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- Herausgeber: Modern History Press
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
The Frugal Editor: Do-it-Yourself Editing Secrets From your query letter to final manuscript to the marketing of your book
Whether you are a new or experienced author, The Frugal Editor helps you present whistle-clean copy from a one-page cover letter to your entire manuscript that will convince those with the power to say "yea" or "nay" to your precious book.
The third edition of The Frugal Editor, is the winningest book in Carolyn's multi-award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of Books for writers with accolades from Reader Views Literary Award, Dan Poynter's Global Ebook Award, the coveted Irwin Award, and many others. This fully updated edition includes the new help you need from managing gender pronouns to maximizing the usefulness of front and back matter. Altogether, The Frugal Editor now provides 50% more information designed for the success of your title.
"Writers and editors have a true friend in Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Her word smarts, her publishing savvy, and her sincere commitment to authors and editors make The Frugal Editor a must-have resource." -- June Casagrande, author of The Best Punctuation Book, Period and Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies (Penguin) and syndicated grammar columnist
"Previous editions of The Frugal Editor were excellent. Nothing could be better... except this book which has an additional 50% new content. The publishing world changes quickly, and this text allows writers to keep up with the ever-changing world of editors, publicists, finicky agents, trends, cultural expectations, queries, and media kits... exploding grammar myths, and possible scams. Save yourself time and money by learning from the best, Howard-Johnson. -- Carolyn Wilhelm, BA, MA, MS and author of environmental content
"Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a godsend for writers everywhere. Her new book The Frugal Editor, is part reference guide, part do-it-yourself editing manual, part masterclass on the writing and publishing industry... and all with Carolyn's signature humor and encouraging energy! She is a master at simplifying overwhelming tasks into relevant, can-do information. This book is a must for every writer's bookshelf!" --Dallas Woodburn, book coach and best-selling author of Thanks, Cariss, for Ruining my Life
"I am using The Frugal Editor to polish my next book. I've used it for the first edit, the beta edit, and...I'm ready to snuff out excess words. Your tip about adding spaces with the search and replace tool is a timely add to my editing skills. It was easy to weed out abbreviations like AR for Arkansas one of my clients used with the (space)AR(space) feature." --Elizabeth Seckman, editor of Insecure Writers Group newsletter
"In the third edition of her The Frugal Editor, Carolyn Howard-Johnson helps authors obtain a finished product worthy of Simon and Shuster. The book guides readers through evolving changes in the English language that has no governing academy regulating it." --Helen Dunn Frame shares her secrets for Retiring in Costa Rica or Doctors, Dogs and Pura Vida and other books. "Whether you're writing your first book or tenth, The Frugal Editor is a must-read." --Tim Bete, director, Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop
"Carolyn Howard-Johnson's The Frugal Editor has been my go-to editing bible for many years. The new Third Edition is the best yet with all the clear, easy-to-follow advice on how to edit your work like a pro of the earlier editions and a whole new range of up-to-the-minute advice about such things as using gender pronouns correctly, well-researched insider info on how to avoid agents' and publishers' pet peeves, how to avoid scams, and lots more. This is a must for every author's editing arsenal." --Magdalena Ball, CompulsiveReader
From Modern History Press
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Praise for The Frugal Editor
“Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a godsend for writers everywhere. Her new book, The Frugal Editor, is part reference guide, part do-it-yourself editing manual, part masterclass on the writing and publishing industry... and all with Carolyn’s signature humor and encouraging energy! She is a master at simplifying overwhelming tasks into relevant, can-do information. This book is a must for every writer’s bookshelf!”
~ Dallas Woodburn, book coach and best-selling author of Thanks, Cariss, for Ruining my Life
“Absolutely essential for beginning writers and a necessary reminder for the more advanced. The mentor you’ve been looking for. This book won’t collect dust!”
~ Christina Francine, Fijords Review
“I am using The Frugal Editor to polish my next book. I’ve used it for the first edit, the beta edit, and…I’m ready to snuff out excess words. Your tip about adding spaces with the search and replace tool is a timely add to my editing skills. It was easy to weed out abbreviations like AR for Arkansas one of my clients used with the (space)AR(space) feature.”
~ Unsolicited praise from Elizabeth Seckman, editor of Insecure Writers Group newsletter
“Writers and editors have a true friend in Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Her word smarts, publishing savvy, and sincere commitment to authors and editors make The Frugal Editor a must-have resource.”
~ June Casagrande, author of Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies and syndicated grammar columnist
“In the third edition of her The Frugal Editor, Carolyn Howard-Johnson helps authors obtain a finished product worthy of Simon and Shuster. The book guides readers through evolving changes in the English language that has no governing academy regulating it.”
~ Helen Dunn Frame shares her secrets for Retiring in Costa Rica or Doctors, Dogs and Pura Vida and other books.
“Whether you’re writing your first book or tenth, The Frugal Editor is a must-read.”
