer’s proof will be reviewed … and based on past experience, there will probably be a few corrections at that final stage.

My guess (because I didn’t keep track of how many times I edited it) is that it will have been read more than 20 times by about a dozen people from the time I finished writing it until publication.

And I’ll bet as soon as the book is published, someone will find an error.

I guess I was thinking about input on books – there aren’t that many people willing to read an entire 75,000 or 100,000 word novel or nonfiction book, and those who do won’t catch everything. So it’s highly unlikely that an author would get too much input. And I’ve never read a book that didn’t have a few errors in it.

However, when you’re talking about a blog post or an article or other short document, you can definitely get too much input. In those situations, one or two people is probably enough. Otherwise, you’ll start getting lots of different opinions on minor details and end up making the piece worse instead of better.

It depends on the kind of document. A shorter document doesn’t need (or even benefit from) input from many people, whereas a very long document or one with a lot of details that need to be verified would benefit from more input.