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Ruthlessly Edit Your Own Writing and Be Gentle With Others

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By Jerry Brown, APR (used by permission)

Good editing is a blessing, bad editing a curse. Unfortunately, there are more bad editors than good ones.

The reason for this unfortunate situation is that too many of us don’t know when to quit editing other people’s copy and when to keep editing our own.

Be ruthless when editing your own copy. Get out your axe and chop away. But be gentle when editing someone else’s. Put away your axe and use a scalpel.

In fact, one of the true marks of a really good editor is that s/he knows when to leave things alone. We all have our own unique way of saying things. Your job when editing someone else’s copy isn’t to turn their words into yours. Your job is to help them say what they have to say clearly and accurately.

If you’re editing someone else’s copy and find a typo or grammatical error, fix it. If you find something that isn’t clear, make it clearer. Better yet, tell the writer why it isn’t clear to you and encourage her/him to clarify what s/he has to say. If there are extra words that don’t add anything worthwhile, take them out. If you find a mistake, fix it. If you find something you suspect could be a mistake, check it out — or suggest the writer check it out.

What’s written is accurate and clear but you’d say it differently? Leave it alone. You’re not the writer. Your job is to help the writer, not replace the writer’s voice with your own.

It’s a different story when it comes to editing your own copy. Then it’s time to be ruthless.

Jerry Brown specializes in Media Training, Media Relationships, and Message Development at www.pr-impact.com. Do you agree with Jerry’s point of view? When you pay for an editor, what are your expectations–gentle or ruthless? Share your thoughts below.

Active Construction: The Single Most Important Change Writers Can Make

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by Barbara McNichol

active constructionWhat’s the single most important change you can make in your writing? Learn to use active construction to add clarity and action to your message.

Watch out for “is” words and their various cousins.
Stay alert to phrases like “is happening” or “was being good”;
change them to “happens” or “behaved.” Search out every
weak “is” form in your manuscript and find a strong
alternative.

Avoid “Start” and “Begin”–“Just” too

Don’t overuse the words “start to” and “begin.” What
can you do differently? “Start to rub your hands together”
becomes “rub your hands together”; “allow your energy
fields to begin merg ing” becomes “allow your energy fields
to merge.” Are you guilty of overusing these two weak words?

In fact, I’d put the word “just” in the same “weak” category.
I love what one of my subscribers wrote: “I don’t have a
Begin or Start habit. I do, though, have a Just habit. I just
can’t kick it. It just seems appropriate when you just do
something . . . like I just read your newsletter. Without the
just, I could have read it anytime.”

Lazy Linking Phrases

Add to that a few lazy linking phrases like “there are” and
“there will be.”  Rewrite them! For example, “There will be
many representatives elected” becomes “voters will elect
many representatives.” (Better yet, instead of many, use a
specific number.)

Why do I call these phrases lazy? Because they often lead
into long passive sentences that stem the flow and slow
readers down. When your readers have to swim upstream to
follow what you write, they tend to give up. Better to ease
them along with crisp, sharp prose—especially active verbs!

Yes, I do keep beating this drum about active verbs because
they will make your writing better. Change passive to active
and you’ll see how they improve the flow, enhance the clarity,
and add muscle to the meaning.

Challenge: Rewrite these sentences using active construction:

  1. Passive: This policy is being implemented in an effort to streamline our process.
    Active:
  2. Passive: Improvement will be noted in most cases (or instances).
    Active:
  3. Passive: The procedure was changed in order to reduce the necessary steps.
    Active:

What Readers Think When You’re Too “Into” Your Writing Process

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by Barbara McNichol

F. Scott Fitzgerald has said you don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say. When an author is too “into” doing the writing itself, the “something to say” part can get lost.

I recently edited a book that fell into this trap. The author kept losing sight of what his readers would care about—that is, a system he had created. What were the clues? Passages such as these:

  • “In a previous chapter, I stressed the importance of self-awareness, and I assure you, dear reader, that I am very much aware of the preachy tone of this chapter.”
  • “When I wrote the first draft of this book, I worked for several hours each day for three months.”
  • “Before tackling Chapter Eight, I asked myself, ‘Does what you have written through Chapter Seven capture the essence of what you set out to say?’”