~ Tim Bete, director, Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop
“Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s The Frugal Editor has been my go-to editing bible for many years. The new Third Edition is the best yet with all the clear, easy-to-follow advice on how to edit your work like a pro of the earlier editions and a whole new range of up-to-the-minute advice about such things as using gender pronouns correctly, well-researched insider info on how to avoid agents’ and publishers’ pet peeves, how to avoid scams, and lots more. This is a must for every author’s editing arsenal.”
~ Magdalena Ball, is a poet and runs the CompulsiveReader.com
“In this invaluable (and yes, accessible and engaging, too!) resource, Carolyn Howard-Johnson masterfully elevates editing into the critical component of writing that it is. Don’t turn in anything until you turn to this book.”
~ Peter Bowerman, author of The Well-Fed Writer series
“Use basic computer and editing tricks from The Frugal Editor, to prevent headaches, to save time—and even money. It’s well worth your effort to learn them.”
~ Barbara McNichol, Barbara McNichol Editorial
“…An important new section deals with using your friends, family, or writing circle as readers [beta readers]. Your book is your baby, but it may have content or pace that make it a loser when other people read it. Once you’re sure you have a good product and have done all the recommended editing yourself, it’s time to think about a professional editor. The book does an excellent job of showing what a professional can do for your manuscript.” ~ Nancy Famolari, author of the Montbleu Mysteries available from Amazon.com.
“…Submit like a pro with Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s clear, step-by-step, self-editing approach for putting your Best Book Forward.”
~ Gregory A. Kompes, conference coordinator of The Las Vegas Writer’s Conference
“My favorite self-editing book…”
~ Deborah Lynn Stanley, author of Practical Steps to Digital Research
“My new copy is already filled with colorful stick-’em notes!”
~ Carol Smallwood, poet
The Frugal Editor: Do-It-Yourself Editing Secrets – From Your Query Letters to Final Manuscript to the Marketing of Your New Bestseller. 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007, 2014, 2023 by Carolyn Howard-Johnson.
All Rights Reserved.
Author photograph by Uriah Carr.
Cover Design by Doug West.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system (except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the internet) without permission in writing from the publisher.
Trademarks, including Coca-Cola, and myriad other names of products, journals, and other printed matter used in this work are not authorized by, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. No association with the corporations or names is implied or intended unless so noted.
Several links throughout this book are a part of Amazon Affiliates’ program that offers a small commission for each direct purchase.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Howard-Johnson, Carolyn, author.
Title: The Frugal Editor : do-it-yourself editing secrets : from your query letters to final manuscript to the marketing of your new bestseller / by Carolyn Howard-Johnson.
Description: Third edition. |Ann Arbor, MI: Modern History Press, [2021]. Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "A survey of many helpful self-editing techniques including manuscript preparation, query letters, grammar, syntax, and tricks for getting the most help from your word processing software"—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021035252 (print) | LCCN 2021035253 (e-book) | ISBN 9781615996018 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781615996001 (paperback) | ISBN 9781615996025 (kindle edition) | ISBN 9781615996025 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Editing.
Classification: LCC PN162 .H67 2021 (print) | LCC PN162 (e-book) | DDC 808.02/7—dc23.
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021035252.
LC e-book record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021035253.
Distributed by Ingram (USA/CAN/AU), Betram’s Books (UK/EU).
Modern History Press
5145 Pontiac Trail, Ann Arbor, MI 48105
[email protected], www.ModernHistoryPress.com
Tollfree 888-761-6268, FAX 734 663 6861
In Memory of…
University press editor extraordinaire Trudy McMurrin, who edited the second edition of this book and introduced me to the intricacies of book production and many peccadilloes of the publishing industry.
Dedicated to…
This, the third edition of TheFrugal Editor, comes to you with the gentle reminder that the internet world has made editors of everyone—from writers of every ilk to most anyone in the business community. In this quickly changing environment, most of us are more responsible than ever for the success of our own projects—from beginning to end. This book is dedicated to the hard workers of the world who spend a good deal of their working hours before a computer screen writing and, yes, editing.
Contents
The Frugal Editor’s Extras
Why The Frugal Editor Belongs In This HowToDoItFrugally Series
Introduction: Gremlins, Horses, Writers, and You
Have You Ever Met a Gremlin?
Why You—Yes, You Who Aced English—Need This Book
Leading a Horse to Water and Other All-Wet Ideas About Editing
The Patient Path to Perfection—and Acceptance
Section One: The Preliminaries
Chapter 1: Misunderstanding Editing
Chapter 2: Organizing Only Feels Like Procrastination
Your Real Old-Fashioned Desk Environment
Getting Your Computer Ready for Editing Projects
Revisiting Familiar Computer Aids
Why Does the Frugal Editor Love Word?
