No self-respecting CE would ever lobby for a mention on the acknowledgments page. Most of us are ambivalent or would prefer not to be mentioned. Add to that, most authors don’t really understand our job, even after they have seen what we’ve done, and aren’t the best judges of a copy edit, so praise from them doesn’t count for much. On the other hand, if they’re happy with the work, and say so in the acknowledgments, it can do me no harm. Usually in the course of email back-and-forth, they have thanked me for my efforts, and that’s all I ever hope to hear about it.
I can think of two times when I’ve deleted an acknowledgment. One time it was from the author of a marketing textbook who made absolutely everyone’s life hell (it turned out he was bipolar). He was the Donald Trump of authors – a toxic blend of supreme arrogance and aggressive stupidity, with mood swings. Don’t get me started. Equanimity, Matthew. When he acknowledged my work – “I thank Matthew Kudelka for the copy edit” – I deleted it. Then he noticed. I heard back from the ME within a day or two, and she was in a panic. “He’s really really upset,” she told me, after she caught a breath. “Why did you do it? Are you sure?” “Have you got the page in front of you?,” I asked. “You do? Good. Look at the paragraph above it.” I gave her a minute – it was a long paragraph, dedicated to his dog, Skippy, and how helpful she’d been during the whole process, and what a wonderful companion, a paragon of dogs, the one he turned to for solace, encouragement, and …. You get the idea. “So you read it?,” I asked. “I see why you did it,” she said. And the deletion held.
The other time was another toxic author, just recently. He wrote “Matthew Kudelka completed the copy edit.” In other words, I wasn’t the copy editor. What was the point of telling readers I wasn’t the copy editor?