ABSTRACT
After the many imponderables covered in the last two chapters, we now turn to an area that will seem more grounded than what has gone before-the process of ‘caretaking’ manuscripts through to publication date and just beyond. It is just possible that some readers of this book will work in offices where editors abandon their manuscripts the moment they have arrived and leave the necessary work on it and around it to others. These are in all probability publishing offices where relationships with authors are not very good and where each department lives not only at arm’s length with the others but go through regular periods of mutual hostility.
