Over dinner, she mentioned being told that the coming out guide (COG) was not well-designed and had poor editing. The person also went on to conclude that it is not impactful. And she was affected by it.
When i first set out to do the COG, i wasn’t thinking of an art piece or an extremely well-written book with perfect English. I was thinking about providing information that would help those who are coming out, together with references. And tools that help them think about myths and critique claims. These are the objectives of the book.
I am thankful to the contributing writers who took time (and what a lot of time!) to write, read and comment. The editor had the hardest job of all. Re-reading something repeatedly is a pain in the ass. I didn’t even want to read the book after i decided the content is okay! Without the editor, things would be worse off. As long as the book is readable and understandable (that includes ‘not replete with grammatical errors’), i am happy. I am more concerned about the content more than anything else.
For those of you who are displeased with the design of the book… fly a kite.
… Oops.
I mean… write, design and disseminate another COG. The more COGs we have that are credible, the better it is for struggling folks. Self-help books, the bible and what not come in different versions anyway.
Let’s just say that the design of the book made the content more accessible. That’s the first step – being able to read it. Not everyone likes reading journal articles, where words crawl like ants for miles at a font size of 8. (I was, at first, quite inclined to put readers through it. But i have since converted.) With the amount we were able to spare (which is just a few hundred out of our pockets), the images were the best we could have gotten.
As for impact…
If it impacts one person positively… if it can clear the confusion in one person’s mind… if it can save one person from being beaten up at school one time, i wouldn’t have called the efforts wasted. Because even one person matters. Even one episode of homophobic attack matters.
Now that’s not to say i don’t care about grammatical errors or other annoying stuff. There’s a version 2 we have in mind. Please do point out section, page, paragraph if you see such annoying stuff. If you see any erroneous information, alert us immediately. After all, if you cared sufficiently to read the book and to tell us it’s impactful or not, i would assume that you are acting as a watchdog for the benefit of readers right?
Yes, we need more editors (why overload one unfortunate soul).
And yes we can do with more writers.
And yes, we can have more designers.
So please volunteer your superior services to our community (have a heart for those fumbling with coming out, would you?) for the next help-book.
