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YourBookBiz: Conversations With Your Editor

2010-02-24T17:28:58-07:00

Entering into an agreement with a professional editor for your manuscript is a giant step forward in your process to produce a high quality book. The editor agrees to read the work attentively to rules and punctuation, spot typos and usage errors, target trouble spots and awkward sentences. A verbal debriefing on other larger issues is usually in order. The editor is not a miracle worker who will cure all the ills of your manuscript. Only you can do that kind of resurrectional surgery. The author agrees to measure gains from the relationship with a more error free text and swears to not be defensive if some of his cherished wordings are labeled troublesome.

Gatsby’s Last Resort: A Telluride Murder Mystery is now in the hands of a local editor for a workover and I wanted to share what I feel was a very typical first correspondence between us, as the editor assessed the scope of the work ahead:

Bob, I have looked over the manuscript. Actually, I read Chapter One carefully and flipped through the rest of the book. I found the beginning intriguing and want to keep reading.

Based on my academic training, this is what I notice with regard to language.

1) Punctuation, specifically the use of commas.
Example: "I have a favor to ask at the Telluride Savings and Loan and with the way my life is going I expect a negative answer."
versus
"I have a favor to ask at the Telluride Savings and Loan, and with the way my life is going, I expect a negative answer."

Example: "Sweetheart, I recognized most of those men and I didn't need their faces to do it."
versus
"Sweetheart, I recognized most of those men, and I didn't need their faces to do it."

2) Verb Tense Shifts
Sometimes this occurs in a paragraph.
Example: "For no apparent reason, on this particular bright day, a shadow passes over me from the cloudless sky........Sixty seconds later I twisted the knob on a major problem."

Sometimes this happens in mid-sentence.
Example: "I try to yank him from the swivel chair to put him on the floor but came up short."

Perhaps these issues have more to do with your style. Perhaps you like using or omitting commas for certain reasons. Perhaps the shifts in verb tense are a way to keep the reader present while digging into the past. I am not sure, but the suggestions I am offering would help me read the text more easily.

Please let me know what you think of my ideas. I think I could help with your book.

Dear Editor,

Thanks for being so prompt in your response.

I agree that two major areas where the manuscript could benefit from are fine tuning punctuation and not have any unintended bumps in the grammar department. Let me try and explain my writing style for this particular project.

Mary and I go back and forth on the comma issue. First person is such a hard medium to use effectively as an honest and believable intimate stream of consciousness between reader and narrator. Hearing the character’s thoughts helps the reader “suspend their reality within the story.” Our protagonist’s mind is opened up and exposed to the reader with all its warts, grammatical nuances and phobias. A writer shouldn’t hide (except on purpose) anything from the readers; they are smart customers seeking intimate connections.

The sentence you mention is a fine example. If I were giving stage direction for a reading of that first paragraph sentence aloud to an audience I would not acknowledge any pause or change of inflection for the “the way my life is going” in the cadence of the line. Commas are truly essential to give the reader a break if the sentence gets long or confusing. I am as guilty as all writers imagining that my readers will always hup-to and keep up my intended pace. That is why a third party is so important in the process of publication. It might help to imagine this book as an old radio show and what you read is what the actors are saying. Please note all suggestions for punctuation that helps the words sort themselves out.

As for the frequent and random tense shifts, Gatsby is a genre farce, giving homage to a style of fiction that was at its pinnacle in the 1920s. Books were meant to be, and often were, read aloud. The hard rules of no tense shift within a story segment often has to bend when a “train of thought” collides with an “action.” The genre of detective fiction almost always demands that action take place in the present tense: “Last week he pulled a gun on me. I punch him in the snoot” vs “I have/had/did punch(ed) him in the snoot.” Train of thought or descriptions offered by the narrator are usually conversations with the reader that can’t possibly all be happening in sequential order. Offered facts are often in the past: “We dance. Her eyes were blue and at half mast.” How the main character’s thoughts “sound” says a lot about him, his mood, his state of mind. The expected deviations for our flawed hero in Gatsby, from perfect English, are branded character attributes. Think Rocky Balboa. Again it is helpful to read possible trouble spots aloud and, if the tongue gets twisted, a reader’s attention might also get tested. I know there are many places like that in the story. I know we will revisit every one.

Thanks for taking on this project and I look forward to working with you.

YourBookBiz -- Building Your Web Site

2010-02-14T11:36:54-07:00

Your book's presence on the Internet is essential. The world is changing at an embarrassing rate. How we get and use information is driving the bus. The web can produce richer content, better targeted, up to date data, totally interactive, with faster access than the local brick and mortar book store. The fact the information tool fits easily in the palm of your hand is the final trump card in a perfect deck. Doom-sayers for the paper book industry speculate that the bound books of the future will only be purchased as "souvenirs" while our species will turn increasingly to the digital world for their information and entertainment. As authors we must approach the world wide web as a farmer approaches his garden. We want the most production and return for the least amount of hard work. The art is in knowing what are the common sense rules that work and what ones don't.

