Editing angles to improve your writing by Barbara McNichol, nonfiction book editor with offices in Colorado and Arizona
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Self-publishing guru Dan Poynter has done it again. He gives writers shortcuts to writing, publishing, and promoting their books—this time in the form of an new ebook: Books: Tips, Stories, & Advice on Writing, Publishing, & Promoting. This easy-to-read, story-filled guide makes good writing a priority. Dan’s tips in the BE PRECISE chapter advocate cutting [...]
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by Barbara McNichol I have been creating an evergrowing list of common one-word vs. two-word confusions as part of my Word Trippers. I started a list that has now grown and migrated to a page of its own. See One or Two? for the latest. And return often, as I’m regularly adding more! I appreciate your comments [...]
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The Nonfiction Writers Conference is an online writer’s conference for nonfiction authors. This year, organizers have packed the schedule with powerful content to help you write, publish, and promote your nonfiction books. A great line-up of 15 speakers and topics includes these colleagues I’ve known and learned from over the years: DAN POYNTER: Self-Publishing and the [...]
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by Barbara McNichol This follows a recent post on what worries authors about the editing process. The points below reflect answers from 40 authors who sent me their thoughts about what they expect when they hire an editor for their nonfiction manuscripts. Specifically, they told me that . . . They want more than a [...]
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(Editor’s note: Last week, Jerry gave advice on being gentle when editing others’ writing but ruthless when editing your own. In this article, he provides specific ways of doing exactly that.) By Jerry Brown, APR (used by permission) Edit, edit, edit. Then edit some more. Be ruthless when editing your own copy. Don’t fall in [...]
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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 [...]
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by Barbara McNichol If you don’t want your editor spending copious amounts of time changing weak verbs into emotional or visual ones, what can you do? First, 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 [...]
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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 [...]
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by Dawn Goldberg (used with permission) No matter how much we want and love to write, unless we’re terribly disciplined or have deadlines (or an editor/agent looming over us), our default activity is not writing. In other words, if we have a spare minute, a break between activities, the rare gift of an unplanned hour, [...]
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by Barbara McNichol Finding the right editor for your manuscript helps you feeling confident you’ve got a good match and comfortable that your editor understands what you want to accomplish. How do you start this match-making process? By first seeking a reputable editor who understands the type of book you have written. If your book [...]
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