By Rachel Toor

When you go to conferences as an acquisitions editor you are a target. It's in the nature of the job, especially if you are at a good press, that you are going to encounter a lot of folks you've made unhappy. While you may not remember the names of the many authors you have rejected, they are likely to remember yours. There will be a small number of people whom you have elated—the ones to whom you have sent a contract. But even among that group will be those who originally adored you, and then were disappointed with the editing, design, production, or marketing of their books. The truth is, only a small number of people will be happy to see you.

When I was an editor, I loved going to conferences because, for the most part, I loved my authors. But I also knew that my nametag was like a bull's-eye. I wore it only to get into the conference area, and removed it as soon as I could. I became adept at obscuring it with clothes or hair, flashing it only when needed.

One of the truly scary moments of my early career was when I got in an elevator in a tall hotel, and a woman got in after me. I saw her nametag and she saw mine. I had read her manuscript as an editorial assistant and so it had not been my name on the rejection letter, but I had railed against the jargon-ridden writing and (I know now) had not understood the argument. I had, however, had some correspondence with her.

She prepared to speak. I braced myself.

She thanked me for the attention to her work. She was grateful for my help. She could not have been nicer.

That book went on to be a field-changing, much-cited, famous, and important work, published by another press. If I told you what it was, you would think me an idiot and hoot that I had not appreciated what a success it would become. While I still think the writing is problematic, what I remember most now was the author's graciousness and professionalism.

On the other end of the spectrum, I was at the annual meeting of a different field when I ran into a professor who had been holding onto a manuscript—as a reader—for almost a year. I had called him repeatedly asking for his report, and he had always assured me that he would have it to me soon. I kept believing him, and the poor author was kept hanging.

I ran into the reviewer in the hotel lobby, asked him again about the manuscript, and made some (lame) joke about him being a tardy reader. He stammered and sputtered.

Later, a mutual friend told me that the reviewer had, behind my back, torn me apart. He was so incensed that I had teased him that he went around to every other editor in the book exhibit to complain. I don't know what he thought he was going to gain by carping about me. I should have realized that he was embarrassed, and found a better way to handle the situation. But still, I thought, Grow up.

Most academics behave like adults, at least to your face. They know how the game is played. Plenty of writers would come to the press's booth to let me know that I had rejected them and that they had gone on to be accepted by another publisher. Fabulous! I would say, and mean it. Sometimes they would thank me for suggesting other presses to try. Only occasionally would someone glare at me.

Last winter, I went to the annual conference of the discipline in which I am now teaching, creative writing. While in some ways it felt familiar—I'd been in that huge and confusing hotel for a zillion other meetings—in other ways, it was liberating. I was completely anonymous. No one wanted anything from me. I knew few people in the field, compared with my old days as an editor, and had no responsibilities, except to go to the booth of my publisher and sign copies of my most recent book.

So I wandered through the exhibit halls—presses, academic programs, and literary magazines were all there in force—to find the right booth. Finally, I did, and was able to put faces to the names of people who had been so helpful to me. I was able to thank them for doing such an extraordinary job with my book. We chatted briefly, and I promised I'd be back the next day to do what I was supposed to do.

When I looked across the aisle, I saw the booth of another publisher whose director was an old friend of mine. I zipped over and asked if he was at the meeting. There were two young women, and an older man. I assumed they all worked for the press.

The director was supposed to come, they told me, but had to cancel at the last minute. Was there anything they could do for me?

Nope, I was stopping by just to say hello. Oh, and to thank him for sending me a bound copy of a book that I had reviewed for him in manuscript.

One of the women started getting twitchy. She looked at me. She looked at my name tag. Her lip curled into a snarl, "You wrote some book about a pig or something, right?" She was accusing.

"Um, sort of."

"You read my manuscript." She uncovered her name-tag. "Your review was brutal. It took me days to recover from it."

Oh. She didn't work for the press. She was there as an author, to sign her book. The one I'd just received in the mail.

"Your review was brutal," she said about seven more times in the next five minutes.

After nodding and smiling, I finally felt pushed to explain. "Look," I said. "When I agreed to read the manuscript, I knew the editor was committed to publishing it. He asked me to write something that the author might find helpful. I gave the kind of criticism I like to receive. It may have been tough, but as you'll recall, I never said not to publish it, just that it needed more work."

"Your review was brutal," she said.

But then she took a breath: "I guess it was useful. It did help me to revise the manuscript. And I suppose it's better to get that kind of thing before the book is actually published."

Duh, I thought, but didn't say.

"He didn't tell me it was you—I figured it out," she added."He wouldn't tell me," she said. (That is appropriate and professional. It should be up to the reader to disclose her identity to the author. But it wouldn't have bothered me if the editor had mentioned my name; I don't believe in anonymous reader's reports.)

The people from the press, including the editor's assistant, were cringing. The only one who didn't feel uncomfortable was the outraged author. She wouldn't allow me to get away without saying, one more time, "It was brutal."

I remembered how hard the editor had worked on the manuscript, how much he'd done for this author. When I had received the finished copy, I had been shocked to see that she had not thanked him in the acknowledgments.

Future authors, please, thank your editor. He probably did a lot more work than you realize or appreciate. When I worked in publishing, I came to believe that there was an inverse relationship between how much an editor had done on a manuscript and how profusely she was thanked in print. The less you did, the more praise you got. Reading acknowledgments can tell you a lot, not only about the publication process but also about the personality of the author. Sometimes, you don't want to know.

And if you find out the identity of your manuscript's reader, and don't like her or what she said, here's a handy tip: Include her name in the acknowledgments section, too. Most of the time, you will have gotten useful feedback. On a more pragmatic note, that should help to keep her from being asked to review the book when it has been published. We all inhabit small worlds, but if her name is in the book, review editors might be less likely to assign it to her to avoid charges of cronyism.

If you think a review is problematic, complain to your editor, your spouse, your dog. Try to respond to the criticism that you think is right, and then get over it. Not everyone is going to love you and your work. Keep in mind that the scholarly review process is based on a sense of academic community; no one who reads manuscripts for publishers does it for the money, the fame, or the prestige.

Rachel Toor is an assistant professor of creative writing at Eastern Washington University, in Spokane.