Chapter 3: Best Book Forward Or Great Editing Is Great Branding
Section Two: Editing for Your Pre-Publish and Everafter Related Documents
Chapter 4: Editing Your Pre-publish Documents Or Letting The Hard Copies Fly
Chapter 5: Covers and Queries Mean Dangerous Corners Ahead
Chapter 6: Your Cut-and-Paste Errors Are the Way to a Gremlin’s Heart
Chapter 7: Let’s Peek into the Minds And Inboxes of Literary Agents
Chapter 8: Let’s Make Everyone Agree
Section Three: Let Your Computer Do What It Does Best
Chapter 9: Use Word’s Tools; Don’t Trust Them
Find Function: Word’s Uncritical, Undiscerning, Thorough Editing Tool
Using Find Function to Spot the Dots
Tracker: Word’s Editing Miracle
Your Untrustworthy Spelling and Grammar Check
Your Word Processor’s Dictionaries: Making Them Personal
Computers Have Their Own Shortcuts
To Let or Not to Let a Word Processor Lay Out Your Manuscript
Section Four: Editing for Stronger Writing
Chapter 10: Hunting Down Your Dreaded Adverbs
Your Starter List of Words That Might Be Adverbs
Chapter 11: Wipe Out Your Ineffective Passives
Chapter 12: Death to Participles, Gerunds, and Other Ugly Ings
Dangling Participles Often Come with Tattletale Ings
Gerund Ings Can Keep You From Laughing All the Way to the Bank
Participle Ings Are Not a Gerund’s Twin
Was-Ing and Were-Ing
Chapter 13: Getting Rid of Dialogue Migraines
Amateurish Dialogue Tags Can Be Big Headaches
Dialogue Punctuation Headaches
Section Five: Veggies vs. Fructose Found in the Media
Chapter 14: Viruses Aren’t the Only Communicable Disease Contracted from the Net
Getting Cute with Caps
Quotation Marks for the Too-Dumb Reader?
Question Marks and Exclamation Points Running Amok
Ampersands: Pretty Is As Pretty Does
Ellipsis Dots Gone Wild
Chapter 15: The Black Plague Of Style-Choice Viruses
Chapter 16: Pretty Little Apostrophes
Simplifying Possessives So The Gremlin Can’t Fool with You
Your Simplified Screenshot for Possessive Apostrophes
Other Frightening Apostrophes
Chapter 17: Punctuation Even Word Processors Don’t Love
Myriad Uses for Hyphens
Chapter 18: Punctuation for Poets And Other Writers Who Love Words
What About Those Adjectives We Love So Much?
Chapter 19: About Stuff That Shouldn’t Trouble Us But Does
Blaming the Net, the Media, and Even Linguistics
Word Trippers, Synonyms, and Other Painful Grammatical Considerations
Tuning into Wordiness and Their Cousins
The Dreaded Clause Introducers
Dangerous Political Curves Ahead
Section Six: Final Housecleaning
Chapter 20: Getting Ready for Your Closeup
Chapter 21: Getting Ultra-Fresh Input From Beta Readers
Chapter 22: Let’s Talk About What’s to Come
Section Seven: The Big Money Decisions
Chapter 23: Are You Convinced You Need an Editor—or Don’t?
Getting the Best Leads
What to Ask Prospective Editors
Chapter 24: Getting Clear on Choosing a Publisher
How to Avoid Publishing Shams and Scams
Chapter 25: Some Last-Minute Writing Editing Basics You May Not Yet Have Considered
Some Authors Are More About Covers Than Editing
Some Elements of Formatting May Include Your Best Sales Tools
Check Up on Your Formatter
Chapter 26: Putting Your Work into the World
When Mail Is Your First Foot in the Door
When E-Mail is Preferred
When Your Contact Uses Submittable or Other Submission Services
Chapter 27: The Galley Edit: Where You Come to Believe In Gremlins
Tricks to Foil the Galley Gremlins
Appendices
Appendix One: Editing-at-a-Glance
Appendix Two: Recommended Reading and Resources
Editing
Grammar and Style
Writing Craft
Custom Dictionaries
Publishing, Promotion, and Marketing
Typesetting and Formatting
Having Fun
Directories: Marketplaces for Your Work
Appendix Three: “My” Generous Literary Agents
Appendix Four: Sample Cover Letters
Sample Cover Letter to Introduce a Media Kit
Sample Cover Letter for Submissions to Journals, Contests
Sample Cover Letter If You Notice a Preference for Literary Discussion
Appendix Five: Sample Query Letters
Sample Query Letter for Film Consideration—Fiction
Sample Query Letter for a Publisher—Nonfiction
Sample Query Letter for an Agent—Fiction
Appendix Six: Formatting Made Easy For Kindle E-books
At Your Service Bureau!
Smashwords Is Not the Name of a Punk Band
Let Calibre Do the Driving
Appendix Seven: Other Frugal Resources for Writers
About the Author
Bibliography
Sharing Influences and Inspiration with Readers
The Writing Life
The Writing Craft
Publishing Career-Influencers
Attributing Zen for As-Needed Career Building
Free Press
Teaching, Speaking, Tutoring and Other Magical Benefits of Being a Writer
Acknowledgements
Index
The Frugal Editor’s Extras
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #1: On the Importance of One Unedited Word
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #2: Your Best Manual Edit. Feel Virtuous. Save a Tree!
