I picked up this tidbit from the Oprah/Frey scandal of a few years ago. Forget about the book for a moment – it’s the process that’s of interest here.
Nan Talese: As the publisher of the book, I read the manuscript. I thought this was an absolutely—I would say there was an authenticity in the book. That experience that I responded to, and people have different levels of pain, and I thought, excruciating as the dentistry was, it was not impossible.
Secondly, I shared it with my colleagues. There were no questions. Then what happens with a book is the editor goes over a manuscript with an author and if there’s anything that does not seem true, we question the author. Then it goes to a copy editor. All along in the process of this book, in retrospect it might seem, you know, how could everybody be that stupid and that dumb? But in fact, all the way through in the first nine months of the book…
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Oprahs-Questions-for-James/12
