Thirty years ago, in 1984, I became an editor for the first time - the editor of "Travel" magazine, the official editor of an official national publication. 28 years later, I served as editor and online editor of "Misty Rain and Red Dust Station" and "Jiangshan Station". The experience of being an editor twice gave me completely different feelings.
In 1984, when I was still the manager of the freight company of the Chongwen District Labor Service Company in Beijing, "Travel" magazine openly recruited editors in the newspaper, and I rejected the good ones. position, he also declined the offer to stay as the Propaganda Minister of the Chongwen District Party Committee at that time, and resolutely participated in the recruitment of the magazine. He stood out among the competition of many applicants until he was finally hired as an editor by the magazine.
Although I had already been admitted to the Chinese major of the Correspondence College of Renmin University of China and studied while working, I had never been an editor after all. When I picked up the manuscript, I didn’t know what to do with it. I was even more confused when I encountered celebrities and articles with profound cultural connotations, and I didn’t even dare to write. How good is this? Although our vice president of business is an editor at Zhonghua Book Company, it is impossible for him to get all the manuscripts. what to do? In addition to listening to the editor-in-chief's lectures and reading books on editing, you have to revise the author's articles yourself over and over again. You can't make changes to the author's work yet. You have to write the editor's note on paper first, change it once or twice, and then send it to the editor-in-chief to have him look over it to see if there are any omissions or errors. First, the most basic editing work such as correcting typos, confirming titles, checking punctuation marks, matching article paragraphs, etc. will be carried out, and then further, higher-level editing work such as article content, conception, expression, artistic conception, etc. will be assessed, and more The advanced ones are the translation and verification of ancient texts.
At that time, the phenomenon of authors submitting one manuscript twice was not too common, but it could not be left to its own devices. If you are not sure, you have to look it up in a book, or even go to the Beijing Library. Like now, you can search it out on Baidu. I once spent most of the day in the Beijing Library looking up an ancient text from the Five Dynasties period. At that time, there was no cafeteria in Beitu, so I was hungry and thirsty until I understood and translated this article correctly before returning home.
Our "Travel" magazine was one of the few travel magazines in Beijing at that time. It was responsible for introducing tourist attractions, transportation, accommodation, shopping, Beijing, even the country and the world. Recreation, humanities, food, religious beliefs, financial and currency exchange, geography of various countries, tourism figures, tourism codes, tourist hotels, travel agencies, travel routes, beautiful pictures of scenic spots, etc., covering an extremely wide range, which requires travel editors You have to be a jack-of-all-trades, and you have to know a little bit about everything. Although I have never reached the standard of a jack-of-all-trades, I have definitely learned a lot. The article "Concerns about Tourist Hotels" that I obtained in Wutong was written by interviewing and reviewing information from various sources after work. This article was also listed as a study document by the National Tourism Directors Working Conference; "Thinking through Kickbacks" which I wrote when the kickback phenomenon first emerged in 1986 was recommended by the Propaganda Department of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and published in "Beijing", the official newspaper of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee Daily newspaper.
The success of a magazine depends on the content and form of the magazine, and the content of the magazine mainly depends on whether there are big-name celebrities in your magazine to support it. When the reader takes a look, this issue does not contain works by authors or celebrities that he knows, so he generally will not pay for it. In the past, our magazine generally dealt with nature and did not publish many special articles. Therefore, the quality of the magazine is greatly restricted. Later, we let go of our courage and began to leave the editorial office and go to the vast world to collect honey.
Our magazine is a combination of editing and editing. The editor is also a reporter. We all have press cards issued by the National Press and Publication Administration. You can interview celebrities, writers, foreigners, etc. You can make an appointment with them. Later, soliciting manuscripts and interviews became the main tasks of our editorial work.
In order to request manuscripts, I interviewed Shan Shiyuan, director of the Palace Museum, famous playwright Weng Ouhong, famous writer Liu Shaotang, famous composer Wen Zhongjia, and famous Taiwanese actor Li Xin, coach of the national gymnastics team Liu Quanjin, famous director of Beijing Peking Opera Theater Xu Yuchuan, famous choreographer of China Opera and Dance Theater Huang Boshou, etc.; in order to book a manuscript, we climbed the Mutianyu Great Wall with famous writers Zhao Danian, Han Shaohua, Chen Jiangong, etc. Coincidentally, that day, I happened to publish an absurd novel in a famous newspaper. After reading it, Chen Jiangong greatly appreciated it and even introduced me to the Chinese Writers Association. I, a fool like me, actually turned a deaf ear to such a great opportunity for pie-in-the-sky pie. I just wanted to get their hands on their masterpiece as soon as possible. I didn't think about such a thing at all.