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #3: Speaking of Titles—Yours, Mine, and Others
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #4: Telling Insider Secrets
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #5: Sometimes Success Hinges on Agreement
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #6: Code Words Served Batman: They Can Serve You Too
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #7: Editing Your Adverbs Is Like Mining Metaphor Gold
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #8: Easy Test to Keep Passives from Inducing a Snooze
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #9: Helping Verbs That Don’t Help
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #10: Stephen King on Making Dialogue Punctuation Logical
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #11: Making Your Ellipses Pretty and Smart
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #12: Don’t Think of Possessives as Apostrophes
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #13: Shapeshifting Hyphen Rules
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #14: Quick Test for Hyphenating Adjectives
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #15: The Nourishing Part of the Web
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #16: No Such Thing as a Final Edit
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #17: The Real Story Behind Instant (and Free) Fame
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #18: How to Think of Editing Fees
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #19: Why My “The More You Know” Motto Works for All Publishing Models
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #20: Preventing a Galley Heart Attack
Why The Frugal Editor Belongs In This HowToDoItFrugally Series
• I know that no matter how I scold or give authors guidelines for hiring the editor best suited to their specific title, many authors will not do so because they, too, are frugal, or because they are so confident of their own skills they deem such a service unnecessary (a danger sign, by the way).
• I know that the more authors know about editing, the better partner they will be for the editors they hire or the ones assigned to them by their publishers and the more secure they’ll be about accepting or rejecting suggested edits.
• I know some authors are unable to discern the difference between an editor and a typohunter, and are likely to hire underqualified help. This book helps authors avoid this kind of a disaster with the section on best ways to find a great editor—one suited to their specific needs.
• I know that a great full-service editor who has experience editing the genre of the book being edited—even an expensive editor—can be a bargain. When “great editors” explain the changes they suggest, authors should calculate that knowledge as a value-added benefit into their editing expenses. Learn more about hiring editors in Chapter Twenty-Three.
• I know that knowing a lot about editing is good medicine for writers’ careers, for the writing of books, and for writing marketing material necessary to sell those books.
Introduction: Gremlins, Horses, Writers, and You
Have You Ever Met a Gremlin?
You may recall the gremlin you had nightmares about when you were a kid, the one who hid under your bed and cleverly disappeared when your parents peeked under to search for him. He hasn’t reappeared in decades. If he is the chap who showed up in fairy tales so we wouldn’t get bored, we authors might welcome him as inspiration for a short story. But no. The gremlin that plagues anyone wearing the hat of an editor is the dirty, lowdown creep who makes passive construction reappear in your manuscript after you’ve edited it twice, maybe three times. And he has enough relatives to plague every writer in existence. You won’t be able to see gremlins, might not know where they come from, but you’ll know they have been at work when your book appears in print. Telltale signs will crop up in typos, grammar errors, and ugly formatting problems. So I worry about them a lot.
You should, too.
I can’t tell you how to eliminate these gremlins. After all, there are homicide laws. I can tell you how to make their job harder. You recognize they exist and then purge any inclination you might have toward assassination and let someone else bring them to justice—or learn to do it yourself. Regardless of how often we tell ourselves gremlins are only imaginary, know they are more real than many of the myths that get passed around about editors, publishers, and even punctuation.
We writers believe the stories because it’s convenient to think that magical personages hired by publishers make books come off the press in immaculate form. Perfect. Pristine. That can happen. But I’ve come upon an occasional typo in books that are published by revered names in our industry, and gremlins have been known to leave their tracks in my own copy even after years of learning a few tricks of my own. You can trust my hard-won experience when I tell you to do the best you can to eradicate the gremlins’ work on your own, to partner with editing professionals when possible, and to trust no one. If these troublemakers get one up on Random House and Farrar, Straus & Giroux, we less notable publishers and authors are easy touches.
So, how to do what seems to elude the best and brightest of word warriors? That’s what I’m here for—to pass along antidotes for what I see most frequently in the critique groups I facilitate, the classes I teach, the writers’ conference workshops I love to give.
Some of this information seems basic, but you need to know the gremlins’ motto: “When authors and editors are looking for the big stuff, I’ll diddle with the puny mistakes they’re not likely to see.” Gremlins are devious. They partner with your AutoCorrect feature and have no qualms going after the word trippers you’ve known since grade school. They know your weak moments, your tired moments.
The Frugal Editor offers a little extra information—some you’ll refer to time and again—set aside in this book. They are preceded by a gray box and listed in the Contents of this book. My publisher, Modern History Press, also goes to great pains to do a more detailed index than you may be accustomed to. In this index, each entry becomes a keyword or a suggestion of a topic you might search for depending on your individual needs.
