By Heather Moore
I recently turned in a manuscript to my publisher. Although I’m thrilled to have completed another manuscript, I’m thinking of the editing process with some trepidation.
Once you have a publishing contract, you might think the publisher has forgotten about you for awhile. “When will I get to work with my editor?” you might ask. Be careful what you wish for. Although I have been lucky enough so far to have editors who’ve allowed fair give-and-take throughout the editing process, the editing process continues to be daunting.
When I finish my manuscript, I send out the book to several alpha readers on my own. When I get their comments back, I go through my manuscript and revise. So by the time I turn in the manuscript to my publisher, I feel I’m well into the editing process. Yet, from the publisher’s perspective, it has only begun.
Steps of editing that you might face (or look forward to):
Phase 1: General evaluations from the readers who were hired by your publisher to see if your manuscript is marketable and fits the line-up of the publisher.
Your Job: Revise according to suggestions and resubmit
Phase 2: Your assigned editor will read through book and make general comments. Sometimes this might come back very detailed or more overall plot/character/etc. issues.
Your Job: Revise, discuss, revise again, with editor
Phase 3: After both you and the editor are pleased with the book, the manuscript moves onto the copy editing stage (or line editing). My publisher uses two different copy editors for this stage
Your Job: Review copy edit, approve changes, or revise accordingly. This stage is really the last chance to change anything in your manuscript.
Phase 4: Proofreading. Once the copyedits are finalized, the manuscript is transposed into book layout form. Also called the galley stage or the typeset version. My publisher uses two proofreaders to check formatting and look for typos or other errors.
Your Job: Some writers leave it up to the proofreader, but I like to print out a hard copy and, yes, painstakingly read through it again. During this stage it’s very hard to change more than a word or two since a sentence addition or deletion often changes the layout of the page and/or chapter.
The good news is that with all of these stages of editing, your book will get much stronger, much tighter, and become something to be proud of.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
By Julie Wright
We are defined by or names. It is who we are and there’s usually a long and detailed backstory of how we came to have our own names. Stories like: She was named after her great grandmother who crossed the plains, or he was named after his uncle who died in the war, or sometimes less noble but no less noteworthy, we named her that because I hate his mother and he hates my mother, and this was the only name we could agree on.
I am named after my grandmother who, as luck would have it, was my very best friend growing up.
Some of us acquired our names because the name means something. Such as your name might mean nobility, beautiful, or strength.
Names mean things to all of us. I have certain prejudices against people named Becky because of some unfortunate incidents growing up. But I have a particular fondness for the name Cindy. A name is more that what we’re called; in so many ways, it is who we are.
Which is why a title is so important to a book. A title is so much more than just something to call your book. It is an intricate part of what that book is. My agent refused to send out my manuscript until I had a title that worked for her—that spoke to her on some level as to what the book was about. It was agony naming the book—pinpointing that one thing that made me sit up straighter in my chair and cry out,“Ah-ha!—so that’s what you’re about!”
When I sent her the title Death Thieves, she wrote me back and let me know she’d be sending the book out the next day. Once I’d distilled the book to its most basic form, I found it was about a girl who’d been kidnapped from her moment of death and taken to save a future where mankind is dying out. Oh, sure . . . it’s about love, and fear, and courage, and society, and family, and action—everything a good novel should be. But the title calls it what it is at the core.
A name defines us. It has meaning and depth. Our titles should do the same. A picture is worth a thousand words, but your title has to be worth at least the word count of your entire manuscript. People judge the book by its cover *and* by the title. If those two things do their job right, the guy standing in the bookstore just might pick the book up and flip it over to read the back-flap. And if that back-flap does its job, he might just wander over to the register and make a purchase.
The moral of this post is to be prudent in your choices for titles. You spent all that time to write your manuscript; it would be tragic if no one ever read it because the title didn’t do its job. Take the time to get your title right. Because I doubt a rose called stink weed really would smell as sweet.
We are defined by or names. It is who we are and there’s usually a long and detailed backstory of how we came to have our own names. Stories like: She was named after her great grandmother who crossed the plains, or he was named after his uncle who died in the war, or sometimes less noble but no less noteworthy, we named her that because I hate his mother and he hates my mother, and this was the only name we could agree on.
I am named after my grandmother who, as luck would have it, was my very best friend growing up.
Some of us acquired our names because the name means something. Such as your name might mean nobility, beautiful, or strength.
Names mean things to all of us. I have certain prejudices against people named Becky because of some unfortunate incidents growing up. But I have a particular fondness for the name Cindy. A name is more that what we’re called; in so many ways, it is who we are.
Which is why a title is so important to a book. A title is so much more than just something to call your book. It is an intricate part of what that book is. My agent refused to send out my manuscript until I had a title that worked for her—that spoke to her on some level as to what the book was about. It was agony naming the book—pinpointing that one thing that made me sit up straighter in my chair and cry out,“Ah-ha!—so that’s what you’re about!”
When I sent her the title Death Thieves, she wrote me back and let me know she’d be sending the book out the next day. Once I’d distilled the book to its most basic form, I found it was about a girl who’d been kidnapped from her moment of death and taken to save a future where mankind is dying out. Oh, sure . . . it’s about love, and fear, and courage, and society, and family, and action—everything a good novel should be. But the title calls it what it is at the core.
A name defines us. It has meaning and depth. Our titles should do the same. A picture is worth a thousand words, but your title has to be worth at least the word count of your entire manuscript. People judge the book by its cover *and* by the title. If those two things do their job right, the guy standing in the bookstore just might pick the book up and flip it over to read the back-flap. And if that back-flap does its job, he might just wander over to the register and make a purchase.
The moral of this post is to be prudent in your choices for titles. You spent all that time to write your manuscript; it would be tragic if no one ever read it because the title didn’t do its job. Take the time to get your title right. Because I doubt a rose called stink weed really would smell as sweet.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Come to our All-Day Workshop
Precision Editing Group has been invited to teach the Friday Workshop for the League of Utah Writers annual writers conference. For more information and registration visit HERE.
Join us in Salt Lake City,Utah, on Friday, September 17, for an all-day, hands-on intensive workshop:
Topic:
About the instructors:
Join us in Salt Lake City,Utah, on Friday, September 17, for an all-day, hands-on intensive workshop:
Topic:
From Plotting to Final Draft: Getting Your Manuscript Ready to Compete
Heather Moore, owner of Precision Editing Group, and four senior editors will teach this in-depth, hands-on workshop: From Plotting to Final Draft: Getting Your Manuscript Ready to Compete. Publishers and agents receive thousands of submissions each year. More so than ever, your book concept needs to stand above the rest, and your writing needs to be tight and carefully edited. Come ready to write, to learn, and to discover how to take your manuscript to next level.
About the instructors:
Josi Kilpack writes women’s fiction and suspense. She’s an award-winning suspense author and has published nearly a dozen novels, her most recent includes the best-selling Sadie Hoffmiller mystery series.
Annette Lyon is the award-winning author of several contemporary and historical novels, as well as the popular grammar guide, There, Their, They’re: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd, and the upcoming cookbook, Chocolate Never Faileth.
Heather Moore owns and manages Precision Editing Group. She is also an award winning author of seven historical novels and one non-fiction work.
Lu Ann Staheli is a Best of State winner for Educator, K-12 grade. She is the co-author of the recent memoirs, When Hearts Conjoin: The True Story of the Herrin Twins (also 2010 Best of State winner), and Psychic Madman.
Julie Wright is the author of several YA novels, both contemporary and fantasy, including the science fiction series, The Hazzardous Universe, which is blasting off February 2011.
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