I host a signature column called "Talk about Beijing" in the editorial department. Since the editing and publishing unit of "Travel" magazine is in Beijing, this column is very important. Once you write about Beijing, you can hold up half the sky of the magazine. I thought that it would not be enough to just find some famous scholars and writers to write about Beijing. They all have their own jobs. Writing a manuscript for you is just fulfilling an obligation. Writing is a favor, and there is nothing wrong with not writing. I began to look down, targeting those workers and social figures who were talented and had certain research expertise among the writers, and asked them to write about Beijing’s history, scenery, people, customs and slang, especially Beijing’s Corner Bar. , is a story that readers don’t know but want to know very much, so I actively invite them to write articles and invite them to the editorial office to discuss article ideas. I invited worker author Feng Qili. He is an expert in the study of famous cemeteries in Beijing. He knows all about the Eight Princes' Tomb and the Gongzhu's Tomb. He would go to these cemeteries every day off to collect information, and he could also write very touching stories. Another Manchu worker author, Jin Taochun, is a descendant of the Qing royal family and has a wealth of knowledge about cultural relics. I asked him to write some stories specifically related to the Qing royal family. He is now the first professional name maker in Beijing. An expert, he founded Beijing's first name specialty store "Qimingxuan". There is also a former tour guide of Baiyun Temple and Yin Yuzheng, an educated youth from Beijing. After he returned to Beijing, he became an excellent commentator through his hard work. After being transferred to the Lama Temple, he worked harder and wrote many official histories and anecdotes about the Lama Temple. He also published the "Legend of the Lama Temple". The joining of these authors has enabled the "Talk about Beijing" column that I hosted to achieve great results. This column once won the "Beijing Excellent Journal Outstanding Column Award".
To run a good publication, "sensation" is very important. Of course, "sensationalism" is not about making tidbits or celebrity anecdotes, but about arousing the emotions of readers and those involved in the event so that they can actively participate in the articles you report. To this end, I have engaged in two relatively large and influential activities. One was to interview and report on Wang Baoyi, a pioneer in Yesanpo, Hebei Province, and wrote a reportage "The Man Who Captured the Golden Dove", which was published by Lai at that time. The Shuixian Tourism Bureau promotes it widely. The second is an interview and report on Zhong Huasheng, the builder of the country's first farmer's resort in Zhuhai. In addition to publishing reportage in "Chinese Entrepreneur" magazine, he also participated in the "National Baitenghu Journalism Award Ceremony". These two activities created a lively scene of "Zhong Huasheng in the south and Wang Dachui-Wang Baoyi in the north" and set off a craze for farmers to organize tourism.
I also directly participated in the "Sixteen Scenes of New Beijing Selection Activity" and was fortunate to be one of the judges of this activity. Beijing used to have the "Eight Scenes of Yanjing", but after liberation, especially after the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the image of Beijing's tourist attractions and buildings has undergone great changes. The old "Eight Scenes of Yanjing" are no longer suitable for that time. city ??image. At this time, Mr. Chen Haosu (son of Marshal Chen Yi), who is the chairman of the China International Cultural Exchange Center, cooperated with our magazine to organize a "Sixteen Scenes of New Beijing Selection Activity". In addition to the old attractions, the selection results also added new attractions such as Mutianyu Great Wall and Black Dragon Pool. This event not only opened up a new landscape for tourism in the suburbs of Beijing, but also greatly increased the circulation of our magazine.
When we were editors, we seemed to be very prosperous, but in fact we were just like “donkey dung eggs”. Our salary was the same as that of ordinary people, and we didn’t have much money to subsidize. In particular, our travel funds were very tight at that time. Travel expenses were fixed, and the extra money had to be paid out of our own pockets. It seems that the accommodation fee can only be reimbursed 15 yuan a day, and the food subsidy is only 15 yuan a day. I worked as a cashier in the Corps, so every time I went on a business trip, I was the accountant. Every time you go to a place, you must first find a hotel to stay. But where can I find hotel accommodation for 15 yuan a day? I took a contact chart and found the hotel manager who had participated in the tourism work conference. I told him that he would go to your place for an interview, but he could only reimburse 15 yuan for the room fee. Could the manager provide convenience? The boss is a figure in the scene, and we are journalists from Beijing, how can we not give him this face? So, wherever we go, we have to stay in five-star hotels, and we only pay 15 yuan for the room. exception.