The most important part of the editing process is getting over the idea that readers won’t notice or care, or that someone else does or doesn’t do this editing stuff for you. Editing matters big. It matters in places you never suspected it would. When you submit queries to agents. When you submit proposals to publishers. When your publisher submits a galley for you to examine and authorize. When it turns out that you know something your editor doesn’t, you’ll have confidence enough to ask why, or to reject their suggestions. Authors who are also Frugal Editors know lots of tricks to keep gremlins at bay.
Why You—Yes, You Who Aced English—Need This Book
Just as I was finalizing the second edition of this book, Poets & Writers published Peter Selfin’s “Confessions of a Cranky Lit-Mag Editor.” It was a mini-rant on how authors influence editors negatively with minor (and not-so-minor) errors. He told of one author who informed him in her cover letter that she had published three stories in The New Yorker and then “blunders into her essay with the dangling modifier, ‘Growing up, there were two types of food in my family’.” He said it “reads like very sloppy editing.” And, yes, he rejected the piece.
By the way, one of my beta readers with a master’s degree could not identify the error that so annoyed Editor Selfin. If you can’t, you will be able to by the time you’ve finished the section in this book that covers dangling participles. If you can’t wait, use your e-reader search function or index to find dangling participles now.
The lesson for all of us is that attention to detail and craft counts, and that even experienced writers can flub an opportunity if they don’t pay attention to that last great step toward publishing, a good edit. If Selfin’s submitting author had recently refreshed her understanding of participles by reading this book, she would not have dangled hers in either an “unimportant” query letter or the first sentence of her story.
Perfection is not possible. Even Editor Selfin admits he overlooks a mistake or two if the writer’s voice captures his interest. With better editing, we can guard against humiliation and in the process increase our chances of publication.
Leading a Horse to Water and Other All-Wet Ideas About Editing
In my first how-to book for writers, The Frugal Book Promoter, I talk about branding. When I wrote it, I wanted to convince authors that sales, marketing, and promotion are not “shameful” words, a word I see modifying promotion nearly daily. We participate in marketing disciplines like branding every day when we brush our teeth and choose proper clothing for whatever occasions loom on that day’s calendar, and I have never heard “shameful” applied to those kinds of activities.
This edition of The Frugal Editor is an easier sell than The Frugal Book Promoter because the fear of typos creeping into a writer’s copy has always contributed to authors’ nightmares or at least to writer’s block.
Where my job becomes difficult is in convincing writers that they need an editor—a real editor, an editor with credentials—before they begin to submit, and, yes, that process is part of their writing and their promotion. Because I am also frugal, I recognize that my tendency to avoid spending money for something that will probably be done by someone else (or that I’m just as good at) might well exist in other writers.
Because I hang out with writers of all kinds from journalists to poets, I am also aware that authors fear the sharp pencil point of an editor. They believe an editor will tinker with their voice, try to make their work into something other than what it is, or will change it beyond recognition. I want to assure these writers that a good editor won’t do that. A good editor helps you find your voice, remain true to it, and still move the manuscript from a rough rock to a polished gemstone.
Note: Many writers mistake some things—like wordiness and clichés—for “voice.” A good editor might help the author find a more resonant voice without relying on questionable structure and grammar or at least help the author determine when questionable choices are working well.
It is no fun to encounter unexpected flaws in one’s book. However, making choices that go against publishing industry traditions (or outright mistakes!) in query letters, cover letters, and book proposals can be more deadly than those in a manuscript. You and the quality of your book idea will be judged on these first contacts with agents, publishers, editors, and producers as surely as you would be judged at a board meeting if you left rats’ nests in your hair that morning. It’s these seemingly inconsequential documents that authors often edit on their own because of time or budget considerations. In this book, I approach the editing process of every document as if it were a manuscript. It is easier to edit the much shorter documents (query letters, cover letters, media kits, and proposals) that you send to people who have the power to accept or reject your work. The processes used are approximately the same. But beware! Our industry has arcane expectations for all those introductory letters and documents no English teacher dreamed of telling you about. That’s my job.
Many mistakenly use the word editing synonymously with finding typos. I worry that The Frugal Editor might contribute to that notion because it does not address essential elements of the writing craft like character development, setting, or structure. Those are topics for other books and there are lots of them. Reworking these aspects of writing constitutes revision. Sometimes a very good editor may not have the experience to spot the needs for revision in your genre. That’s why the chapter in this book on how to hire the right editor for your needs is so important. It’s why I talk about peer review and beta readers in one of the last chapters. It’s also why I included resources for you on topics like this in the Appendix of this book. And why I find writers’ conferences and respected writers’ programs essential for learning lots of things we don’t know we don’t know.
The Patient Path to Perfection—and Acceptance
You probably already knew that gremlins—very clever guys bent on chaos—are at work during the entire publishing process. You fight them with every ounce of writing craft and publishing knowledge that exists in your body. If, however, a typo or grammatical error slips through the careful net you cast for them, please don’t lose any sleep. It will happen somewhere along every writer’s career path.
I want you to learn from this book just as I learned from writing it, but I’d also like you to enjoy the editing challenge, the process itself. Pretend the task before you is a puzzle. It’s work. It’s detail-oriented work. Still, it can be a lot of fun.