Do you see how he’s drawing readers into his own process rather than emphasizing his core message?  Remember, people read your book because of the promises you imply with your title and subtitle.

Guess what. Unless you’re Stephen King writing about writing, they don’t care about your writing process! If the title of your book is 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, readers expect a discussion of those 7 habits, not what Stephen Covey asked himself while he was writing the book.

 What’s the fix?

 Remain conscious of the readers’ point of view—not your own— even when you’re deep into the writing and rewriting process. And it never hurts to get an impartial opinion from a good editor!

Time’s Top 10 Buzzwords – Pay Attention in Your Writing

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by Barbara McNichol

I find “top 10” lists fascinating (I have a list of my own–Top 10 Techniques for Improving Your Writing–downloadable at www.BarbaraMcNichol.com) and I especially love them at year end. What better way to summarize “the year that was.”

Time Magazine has outdone itself this year. Its entertaining list of “top 10” buzzwords for 2011 give a tongue-in-cheek snapshot of current events, with Occupy at the top.

Why pay attention to them? So you can selectively use them in your writing–or avoid them if the meaning gets distorted in context and goes against your purposes.

Curious to know all 10? Click on the link below and list your favorites in the comment box. What buzzwords would you add? What ones do you want to create buzz around for yourself in 2012?

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101344_2100571_2100572,00.html

Ideas for Picking Titles from Daily Writing Tips

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Editor’s note: I hope you enjoy these fun ways of picking titles from Daily Writing Tips–a fabulous resource for writers.

Picking a title can often be the hardest part of a writing project. Sometimes the title just comes to you, but more often than not, you have to put quite a bit of work into finding just the right one. You may even have to sift through several titles before you find one that sits well with you. Here are a few suggestions to try:

1. Mad Libs

Think of a couple adjectives, nouns and verbs that describe your story. Write them all down on a sheet of paper and combine them into different phrases. Sometimes you can pick up on a title that works.

2. Pick a Part

Look for an important turning point in your novel or just focus on the climax. Describe this event on paper. Pick out the words or phrases that stand out to you in your description. Mix and match these words to see what works for you.

3. Live by Example

Pick out novels or short stories that run in the same genre as your project. Study the titles and how they relate to the story as a whole. Then, look at your project as a whole. Think of the theme or overall message of your book. Write down some words that go along with your theme and work them to see if you can find a fitting title.

4. Go for the Obscure

Avoid the obvious “The” titles like “The Pink Slipper” or “The Brown Dog.” Look for slight recurring themes or undercurrents in your novel and try naming your novel after those subtle nuances. JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, is a genius with titles. The titles, especially the Half-Blood Prince, all highlight under-riding themes that later play a large role in the series as a whole.

5. Appeal to the Higher

Poets usually have a way of weaving words in a beautiful tapestry of art that put prose writers to shame. Read some famous poetry and write down words and phrases that stick out to you. Song lyrics often have the same effect. You can find some powerful titles by mixing, matching and combining words from powerful lyrics.

6. A Writer’s Best Friend

Consult your thesaurus and look up synonyms for commonly occurring words in your novel. Write down as many synonyms as you can to try and get a fresh point of view on an event in your novel. Look up these synonyms in the dictionary to get a better understanding of their meaning. Use different words in context to find a combination that you like.

7. Super Easy Way

Type “title generator” into Google and see what pops up. There are several websites that will either have you type in a couple descriptive words and scramble them for you or they’ll just generate some random titles for a variety of genres. Some, like guywiththecoat.com, just generate extremely random and funny titles. Mostly, these titles are just good for a laugh, like “Pants ride the Bus,” but you may actually be able to find something that works with your project.

