In the film business, the movies, there’s a common saying, “We’ll fix it in post.” That means that the sound, a visual effect, or some other annoyance will be corrected in post production. That’s easy to do when you have a budget of millions of dollars and teams of talented artists fixing the myriad problems.
It is a less effective, desirable, or useful approach for businesses or individuals publishing online.
Tools like WordPress and Tumblr make it very easy to publish online. They don’t make it easy to publish great content. That takes work. I see a lot of businesses and far too many individuals constantly fixing, updating, and correcting their errors, all in front of an audience who does not forgive or forget.
As a reader, I’ve given up reading a number of potentially interesting people because what they publish online is unreadable. They write poorly and their copy is filled with errors. They might have great ideas, but I don’t have the time or energy to try and figure out what they mean. Errors and poor writing tell me, the reader, that the writer was rushed and didn’t care enough to write, rewrite, and work with an editor.
You are not a lesser writer because you need an editor. ALL writers need editors. I need an editor. Penny, my editor, will tell you exactly how much I need an editor for what I publish here. Our work together is what makes this site effective. The writing AND editing make this site popular.
The hit and run method of online publishing can be exciting. Someone gets an idea, dashes it off, and hits PUBLISH. And it’s there, on the web, for everyone to see. That’s a real rush. And it’s a very bad idea. It will almost certainly result in errors, mistakes, and incomplete communication.
For my part and as a writing professional I’m embarrassed when others do this. I know what they wanted to do, but I know that they could do it better.
Let’s make the Internet safe for reading. For those of us who write, please seek out an editing partner. For those of us who publish, please insist on a publishing workflow that insures clear, error-free, well developed content.
There’s no post production for online publishing. Let’s do what it takes to get it right the first time.
The We’ll Fix It In Post: Writers, Editors, And Making The Internet A Better Read by Randy Murray, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.