So bear with me. Humor goes a long way. Patience, too! Make the guidelines in this book part of your working habits. You’ll love having lots of weapons to keep gremlins under control.
Section One:The Preliminaries
“[My former computer instructor] says, ‘when I hear a moan from the back of my classroom, the gremlins who attack file names are usually responsible.’”
Chapter 1: Misunderstanding Editing
One of the big problems with editing is that people misunderstand the word. Worse, they assign several meanings to it so that no one appears to fully understand what others are talking about. Innovations in the publishing industry, market upheavals, and shifting responsibilities have changed the definitions of editing, proofreading, galleys, and other publishing terms in the past decades. I can’t retrain the industry, but here is a mini glossary that may help us communicate. Do not expect everyone’s definitions to match mine or anyone else’s for that matter. They will mostly help you understand how carefully you must determine what an editor is likely to do for you.
Revision: Revision is a lot more than editing. It is reworking your piece before you start the editing process. Of course, you may perform some editing functions as well. (Don’t we all edit a little every time we sit down at a keyboard or pick up a pen?) We think it applies in a larger degree to manuscripts than to short presentations like query and cover letters, but I know writers who have revised their marketing material many more times than their books. It is the work you do on stuff beyond grammar and typos between the first draft and the second, tenth, or twentieth.
Editing: This is the general term for what fine publishing houses once did for all their authors. They helped with the revision process and everything else until the manuscript was a butterfly in repose. No more. Today the term editing is way too general for anyone to assume exactly what an editor will look at, suggest, or fix in your manuscript. These changes are mostly a cost-cutting thing. Many publishers can’t afford to give your book the attention they once did or they think they can’t. If you want to be sure your precious book gets a full edit, hire an editor. I give you tips on how to do this successfully, and yes, as frugally and scam free as possible in Chapter Twenty-Three.
Copy Editing today is the equivalent to what the team of copy editors—often sitting around what is known at the copy desk at a newspaper—used to do in the few hours between the time reporters submit their stories to them and the printshop needs the copy to ready it for the press. They try to catch anything that will embarrass the newspaper or the reporter. I always loved them for it, though they weren’t always successful. Trust me, you do not want a hurried job exemplified by this term for your book.
Line Editing: This is what you are told you get—if anything—from most editors today whether they are on your publisher’s staff or are independent contractors. The quality may be good…or not. A line editor will catch style problems, most grammar, typo, and spelling errors, and maybe help with structure or flow. They probably won’t do anything or much with writing technique. It is a cut above copy editing because it considers style as well as the basics, but it will be up to you to determine exactly what. One thing that always holds true: The cleaner the copy you submit, the more easily the editor can spot the trickier details.
Proofreading: Proofreaders are typohunters. Some might be insulted if you called them that, but that’s what they are hired for—generally at low wages. Many “editors” you hire yourself (often without being careful about getting recommendations or about researching credentials) are capable of doing little more than finding typos. Just the basics, Ma’am. Punctuation, spelling, typos, a modicum of grammar. The ones employed by publishers rather than by you might not be authorized to edit or rewrite, so they simply suffer in silence when they run across your dangling participles. Ditto when your dialogue tags need some work or when your structure is out of whack. Some presses apply the term copy editing to them as a courtesy, but have no qualms about limiting the good they can do in favor of keeping the number of hours they spend on your project to a minimum.
Note: We love the English teachers in our lives, but they are not editors. Most know nothing about the publishing world. They probably won’t be able to help with many aspects of publishing and they may even apply grammar “rules” to parts of our manuscripts where they aren’t appropriate. Stay tuned for more on why dialogue and some other parts of our creative work may be—perhaps should be—ungrammatical.
This book will help you with all of these processes—even some of the techniques that would normally be tackled during revision like those pesky dialogue tags.
Clearly, you will be practicing your editing skills from the first time you put fingers-to-keyboard—both the skills you already have and the ones you will learn from this book—but your final edit—the one you do by yourself, the one you do with the editor you hire, or the one you do with your publisher’s editor—will go much more smoothly if you first revise your manuscript (yes, I’m saying it again) using all the skills you already have and maybe some new ones from this book, too.
The Frugal Editor’s Extra #1:
On the Importance of One Unedited Word
I was merely eighteen years old working at my first paying job in journalism at my hometown state’s largest daily newspaper when I learned the destructive power of a single unedited word. In addition to female-appropriate assignments like writing wedding stories, I was given the cushy assignment of writing a weekly column for young people for what we called the “Society” page back then. I probably got the job because I was the staff writer who most closely resembled a 50s-style teenager.