Reprinted from Daily Writing Tips, Dec. 16, 2011

7 Writing Mistakes Editors are Constantly Fixing

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by Barbara McNichol

What can editors tell writers about improving their writing before they even begin the editing process? Here’s a summary:

Mistake #1.      Being so self-absorbed as a writer that you’re unaware of the reader’s experience. The fix? Know your core message and write to that message, leaving out the experience of writing.

Mistake #2.      Addressing readers as readers rather than a single key person whose interest you want to capture with your message. The fix? Keep a single interested person in your target audience top of mind as you write.

Mistake #3.      Skimming the surface, not going deep enough. The fix? When describing an experience, explain what you felt, what the other person felt as best you can, and what exact words were spoken. Go deeper with the details.

Mistake #4.      Having no rhyme or reason to the order of the paragraphs. The fix? Make a conscious decision about the order based on logic and facilitating your readers’ comprehension.

Mistake #5.      Overusing weak verbs and throwing in extraneous phrases and wobbly words. The fix? Rewrite using active verbs; question use of every adjective and adverb; throw out wobbly words: really, very, much, some that.  “I Really Think That We Should Not Use Some Words Very Much.”

Mistake #6.      Using multiword noun phrases when one active verb will do. The fix? Whenever possible, get an active verb to do the “work.”

Mistake #7.      Writing sentences that ramble (on and on and on and on). The fix? Limit sentences to 15-21 words max but vary sentence length.

Bonus mistake: Mixing metaphors and flat-out choosing the wrong word. The fix? Use a word choice guide like Word Trippers to help you select the perfect word when it really matters.

Make Your Book One-Sheet Work Hard for You

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By Patrice Rhoades-Baum

On the surface, a book/author one-sheet appears simple. After all, it’s one page of sales copy that promotes your book. Toss in a graphic of the book cover, your bio, and photo, and you’re done, right? Wrong!

Your book/author one-sheet is a hardworking marketing and sales tool. As such, it must—

  • help you meet your business objectives to promote and sell your book
  • clearly state the top benefit message for your target audience
  • be professional, both in content and design.

Transforming your one-sheet from a shallow list of information into a strategic tool requires putting on your marketing hat. Use the following 7 steps to guide you.

Take these 7 steps

1. Write down the business objectives for your one-sheet. What do you want this marketing tool to accomplish? Here are some example objectives:

  • “Create a professional-quality one-sheet that makes me shine as a professional.”
  • “Use as a talking guide (like a script) to support my sales calls and visits with buyers.”
  • “Leave with (or mail to) prospective book buyers as a reference sheet, so they have all the information to make a purchase decision, contact me, and buy my book.”
  • “Give to bookstore managers, so they have all info to promote book-signing events.”
  • “Give to media reps, so they have all info when deciding to schedule an interview.”
  • “Position myself as a subject-matter expert who is available for speaking opportunities.”

2. Write down a description of your target audience:

  • Clarify their demographics, needs/wants, and challenges/frustrations.

3. Identify and write down the top benefit your book delivers to your target audience:

  • The buyer must clearly understand how your book will help or educate someone.

4. Identify the target audience who will be using your one-sheet (e.g., owners/managers at local bookstores, buyers at national chain bookstores, buyers for library districts, media reps, etc.).

5. Clarify the call-to-action for your one-sheet recipients. What action do you want them to take?

6. Write professional copy for your one-sheet:

  • Select and hire an experienced copywriter.
  • If you decide to write the one-sheet copy yourself, then hire a marketing copywriter to edit and finalize the copy.
  • Start with writing the copy first, then meet with your designer to give it a professional design.

7. Select and hire a professional designer with one-sheet experience:

  • Book buyers are professionals who expect to see professional-quality materials – both in design and content.

 Write or gather the following content

1. Brief introductory paragraph introducing the book topic and delivering a strong benefit message for the target audience (be clear, concise, and compelling!)

