✍️ Tandem Services Coaching and Editing: Transform Your Writing–Essential Insights Inside
Empowering you to write the stories of your heart and increasing your impact with a book. Helpful information for your writing career each month In this issue:
Career: Book DescriptionsWriting a good book description is key to getting your book noticed–and picked up–by your readers. Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur has an awesome book description generator tool that will help you get the right description for every retailer site. For example, on Amazon you can use H4, H5, or H6 headings; bold, italics, and underline; numbered and bulleted lists; and various icons in your book description. But you can’t use headings on Barnes & Noble, and Rakuten lets you use headings but not bulleted or numbered lists. But his generator will take care of all that for you. So check it out here. Also, you’ll want to look at the Editorial Review section of your book page. Why? Well Dave has a great article about the deep dive he did on this often-overlooked feature. You’ll want to check it out. Career: What’s a Proofread?There are a lot of different definitions of what editing is and does. There are no real standards for editors, so writers often have no good way of knowing if an editor is worthwhile. Even recommendations can be biased. Just because your writer friend liked their editor doesn’t mean it was a good edit or would be a good fit for you. I’ve worked in traditional publishing as a managing editor. I’m a gold member of the Christian Professional Editors Network, which requires passing editing tests and being vetted. I’m also an Alliance of Independent Authors approved partner service provider. I’ve edited hundreds of books. But it’s also important that your editor gets you and your story. It needs to be a good fit. My goal is always to preserve your vision and your voice for your story. You want an editor who also wants that for you, as well as making your story the best it can be. I’ve talked about the previous stages of editing here (developmental edit and copyediting) in previous updates. The proofread is the final editing passIts purpose is to strictly catch mistakes. You don’t want to be making any changes after this because you might introduce errors. The proofreader will be looking for:
They won’t be editing sentences for flow or clarity. That’s the copyediting pass. They won’t be suggesting any major changes to the characters, plot, or structure. That’s the developmental editing pass. They are simply looking for errors that have been overlooked or introduced in the previous passes. Fresh EyesBecause the brain likes to see what “should” be there on the page instead of what’s actually there, a good proofreader is invaluable for catching errors and mistakes. I believe your proofreader should be a fresh set of eyes on your project. They should not have worked on it during a previous editing pass. This will give you the best chance of catching errors. Style GuidesProofreaders work from a style guide. The most common one in publishing is the Chicago Manual of Style. But you can create a style guide for your book that has a list of how you want particular words treated and the spelling of unusual items. ToolsTools like spell check, Grammarly, and ProWritingAid can help, but they aren’t perfect and won’t pick up on some of the nuances of English that a good proofreader will. Proofreading is an essential part of the editing process and shouldn’t be short changed. Make sure to leave time in your schedule to include it. Where you can find meI’m teaching at the Nebraska Writers Guild Conference April 24-26. Come join us! Want personalized writing advice? Share a writing, editing, or publishing hurdle you have faced or a question you have and I will email you an autographed copy of Eat the Elephant: How to Write (and Finish!) Your Book One Bite at a Time and send you a personalized five-minute video. Click here to find out more. This month’s resource recommendationsI wanted to share a resource from Manny Skevofilax. He created The Small Business Survival Guide: How to Save Money and Thrive During Challenging Times! In this guide, Manny shares strategies and tactics to help you persevere and maximize profits and overcome growth challenges in your business. If you sign-up for his email list, Manny will send you this resource for free. Click the link here: Get the Small Business Survival Guide I have a second resource for you. The Freed Fellowship is a monthly $500 no-strings-attached small business grant. All applicants receive feedback to help grow their business based on our 5C Framework as part of the $19 application fee.
Click here to check it out. Writing quotePeople on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story. But it isn’t like that. You work, and that’s all there is to it. — Harlan Ellison Pressing on! Jennifer PS—You should assume any link in this Update is an affiliate link. It costs you nothing more but gives me a few pennies. 🙂 |
