Entropy, Publishing, and the Author

The publishing process is a wonderful microcosm and exemplar of the principle of entropy. The constant question is where in the system—in the workflow—to put the energy to maintain the order of the system.

At the initiation of a publication, the "content" is in a very weak state of order. The different topics and subtopics in the raw manuscript are often not well related, not sequential (if sequence is an important quality), not all of the external facts are present or verified, and the language and syntax are not in their final states. When the publication is finally produced, everything has been ordered: the facts and phraseology have been checked and refined, the content has been reduced to some definitive visual form (typeface and pictures, e.g.), and all has been produced in physical form.

Somewhere between beginning and end, large quanta of order have been infused into the disordered, chaotic entity called the publication. Unless there is a high degree of redundant work ("digging a hole and filling it up again"), if there is an efficient production flow in which all undecideds are decided and all errors are rectified, then the amount of energy put into the ordering the material should be about the same.

The big issue is where to put the energy into the system: Should you give the knowledge-rich but computer-unsavvy workers a high-end editing or production tool—InCopy—which adds energy demand on them (and probably adds more to you later, when you clean up their errors)? Should you give them RTF files, which preserve a lot of the text styling and reduce their energy output, but which requires you to add your own energy-work to clean up and reflow their revisions? Should you let them just correct the text by hand on a paper proof (which concentrates their energy only to the content, but it's a low total energy output) and then type all of it in by youself (high engergy *and* slow procedure)? Or should you hire a typist or other text inputter to do that work for you so you can overlap with the layout?

I have always emphasized that in a workflow with several clearly-defined areas and groups of workers, do not shift burdens unnecessarily. Let the authors write the text (and, in this case, *write* the revisions or corrections); let the editors handle the manuscript preparation, from language and usage to production markup (which would include specialists, such as word-processor-typists entering written corrections); let the graphics and production staff handle the tasks of the design and layout of the publication. This minimizes redundant work—extra energy—which in not needed to maintain the total order of the final product.