2. Your brief bio, written specifically for this marketing tool

3. Snippets of 2 to 3 book reviews

4. Contact information

  • Publishing company, contact name, and title
  • Phone number
  • Website address (you should have a landing page, at minimum)
  • Email address that corresponds with website address (not gmail or yahoo)

5. Specific book information

  • Retail price for hard cover, soft cover, e-book
  • Bulk discounts, if available
  • ISBN number
  • Book description (example: Business)
  • Page count

6. Include a bold, compelling call-to-action that encourages the buyer to purchase your book!

Graphic elements to create or gather

  • High-resolution image of book cover
  • Thumbnail images of other books you have written, if applicable
  • Your logo, if you have one
  • Your brand colors, if you have them
  • Your professional photo

Don’t cut corners with your one-sheet.  Make it a hardworking marketing and sales tool that shows you off as a pro!

Patrice Rhoades-Baum specializes in branding and copywriting for websites and one-sheets. Backed by 30 years of strategic marketing communications, Patrice teams with authors, speakers, and consultants to clarify their brand, write copy for their websites and one-sheets, and facilitate their logo, website, and one-sheet design/development. Learn more at www.BrandingAndWebsites.com.

 

“How Can I Be a Good Editing Client for You?”

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by Barbara McNichol

Recently, an author and I settled in to have our project-finalizing conversation before starting to edit her manuscript. Price determined. Timelines set. Anticipation high. Before we signed off, she asked with gentleness and genuine interest, “How can I be a good editing client for you, Barbara?”

Quite frankly, this question blew me away—largely because no one had asked it before in my two decades of editing books! Deep inside, my playful side wanted to answer, “Well, accept everything I change, write a glowing testimonial, pay me extremely well, and send me loads of great referrals, too.” But instead, I curbed my enthusiasm and quietly said, “Simply be available to answer my questions during the editing process.” An okay answer . . . well, really kinda lame. Because upon further reflection, I came up with these 7 ways to help turn any book-editing project into an ideal process—for both me and the authors I love to work with.

Ideal Process Point #1: Have a focused understanding of your book’s “reason to be”—that means knowing what this book will do for your readers, for you, and for your business (e.g., solve a problem, provide a new stream of income, open doors to a new niche, etc.). When your goals and overall dream for your book are stated upfront, I can better ensure the writing hits the mark.

 Ideal Process Point #2: Have a feel for what to expect throughout the editing process (e.g., Does the manuscript go through one, two, or three editing reviews for the stated project fee? Is proofreading included? Do you want it to come before the layout stage or after?)

Ideal Process Point #3: Early on, communicate any sense of urgency (e.g., book must ready for an upcoming conference). Planning for tight timelines affects priorities and avoids a “push” that adds crazymaking—and the potential for errors.

Ideal Process Point #4: Understand the level of editing desired—ranging from proofreading to minor edits to major rewrites. Doing a Sample Edit (editing 3 to 10 pages of your manuscript) helps both author and editor assess the level required.

Ideal Process Point #5: In reference to #4, take heed when the editor advises a “deep massage” rather than a “fluff-and-buff” approach to editing the chapters. In my experience, authors appreciate the “deep” treatment when it’s needed to clarify and strengthen their writing so readers can readily understand what you want to say.

Ideal Process Point #6: Hold off making copious changes and additions once the editing process gets underway. Integrating the “new” with the “old” can increase time, expense, and frustration, so make your content as complete as possible from the get-go.

Ideal Process Point #7: Send red roses when all is said and done—just kidding (although it’s happened J). Like most editors, I appreciate receiving a signed copy of the printed book, a testimonial that reflects the benefits of our work together, and a willingness to refer my services to other authors.

Most of all, I appreciate it when the process runs smoothly and we can both reap the rewards of being “good clients” for each other.

 

 

 

Converting Print to eBook – Lessons Learned

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by Karen Saunders, MacGraphics Services (used with permission)

As an author and independent publisher, I’m always looking for ways to leverage my work. Turning my intellectual property into various products is a pretty obvious solution. The emerging popularity of Kindle, iPads, and Nooks convinced me now was the time to convert my printed book, Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal into an ebook.

 Many Ways to Sell and Distribute eBooks

I discovered there are several routes I could take to sell and distribute my ebooks, depending on how much time and effort I wanted to put into the distribution process. I initially learned that I could use a third-party aggregator to get my books listed on popular ebook sales sites such as Amazon.com’s Kindle department, Apple iBookstore, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook’s department.