Your web page is an adventure you need to embrace. Establish your learning curve as a down payment on book publishing success. Planting the seeds for your future garden of writing related enterprises should be a pretty heady experience. As in all of our Community Publishing 101 components we have to insure that we aim for a high quality, user friendly, information rich site that draws customers and other writers back. We must compete at a global scale. As you transition your thinking into the fact that you are a writer and have every reason to expect to earn a living, also think of your website as a place to grow the other opportunities for you to make a buck using the skills you have as a writer: editing, copy editing, design, articles, speaking engagements, mentoring, etc. Your website becomes your one location office for your future earnings.

The Community Publishing 101 web pages are presently contained in the Sirius Publications domain. The pages have been all designed and posted by me. The helpful and relevant content on the site is starting to reflect the wide range of skills and activities that are critical to the publishing business. The Business Plan the Editing Process, the Marketing Plan, Cover Design, Interior Design, the Distributing Plan, and the Sales and Accounting Plan, are all components for success. As we work through each stage, our content will be driven by the research and decision making milestones we reach. Our goal is to align our Tasks and Timelines in order to reach our publication date.

The Sirius Publications site is hosted under my GoDaddy account and I found the template and Website Tonight web building program easy to use. The results are visually generic, but the information is displayed and available in a no nonsense format. The budget for Gatsby’s Last Resort: A Telluride Murder Mystery has earmarked a sizable chunk for a web page and I think it is time to have someone professional take the site from its current state to state of the art. I will post my experiences in this area soon.

Below is a helpful site map of the content that is already available for writers at SiriusPublication.com. Many of these pages are linked directly from the informative posts available here at Telluwriter.com. Please visit the Community Publishing 101 site and share your experiences on the contact page. We also welcome any new postings or comments offered by participants in the Community Publishing 101 effort. It is a good way to build your publishing resume for use on your own site or profile page.

Our next posts will tie together the exciting world of the web and the essence of our marketing plan.

YourBookBiz -- Second Free Community Publishing 101 Seminar At Wilkinson

2010-02-01T04:00:00-07:00

[click "Play" to hear R. J. Rubadeau describe Wednesday's seminar]

Community Publishing 101 is BACK to take on the basics of book marketing, and the most effective way to establish a web presence for yourself and your book. The second of four, free, one-hour seminars will be held at the Wilkinson Public Library on Wednesday evening, February 3, at 6 p.m. at the Program Room. Nearly fifty local writers and book lovers attended the Kick-Off seminar last month and came away with a much better understanding of what happens to your book once the writing is finished. R. J. Rubadeau, seminar leader and Community Publishing 101 pilot project author, reports that many of our local writers have returned to their works-in-progress with a renewed enthusiasm and with a clear, easily followed, straightforward path in place towards eventual publication.

YourBookBiz/Community Publishing 101 is receiving a growing buzz in the national book industry. Our locally designed partnership, including the public library, the local book store, the writing community, our homegrown webzine, and a local small publisher, is a unique format for success that could be duplicated in many communities across the country. Our effort to preserve regional voices in our country's literarture by promoting and supporting local writers, and by "branding" our community led publication process with high quality, content integrity, and a truly professional finished product. This experiment is attracting attention on blogs and social networks dealing with writers, editors, publishers and the books they produce. Join this Telluride led revolution for better books and a growing, vibrant local writing community connected in a single positive effort.

Community Publishing 101/ Wednesday Feb. 3rd at 6 p.m. /Program Room/ Wilkinson Library /Telluride

YourBookBiz -- Your Profile is For Your Mother

2010-01-30T04:00:00-07:00

Writing is a very lonely endeavor and not designed to comfort your mother. Those not afflicted with this peculiar passion call what we do narcissistic and antisocial. Writers’ explanations on why they write are usually loaded with confusing metaphors, dangling participles, and first-person hooptedoodle. As punishment for our ability to spend so much time happily alone with our thoughts, we are, by the standards of decent hardworking non-writers, expected to do our deeds behind closed doors and to wash our hands afterwards. At the end of the writing, says Joseph Heller, “Success and Failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success comes drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis, and suicide. With failure comes failure.” I guess we have all signed our pact with the devil and opt for the success regardless.