So, I am writing a story about a local teen who had a no-bake, easy-schmeazy recipe for brownies she often made to eat while she did her homework. It was my job to decide on the material for a story each week, write it, schedule a photo shoot, select the best illustration, and submit it all to the copy desk complete with layout, headline, and cutline suggestions. One of the photos turned out to be only one column wide. The cutlines for illustrations that size—they are often headshots—are hard to write. They are usually limited to a maximum of two lines with a limited number of characters on each and require a knack for writing fragments. I play with it for a while, carefully counting the allotted number of characters, and come up with…
“East High School’s Annie Prover: Easy to make while studying.”
I know…Think about it! If you need help deciphering what the problem is here, keep reading.
It’s important to mention that I had that week’s assignment finished well before deadline; that would have given me plenty of time to read it one more time before the copydesk guys (they were all guys!) got to it. But I didn’t. They were either feeling a little under the weather that day, or they thought it hilarious to let me (the new kid on the block and a girly one at that) suffer a little embarrassment. I don’t think it was the latter. They could face discipline over an error like this one as easily as I could!
My column hit the presses and ran in the statewide edition with the word make still intact which in those days was considered a serious sexual slur, especially when paired with an innocent teen as the subject of that four-letter verb.
Luckily, someone found my faux pas in time to edit it for the city edition and no one in our rather large, metropolitan city ever knew I had insinuated that Sweet Annie Plover occupied her study time with activities beyond eating nut-and-marshmallow laden brownies.
Here are the upsides to this story: 1. The sports desk had fun for weeks razzing the men at the copydesk and me about our booboo. 2. No one on the copydesk got fired. 3. I didn’t get fired. 4. And Sweet Annie Plover who lived well inside the city limits never had a chance to see the offending state-wide edition of her story.
Oh! And readers of this book have the benefit of truly understanding how treacherous a missed edit on one innocent word—albeit one that was spelled with four letters—might be for a writer who didn’t take a minute to reread her copy one more time.
The names in this “Editor’s Extra” have been changed to protect the innocent.
Chapter 2: Organizing Only Feels Like Procrastination
Setting up your surroundings for the editing process is so much fun it might feel as if you’re procrastinating. In these post-typewriter days, we might have two or more environments. We think of the place where your desktop computer (or computers!) resides, first. The other could be where you plop yourself with your laptop. You know, your workspaces. Anything from an office of your own complete with desk, desktop computer, filing cabinets, and maybe even a wall of framed award certificates to the comfy ones outdoors or by the hearth. All of them need to accommodate your work habits and your specific needs. Your book deserves it. For this coming edit, I’d like to see everything working at top efficiency—from the innards on your hardware to the new processes and ideas you choose from this Frugal Editor to templates (at least the drafts!) for your own important marketing material. So, let’s chat a little about whatever serves as your desktop—virtual or otherwise—in all of your writing spaces. I hope you’ll have a little fun with these organizing efforts!
Your Real Old-Fashioned Desk Environment
Clear your desk of piles of stuff so tall you can’t see over them, but don’t be tempted to take on the tasks you find buried there; they waited this long, they can wait longer. Put the papers, notebooks, and clippings aside or pile them in a box and enjoy feeling naughty. When your environment is about as tidy as needed, you’re ready to get your editing tools in shape.
Note: If you choose to balance a laptop in less-than-traditional spaces when you edit—in a shady spot on the patio or in a closet you use so you can enjoy complete quiet and isolation—those spots benefit by adapting chair-side tables or bookshelves to substitute for real desk-type storage. They don’t have to be fancy. I salvaged several such office accoutrements curbside where neighbors leave discards with big “Free!” signs attached.
Put your most important reference books on your desk near your computer even if you prefer to use online resources. It’s preferable if you can reach them without moving your fanny from your chair. Old references, like some of the ones I recommend in the Appendix of this book, qualify. Even your vintage dictionaries with words in them that gurus at Merriam-Webster have removed from newer editions may turn out to be more useful than you ever imagined. You’ll love the affirmation of knowing you are remembering stuff new resources try to convince you never existed. If you lose track of treasures like these, you’ll be chastising yourself when you decide to write, say, a historical novel or craft a dialogue using vocabulary that hasn’t been used in decades. You’ll know instantly what you’re missing when you don’t find the spelling in a newly purchased reference or go online to find a word lyricist Cole Porter rhymed with such creativity. Some of the new references can’t be accessed online without paying for them, so why not have a hardcopy—old or new—readily available, too. I especially like mine when I use it to avoid disturbing my screen to check a reference.
Note: When you go to my Appendix for recommendations, you might be surprised that I do not list Elements of Style by Strunk, White, and Angell among my favorites. Strunk is a stylebook that gets mistaken for a book of grammar rules, and it often confuses writers who aren’t trained editors. We’ll talk about style choices vs. grammar rules later. If you have a copy of Strunk already, check the copyright date. Strunk has been through many editions over the years and the old ones might lead you astray big time. That doesn’t mean you won’t find a tidbit in an old edition that is still viable. Just know if it conflicts with something you just learned, there may be a good reason for that.