All About Aggregators

Third-party aggregators (such as Smashwords, BiblioCore, LuLu, Book Baby, LibreDigital, DarkFire, InGrooves, and many more) help self-publishers convert their books into ebooks and set up distribution with the popular retailers I’ve already mentioned. But the aggregators also take a cut (sometimes a significant cut) of each sale. Some aggregators also use contracts that are digital rights management (DRM)-free. DRM protects the copyrights of electronic media. DRM as applied to ebooks is a proprietary file encryption that helps publishers limit the illegal sale of copyrighted books. This is very important to me, so it was another reason not to use aggregators.

 Direct Portals to Retail Sites

Next, I discovered there are direct portals to each of these retail sites. I set up my own publisher’s account with Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Google. This allowed me to keep a bigger portion of my sales by selecting a discount rate of my choice (the discount rate is an amount I agree to give to the retailer to sell my book) and keep the middleman (aggregator) out of it.

I filled out an application and contract online with each of the retailers and provided information on how they could make payments to my bank account, as well as metadata (information about the book such as copyright date, book categories, ISBN number, keywords, etc). Then I had to convert my book to the proper format they requested, and upload the ebook file and cover image.

Here is a chart on the most popular ebook formats:

Retailer/Location     eReader Device/App       File Format      Publisher’s Connection

Amazon                      Kindle                                Mobi                 Digital Text Platform          

Apple                         iPad                                   ePub                  iTunes Connect

Barnes & Noble          Sony Nook                        ePub                  PubIt

Libraries                     Adobe Digital Editions        ePub                  Local Libraries

Many ways to convert a book into an ebook

My printed book was originally formatted in Adobe InDesign, and I also had an identical version available in a PDF file format. (I can easily output an identical version of my printed book in a PDF file through Adobe InDesign or Distiller.) But these sites didn’t want a PDF file. They wanted Mobi or ePub format.

My book was two columns and had over 200 illustrations and graphics throughout the interior, so it was a fairly complicated layout. I discovered that complex interior formats don’t easily translate into ebook pages.

Although InDesign has a feature that allows me to convert a document into epub, and I’ve seen websites (including Amazon’s) that claim it is easy and inexpensive to translate a file, they just didn’t result in a clean format.

First of all, eBook readers are built to support one long continuous column, so I had to make some major adjustments to my 2-column layout. A proper layout was particularly important to me since my book was about design, layout and marketing! The websites and automated conversion software do convert very simple word documents with pretty good results though.

So I sought the experts in this area; individuals and companies who specialize in ebook conversion services. Because my book had such a complex layout, the price was quite high. I also got a price from a company overseas. I quickly learned that you get what you pay for. As in any service field, the price of the service usually matches the quality you receive.

Overseas Service

I paid a very low price for the ebook conversion service, but I had to spend many hours proofing layout and formatting errors and checking all the links. The titles, subtitles, lists, body copy, and graphics were not formatted in a consistent manner or in a standard book format. Indents and justified formatting were applied to titles and subtitles when they shouldn’t have been. Links were not active or were going to the wrong places, headline text was clipped off, graphics were missing or in the wrong places, and on and on. Eventually after several months of working with the contractor on both the mobi and epub versions of my ebooks, the files were formatted properly and I was able to upload them to the retail sites.

Some things to watch out for:

  • Make sure you have an active table of contents with live links that go to the correct sections in your book interior
  • Make sure your epub document passes the epub validation test (a free test is available at www.threepress.org)
  • Be sure your ebook has its own ISBN number (you can buy a block of 10 ISBN numbers from www.Bowker.com). Amazon will assign its own unique identifier to your book, but Apple requires an ISBN number.
  • Be sure to have an eye-catching cover design with a title that you can read clearly when it is reduced to postage-stamp size.
  • Reformat your front cover to 600 pixels wide by 800 pixels tall at 300 DPI so it maximizes the entire screen on most eReader devices.
  • Check your files on all the ebook software readers and devices. If you don’t own a Kindle, Nook, or iPad, find a friend who does. Download Adobe Digital Editions and Kindle for Mac/PC. Look at your book on each one and make sure everything looks and works properly.
  • Put your table of contents first, even before your copyright page.
  • Be careful about your decision on digital rights management and how you answer this question on contracts.
  • Do the numbers on how to price your book according to the discount rate you pay the distributor/retailer. It sometimes works best to lower your price to get a higher profit margin. For example, Amazon and Apple will pay up to 70% royalty on a book if it is priced between $2.99 and $9.99. They only pay 35% if the book is priced at $10.00 or more!

New Technology and the Lack of Established Standards

As with any new technology, standards need to be established, and ebooks are no exception. There is a lot of debate among developers and publishers regarding a number of issues including whether every ebook format needs a separate ISBN number, the standard order of pages, coding that provides consistent results on every version of each device and software, consistent image size and resolution requirements for cover and interior graphics, formatting that resembles books, navigation, whether the devices supports color imagery, etc. This is where a lot of the labor was spent; trying to make my book look the best on every eReader device out there.

I hope this helps you find your path from printed book to ebook with fewer trials and tribulations.

Karen Saunders and her team of award winning designers help authors and small business owners design their books, build their brand, launch their website and market their business. She now offers ebook conversion services. Visit her website to download a free Book Media Checklist and a free eCourse on How to Create a Best-selling Book Design from the Inside Out www.MacGraphics.net

Note: Barbara McNichol is editor of Karen’s book Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal.

(c) 2011 Karen Saunders

Why Wimbledon Tennis Amazes and Engages Me

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by Barbara McNichol

I used to delude myself that watching the pros play their brand of
tennis on TV would benefit my own game (even though I didn’t start
playing until my 40s). I’m not sure how much technique can be picked
up by watching. But what’s even more important to pick up on are qualities like tenacity, strength and deftness, and grace under pressure that the pros model.

Every day I watch the pros, I’m more eager to know how they overcome setbacks and build their careers. Yes, tournament play—like the recent Wimbledon Championships in England—fascinates me, engages me, almost possesses me.

Why? For the same reason it’s impossible to put down a good novel.

Each of the men’s and women’s singles field starts with 128 players
and, within a fortnight, only one man and one woman stand victorious.
In the meantime, unveiling character traits (who’s got the most
resolve? quickness? stamina?) keeps me involved. So does the suspense
(who can remain unphased by former champions?).

In addition to absorbing match after amazing match, I love reading
about the unfolding drama. I’m especially in awe of sports writers who
can hook a whole article on a minute angle. My favorite, Jane Voigt,
turns a sporting affair into a slice-of-life vignette anyone can
relate to.

For example, she wrote a piece for Tennis Server about The Queue—a
line that forms for those vying to buy tickets to Wimbledon’s Centre
Court. She explained how The Queue has evolved into a culture of rules
and politeness.

“The Queue first became a part of The Championships in 1927 when some
27,000 appeared for entry to the grounds. The system has become such a
time-honored experience that the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum
established a special exhibition t o trace the history of The Queue.
The Code of Conduct for The Queue details everything from what is The
Queue to the 10 PM cutoff time for music and game playing at the
campsite, plus the maximum number of people allowed in a tent (two).
Alcohol is limited to one bottle of wine . . . Some fans make The
Queue an annual celebration. They like the party atmosphere of the
campsite, which can draw musicians, jugglers, and hacky-sack players.”

What’s my point? That you can turn a seemingly ordinary event into a
slice-of-life masterpiece by writing about it with verve and
originality. Observe. Research. Look for variety. Tell unexpected
things. Within the writing process, you can build character, suspense,
drama—making it like a novel within a book, even a nonfiction book.

Our language is just waiting to be massaged with your insightful and
talented writing. Are you playing with that part of your game
“brilliantly” (as the Brits would say)?

Your turn. When have you turned an observation into a delightful
slice-of-life story? Leave your comments below.

 

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