Session 3: Editor~ Every Author Needs One

~• Housekeeping• My Questions• Your Questions• Editing Books• Your Turn• Where do you find an editor?• Progress updates• Homework

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My Questions1. Have you made a tour of CreateSpace and KDP?2. Have you been reading APE? What do you think?3. Have you made progress on the plans for your project?

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Your Last Week Questions1. How do I find and select the best tools for my project? There are so

many to choose from. 2. What about copyrighting my work?3. Where can I find an illustrator for my children’s book?4. Can I embed videos into my book?5. Where can I find artwork to use in my book? 6. Where can I get answers for grammar and usage questions? It’s

been awhile since I took English.For answers and information on these questions, see touchwoodpress.com/faqs.

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some of

Your This Week Questions

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Editing Books• Grammar: Who Needs It?• What do editors do, exactly?• Your turn: Three editing exercises.• Editing resources• Where do you find a good editor? How do you know she/he is good?

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Bestsellers Initially Rejected

• Five years of continual rejection: Agatha Christie• An agent gets 12 rejections until an editor’s 8-yr old demands to

read Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone.• 200 rejections, 330 mm sales: Louis L’Amour.• “Too different from other juveniles on the market to

warrant its selling.” A rejection letter sent to Dr. Seuss. 300 million sales and the 9th best-selling fiction author of all time.

• 140 rejections stating “Anthologies don’t sell” until the Chicken Soup for the Soul series by Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen sells 125 million copies.

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Thanks to LiteraryRejections.com

A Tale of Two Editors

• Maxwell Perkins: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe

• Nan Talese: Pat Conroy, Margaret Atwood, and (oops) James Frey. First recipient of the Maxwell Perkins Award.

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Editing Exercise #1

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Editing Exercise #2The original

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: SOUTH CAROLINA CAMPUSUnavailable for decades and only recently opened for tours, historian Jerome M. O'Connor was invited on a private tour deep inside the National Historic Landmark headquarters that ranks as one of the master's greatest works. Enter the Great Workroom to view the distinctive columns that appear as a canopy of concrete trees frozen in place. Be amused at the three-legged chairs Wright designed, the miles of Pyrex tubing, and the curvilinear forms that identify his vision of Art Deco.

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Editing Exercise #2Edited

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: THE S.C. JOHNSON HEADQUARTERSUnavailable for decades and only recently opened for tours, the corporate headquarters of S.C. Johnson & Sons in Racine, Wisconsin, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the late 1930s. Join historian Jerome M. O'Connor on a private tour deep inside this National Historic Landmark that ranks as one of the master's greatest works. Enter the Great Workroom to view the distinctive columns that appear as a canopy of concrete trees frozen in place. Be amused at the three-legged chairs Wright designed, the miles of Pyrex tubing, and the curvilinear forms that identify his vision of Art Deco.

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Editing Exercise #3

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Editing Resources• The AP Style Guide How do you spell ebook?• The Chicago Manual of Style• A good dictionary• Wikipedia• The Library of Congress• Photo libraries. I use fotolia.com.• GrammarGirl.com

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Omit Needless Words"Buy it, study it, enjoy it. It's as timeless as a book can be in our age of volubility."— The New York Times "No book in shorter space, with fewer words, will help any writer more than this persistent little volume."— The Boston Globe "White is one of the best stylists and most lucid minds in this country. What he says and his way of saying it are equally rewarding."— The Wall Street Journal "The book remains a nonpareil: direct, correct, and delightful."— The New Yorker

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A style to live by.• Fully revised. At more than

500 pages, the AP Stylebook is widely used as a writing and editing reference in newsrooms, classrooms and corporate offices worldwide.

• Used at Harper College!• Is frequently amended for

local jargon.• Subscribe to the online

version at apstylebook.com14

AP Style Guide

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Here are some of the new or revised entries in their latest monthly e-newsletter:

Affordable Care Act   Shorthand for the formal title of the health care overhaul that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010. Its full name is Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Use President Barack Obama's health care law or the health care law on first reference. "Obamacare" in quotation marks is acceptable on second reference. Affordable Care Act can be used on subsequent references when necessary to refer to the law, but should be used sparingly. Polling indicates that not all Americans know the law by its formal name.

animal welfare activist   Use instead of animal rights activist.

autism spectrum disorder   An umbrella term for a group of developmental disorders that can involve varying degrees of language and social impairments, and repetitive behaviors. It encompasses mild autism and the more classic form. Acceptable to use the term autism in stories. See Asperger's syndrome.

meme   A piece of information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that's shared verbally or transmitted widely, often in social media.

e-book or ebook or eBook?• According to the AP Style Book, it’s e-book.

• According to the Chicago Manual of Style:

Q. Hi, CMOS: I work in India, and we’ve been going back and forth over whether or not to hyphenate “ebook” for the US version of some marketing material. The British version does not hyphenate it, but Webster’s 11th does. Wired magazine, interestingly, has it both ways, and the CNET website hyphenates. Do you have a recommendation as to how to make an editorial decision when there is no fixed house style and when there’s really no clear consensus on how to proceed?A. Flip a coin? If authorities disagree, that’s where your editorial judgment and aesthetic preferences come into play. Just decide what you like best and note it in your style guide.

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The CMOS“While digital technologies have revolutionized the publishing world in the twenty-first century, one thing still remains true: The Chicago Manual of Style is the authoritative, trusted source that writers, editors, and publishers turn to for guidance on style and process.”

chicagomanualofstyle.org

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Webster’s New World• My personal favorite for a

handy-sized dictionary.• Have had the new World

College on my shelf since…college.

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If you’re hardcore.• If you just tingle when they

talk about the correct usage of “which” and “that,” this is a book for you.

• Or, if you love The New Yorker, this book is filled with tasty bites.

• Also see: On Writing (Stephen King) and On Writing Well (non-fiction writing).

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A good editor is, apparently, not that hard

to find…

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Progress updates• Cookbooks• Blog• Medical or something else• Professional training series• Magazine?• Children’s book• Memoir• Marketing book, or cookbook, or local history book??

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Homework• APE, through chapter 13.• If you’re ready, do prep work in CreateSpace/KDP.• Bring your questions.• Make progress

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