Getting Your Computer Ready for Editing Projects
If you don’t work with Word’s Spelling and Grammar Checker all the time, set it up with this moment in mind. You’re safe using it for most manuscript-type duties. I even installed a Microsoft word processor especially programmed for Apple iMacs on my computer. If you choose to do that, get help finding the most recent update. And keep reading for mini reviews on other word processors if you are thinking about using something else.
You have checked and installed or bookmarked your important references like the ones mentioned in the section above. If you need a specialized style guide beyond Chicago Manual of Style for writing technical material or other narrowly focused topics, check in with Google or go to Wikipedia’s list of style guides. You’re ready except for essential details like how to make computers behave more efficiently for the task of editing which is so different from writing itself. You also want to adapt your computer and many of your old habits to what is newer and faster. Old is not necessarily bad. Experience is a good thing. But you’re going to be surprised. You are aware that digitization has wrought big changes, but much we think of as staid and reliable has changed radically in the last few decades, too. And we can blame computers for only some of it. Just keep reading!
Revisiting Familiar Computer Aids
File names tend to be a problem for both newbies and experienced computer users. I try to stay in touch with one of my community college instructors who helped move me from the world of the Apple IIs we used for our retail stores to the Microsoft world that the publishing world prefers. He says that when he hears a moan from the back of his classroom, the gremlins who attack file names are usually responsible.
Many writers already have file-name systems in place to avoid computer confusion. Many others use their computers almost like a typewriter. Those whose skills don’t go much beyond typing e-mail posts and a little Facebook fun might need to be reminded how to avoid accessing an out-of-date manuscript copy from your computer’s memory during the editing process. To do that you:
• Save your copies periodically—starting with your rough draft through the different iterations of the revised copies of your manuscript with the title and a code to indicate it is original, something like, “ThisLandDividedFirstDraft [plus the current date]." That way you’ll always have a baseline for your book no matter how many times you change it through edits or revisions.
Note: Updated computers don’t need underlines to separate words in file names as they once did. New computer programs and operating systems are okay using run-on words, all lower case or with caps as you prefer. You can make all digital hearts happy with underlines as separators as they did maybe two whole years ago, or you can start applying the more relaxed expectations now to prepare yourself for what might lie ahead. Spaces between words are now okay, too.
• Dr. Bob Rich says, “A good system to track file names after your original draft is ‘title yymmdd,’ e.g., year first (two digits), then month, then day. This model keeps the alphabetic order in your electronic filing system.”
• Because I still don’t quite trust computers (or electricity), I also run a hardcopy of my books and file it. Sometimes I e-mail a copy to my daughter for safekeeping on her Mac hard drive. Yes, that’s in addition to my backup drive and one or two clouds, too. Crazy, I know. But there is no harm in making yourself feel secure.
• Because I travel a lot and use different computers, I also like to label every page in my manuscript with the name of the current file of my book by using the header/footer function in my Word program. That way, I will be less likely to work with an outdated file. It’s overkill, too, but you don’t have to tell anyone you do it! You’ll also find that confirming (and soothing) information in the top bar of your screen. The bar will be blue unless you’ve customized your screen colors.
Word has a magical Manuscript Page Layout but don’t confuse it with their fancy template choices. Also do not confuse a manuscript layout for the template for an entire book; you will not need the likes of gutters to submit to agents or publishers. With one click “Print Layout View” sets your format according to the expectations of most agents and publishers for their submissions. By using this feature, you’ll avoid making drastic changes to basic layout later when one of your gatekeepers intervenes. Here are steps to make a basic layout on your own:
• Your manuscripts and promotional material will probably be okay with margins one inch all around.
• All your possible layout needs will probably be found under the layout heading in the top ribbon of your word processor. Look for words like “manuscripts,” “layout,” “page layout” or ask your help function for manuscript layout guidance.
• Choose double space for manuscripts. Choose single space for query letters and similar business documents.
• Put page numbers in the Header on the right. If you install them on the left, they will not be visible when the pages are paper-clipped.
• Include your full name or nom de plume in the header unless the manuscript is being submitted for a contest. (Follow each contest’s online guidelines. Submission guidelines are usually very particular. Many prefer blind layouts—meaning no names—on their entries.)
• As a diehard environmentalist, it hurts me to say it, but don’t save paper by printing on both sides when submitting by USPS or other carrier.
• Don’t flirt with fancy typefaces for your titles. Don’t you dare play with sans serif typeface like Arial (fonts with no little hats or feet on the tops and bottoms of each letter). In my opinion, sans serif is elegant. Still, research tells us that it is more difficult to read, most editors will be unimpressed by your effort, and some will be downright annoyed. I submitted my first poetry book manuscript to an untold number of contests (and paid the fees) before I discovered that many contest readers junk the entry without reading it as soon as they run across the poems’ titles formatted in Arial. That affectation apparently shouted, “Novice! No need to continue reading.” I think they probably missed some poems of pure genius but who am I (or you) to argue with a gatekeeper?
• This last step may be the most important. Check the automatic manuscript choice you’ve made against this list to be sure you have selected the right one. Or override its instructions with your specific requirements as needed.
