What do editors do, and is a book one person's work?

In 2011 he called the editorial letter an editor's real work, and in 2025 he said traditional publishers still add a lot through editing, marketing and distribution.

Axis: editors are co-creators ... editors only polish

Positions by date: 8 records in 8 videos. The position did not change in these records.

John

date	how	position	video
2011-01-21	first on record	John says it would be wrong to say he wrote Looking for Alaska: Ilene Cooper, his editor Julie Strauss-Gabel, his wife and others all wrote parts of it.	Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award 00:01:55
2011-06-06	restate	John argues editors exist neither mainly to fix grammar nor to censor; the editorial letter is the real work, and writers may not be more important than editors.	Men Running on Tanks and the Truth about Book Editors 00:02:37
2011-08-26	restate	John says Sarah contributed tons of ideas to his novels, from Looking for Alaska to Paper Towns, and hugely to The Fault in Our Stars.	Will He Kiss You? Am I a Muggle? It's Question Friday. 00:03:05
2011-08-31	restate	John says Ilene is the only reason Looking for Alaska exists, that he writes books, and that there is Brotherhood 2.0 or Nerdfighteria.	How to Become An Adult 00:02:46
2013-01-15	restate	John says a book is not made by one person: Esther, Sarah, his publisher, agent, John Darnielle, Hank and T. S. Eliot all wrote parts of TFIOS.	An Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall 00:59:48
2019-09-10	restate	John says Sarah's thinking about art, love and how to make things has shaped his whole professional life so deeply that their work is impossible to disentangle.	Another Contender in the Room 00:00:29
2025-03-18	restate	John says every book is a collaboration with one name on the cover, and nonfiction like this one is deeply collaborative, impossible without many partners.	ITS ALL HAPPENING 00:02:21
2025-10-21	restate	John thinks traditional publishers still add a lot of value through editing, marketing and distribution into bookstores, which matters more than ever.	Is Book Publishing Dying? An Author's Perspective 00:01:59

Background

date	how	position	video
2020-01-10	background	Hank explains that after you give the manuscript to your editor, they either call it trash or send an editorial letter: not trash, followed by a long list of the book's problems; that is success. (playful)	The Thing I would Like to End 00:01:04