Lesson 7: Editing And Reviews
Integrating review comments
At the end of a review cycle you'll most likely have several sets of feedback on the same material. Sometimes the comments will conflict, sometimes they may not make sense. More often than you'd like they'll point out deficiencies and missing information. You can also get off the wall review comments or run into a reviewer who feels it important to correct the grammar and writing style of your book, often doing so without checking the technical content. As with the editing process, when it gets right down to it, you are in charge of the document and you decide which comments are helpful and need to be addressed in the documentation before it's released.
Corrections can generally be made within a few days, barring long discussion of conflicting comments, but vital information that simply isn't documented cannot usually be added so quickly. If your release date is nearing and a reviewer insists that a new chapter is needed, you may not have time to research and write this new information. At that point it's your responsibility to inform the product manager of the request to add more information and explain that it cannot be completed within the current schedule. He or she can then determine whether the projected completion date is strict or if you can have more time to add new information. It is unlikely that the product release date will be altered just so you can add more documentation (although it has happened to me twice) so this determination will generally be based on the current state of the product itself.
If you make extensive changes after the first round of reviews, you may want to ask for another round of feedback from your reviewers. At the very least, you should send the changed sections to the reviewers who suggested the changes so they can sign off on the modified information.