Once, I was covering the Silk Road with the art editor of the editorial department. I thought of Urumqi and went back home because I only had money for air tickets from Urumqi back to Beijing. . However, we have gone through all the trouble to come to Xinjiang. How can we be considered to have been to Xinjiang if we don’t visit Kashgar, the legendary city in the westernmost part of Xinjiang? The problem is that to get to Kashgar, you have to take a plane, and the round-trip air ticket costs the same as our air ticket back to Beijing. In other words, if you go to Kashgar, you can't go back to Beijing; if you want to go back to Beijing, you can't go to Kashgar. In order to solve this dilemma, we visited the Director of the Publicity Department of the Xinjiang Tourism Bureau. In the Urumqi Hotel, after the three of us drank three bottles of Yilitqu, the director gave us a good idea: "It doesn't matter, you can go to Kashgar and wait for the Gulban. When I return to Urumqi on the festival day, I will take you to meet the Xinjiang Tourism Director. You can just bring two pounds of apricots to congratulate him on the festival. When he is happy, he will take care of your air tickets! I was in a good mood to go to the director's home to congratulate the director on the holiday. As expected, the director happily agreed, and the problem of our air tickets to fly back to Beijing was solved effortlessly.
The wages we earned at that time were so small that we wished we could break every penny in half and spend it. One of our female editors went to Guilin with us for an interview and wanted to buy a bottle of Guilin fermented bean curd. Guilin fermented bean curd is one of the three treasures of Guilin and is quite famous. Our female editor first saw a shop selling it for 1.2 yuan a bottle. She was afraid that it would be too expensive, so she asked a few of us gentlemen to follow her around a few streets. The cheapest bottle in other stores was only 1.25 yuan. So, she left us on the street and went to the store that sold 1.2 yuan a bottle to buy it, leaving us waiting for nearly an hour!
I worked as an editor for a national official publication for less than ten years, and then became a freelancer, making a living by coding, planning, and advertising. The time is about ten years. However, I have not stopped writing articles in the past ten years. Starting in 2011, I became obsessed with online writing. I immediately logged in and registered several websites to publish articles, and I also won a small award for online literary creation. Starting in 2012, I was hired by a website as an editor for the essay group. This year, I was hired as an editor by the Wutong Society. Thus began my second editing career.
To be honest, online literary editors are very different from editors of print media publications.
The first is the difference in editing thresholds.
Online literature editors do not need to undergo strict assessment and training, as long as they are selected by the president of the literary society. The editors are usually the authors of the society. To put it bluntly, some editors still need to be tempered and learn the basic skills of editing. At the very least, the objects of use of "的, 地, 德" must be clearly distinguished, punctuation marks must be used accurately, typos in the author's article must be corrected, and the title of the article must be accurate, etc.
Secondly, online editors do not need to request or compile articles. You only need to edit them after others have published them. However, since our editors are all authors, there is no need for drafting or arranging manuscripts. Whether it's writing or editing a manuscript, it all depends on consciousness.
Therefore, the difference between excellent editors and ordinary editors appears. An excellent editor can edit one or two hundred articles a month, and he can do it almost every word. Print media editors do not have such a heavy workload.
Online editing is a completely voluntary service without any compensation. So I say that online editors are very great. They completely ignite themselves and illuminate others. It is rare to hear that online editors can achieve the level of popularity as Teacher Ye Shengtao. Online editors generally have their own jobs and basically use their spare time to edit manuscripts. Because many Internet authors have an illusion, that is, they think that the threshold for online articles is low, and anything they write can be published. As long as they press the publish button, the article can become their own work. Therefore, it brings great difficulties to the editing work. Some articles are only two or three hundred words long; What is even more difficult to deal with is that some authors do not meet the standards of high-quality products, but they complain that the editor does not know the product or the industry, and even abuse the editor because of this. Editors have to endure these in silence, and not many people can fully understand the grievances they suffer.
As I write this article, I feel ashamed because I have not met the standards of a qualified editor. It has been five months since I logged into Jiangshan on March 17 this year and was hired as an editor by Wutong. However, the number of articles I have edited is only 57, with an average of only about 10 articles per month. Compared with Wutong's Jiangnan Iron Eagle, Bing Ling, Qian Ning, Can Ruo Shu Jin, Dan Feng Zui Wan, Caishi Bridge and other editors, I am far behind. Although my blood pressure was as high as 237 twice, and I also had "explainable" reasons such as diabetes, the main thing was that I no longer had the vitality I had back then. I will take good care of my body and gradually catch up with these good editors.
The author is pleased to see that Mr. Zhao Xinghua, the chief designer of Jiangshan, proposed that "online literature will be recognized by more and more people, and digital publishing will gradually replace traditional Print media. "Such an ambitious goal requires all our editors to work harder, guard against arrogance and impetuosity, and become a qualified Jiangshan online literature editor as soon as possible!