It takes a certain skill set to open a vein onto the page, but very few of those attributes are transferable to the real world. Our book biz marketing strategy begins with you introducing yourself to your customers, making a first impression, so that you can eventually ask their permission to try and sell them your book. This very important effort to blow your own horn with hyperbole and flowery prose I call hooptedoodle. Most of us are committed to keeping the hooptedoodle at a minimum in our writing. Our latent tendency to take flights of literary fancy and use words like “illuminating”, “provocative”, and “soul fulfilling” is rusty. So dust off those rose-colored Lolita shades and get ready to meet the person even your mother would admit had their act together. Hey mom, that's me.

Seventy percent of people in this country turn to the web when they want to know more about anything. If your name pops up in cyber conversation, you are one click away from your first important hurdle. You must have an outstanding profile so that those wanting to find that one simple reason to NOT let you try and sell them a book will be disappointed. Instead they will be intrigued by your guile, certain of your credentials to deliver what they want, and have trust they won’t be disappointed with the experience of letting you give them a sale's pitch.

The work effort you will spend developing this online profile will also serve as the block of granite that you will chisel away at to create that terse masterpiece of self aggrandizement you will place on the back cover or inside liner of your book.

A profile reader wants to know the answer to three questions:

Why do I need this writer in my life? The very first job of your profile is to hook those reading with a provocative declaration about that crucial attribute or core attitude that makes you so darn special. The words must be sharp, crisp and convey one undeniable theme that opens an “Ah Ha” moment in the reader. Rework the sentences and words mercilessly for maximum impact. You're a writer; prove it.

Why is this writer supremely qualified to take me where I want to go? Whether the book promises daring insights, skill development, an historical window, or good old fashioned entertainment, the profile must erase any doubts that you have paid your dues, gained the chops, done the heavy lifting necessary to deliver the goods. This is the resume of publications, related expertise, life experiences that guarantees your writing will be professional and of a high standard.

Building your resume of publications should be a priority. List all of your work in print whether you were paid or not. You are a published writer. If things are thin here, get after it. Don’t make things up. Remember, your mother is going to read this. Write a post for Telluride Inside...and Out. Review a publishing book for Telluwriter.com. Call the Watch or Planet and offer a story for the papers.

Tell enough about your life experiences so people understand the context in which you became a writer.

Do I feel comfortable enough in the details of this writer’s present life that my investment in time, money, and curiosity will be rewarded? Your picture is worth a thousand beautiful words. Make sure it supports the rest of your story. It doesn’t hurt to get a professional photographer to provide you with a great picture. Most writer’s brand themselves with a single photograph. In describing where and why and with whom you live, you must let the reader get their arms around your story not the dry statistics. Find ways to surprise and get a smile.

Trust is a fragile commodity. Don’t overreach, don’t be smug, don’t be tricky with words, bury your pride, shine on your inner motivation to be what people expect, lean light on specifics, and go heavy on the joyful uniqueness of your journey to the now.

As an example, my profile is listed on my own website, but any of the search engine profile sites, Yahoo, Google Maps, Facebook, Twitter, My Space, etc. are designed for the reader to jump from your hot link in that initial cyber conversation that triggered the impulse or by a name search that leads directly to your page. Some of the sites require a "friend" status to see your whole site and these may disappoint those who search. It is always best to load content on your own site.

In an upcoming post we will talk about the rebirth of the Press Release in the cyber world and why it will be one of your most useful tools in following up on that first connection customers make to you through your profile. We will construct our outreach plan. We will also be looking at a very successful marketing strategy that has produced 10 Best Sellers and the author gives his books away for free in cyberspace and calls each of the millions of books he has sold a "souvenier" that supports his continued framing of his blog shaped ideas that help other businesses to succeed.

Mark your calendars for the second face-to-face free one-hour seminar at the Wilkinson Library Program Room at 6 p.m. on Wednesday February 3rd. We will pinpoint where Gatsby's Last Resort: A Telluride Murder Mystery is on the road to publication, expand on the profile concept with an internet presence, and begin to discuss the next steps in getting our book business plan on the move. This program will have something for every writer to consider. No matter at what stage your manuscript is at today, you need to start this process now to announce yourself as a serious professional writer. Bring a friend and I will see you there.

YourBookBiz -- Growing Your Book Marketing Plan

2010-01-25T04:30:00-07:00

As writers we all know the benchmark for success. Our dreams are centered on being a Best Selling Author. It is notable that the term is not best writer. The crass fact that we would like to have our addiction to writing produce positive financial returns should not jeopardize the muse. We write because we must and we must eat to write. Believing everyone is going to need your book is essential during the writing, but now you need a cost effective plan to get the product to the best markets.

A marketing plan should provide a realistic pathway for placing the option of buying your book in front of the largest percentages of your identified markets. This plan must operate within a targeted timeframe, where promotional activities are linked together to create a media and sales window of exposure to achieve your goals. No lawful endeavor should be off the table as you go about creating your outreach strategies on a small promotion budget.

Ask yourself two questions: Who is most likely to read this book? And, why should people buy YOUR book when there are 8,000 competitors on the shelves down the aisles in the local Borders? In searching for the answers go back to your query letter. If you don’t have your query letter yet, (I advocate writing your fast pitched query letter before you write your book) you best get started. An example of a query letter is posted at Gatsby Query and the parts dissected at Query Elements on the SiriusPublications.com web site. If you can’t find the “who” and the “why” in your query you should definitely put them in.

A proper approach to marketing your book is to think of all those people out there who share your passion for the subject you have illuminated, but to date you have done a miserable job of letting them know that just the right book for them exists. To get the message in front of the right people for the smallest budget imaginable is going to involve all print and TV media, mail campaigns, phone researching and archiving, personal events, blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, Emailing, networking locally, and keeping to a rigid commitment to do something about marketing the book each and every day.

Question 1. Who will read Gatsby’s Last Resort: A Telluride Murder Mystery? (The question is really: who will give me tacit permission to approach them with my book? Be specific and estimate the size of the market)

My family and friends   (150)
Participants in Community Publishing 101   (55)
Telluride Writer’s Guild (50)
Subscribers to Telluride Inside and Out   (540)
Colorado Authors League (865)
Book Buyers of Telluride  (1600)
Mystery Writers of America (2300)
Book Buyers of Mountain Village (1100)
Skiers who visit Telluride yearly (16000)
Telluride summer festival visitors yearly   (31000)
Public Libraries in the U.S. (11000)
Colorado Independent Publishers Association  (2100)
Alumnae: Mary’s and my universities (22000)
Friends and family social networking    (1500)
Targeted personal appearances and sales information for
Bound For Roque Island: Sailing Maine and the World (10000)
Advertising in regional publications (10000)

I am sure as we continually improve the plan I will get even more creative in marketing subsets and, of course, the print and TV media exposure is hard to track. Yet, this first go at people we know and have a high chance of reaching with our low cost campaign has over a hundred thousand hard contacts that we can have a conversation with about the value of the book to their lives. If I can make only 1% of the sales opportunities I will have reached my breakeven goals with a thousand books sold. If I get to two thousand books I will make a profit and promptly invest it back into a marketing campaign to reach more readers.

We will continue to grow our plan from these fertile seeds. During my ongoing research I found a few sites that might help you understand the process.

The Creative Pen
Marketing Tips For Authors
Ezine Articles

Next we will take a look look at establishing your credentials that will be celebrated in the marketing of your book. The jungle consists of blurbs, back-story, experiences, testimonials, and other published work.

YourBookBiz -- Editing Essentials and Contacts

2010-01-24T05:00:00-07:00

I love to varnish my sailboat. The deep gloss finish is a daily joy to behold. I am proud of my work. The trick to great varnish is what you do before you open the paint can. Three-quarters of the effort is sanding, prepping, cleaning up, getting it perfect, because whatever flaws are left on the wood will be mirrored to the surface for the duration. The same is true for your book. Time spent doing the editing stage well is critical to our non-negotiable commitment to the highest quality product for our readers.

To keep on track we must have the manuscript ready for the professional editing process by the middle of February. Peer reading should be going on now. Your own self editing efforts should have lightened the load still to come. Your manuscript should be lean and provocative in its singleminded adherence to its purpose.

You write for yourself; you edit for the reader. Cutting now makes sense before you have to pay to have those marginalized segments removed later. Go through again and get rid of every adverb you can. Take block segments of text and pare the meat off the bone. This cutting should be heart rendering and painful. Good enough is not perfect.

I have researched a number of different options for the next stage in the editing process. It will be necessary to put your book through a set of questions that any editing service provider will need to do their task. Here are the questions and my answers to a questionnaire from Book Editing Associates:

Required:
Submit the first 50 pages of your book manuscript or story (Word/DOC or RTF attachment preferred). Large files should be zipped, along with a sample, the following information is required. Ignore questions that do not apply to your project

(01) Word count of complete project (under "Tools" in MS Word): 86,000 words

(02) Put your 100-word synopsis/description here: GATSBY’S LAST RESORT: A Telluride Murder Mystery is new-age detective fiction full of valley cows, sex, mysterious red heads, deceased writers, and a spoiled, decadent, offbeat Rocky Mountain resort community full of edgy characters we love to hate. Wit Thorpe, is a native American father making ends meet by running a peeping tom service for aspiring divorcees looking to profit from their wealthier partner’s infidelity. He is trying desperately to turn his obsession with classic detective fiction into a marketable piece of writing. Wit creates a mysterious red head, full of temptation and sin, and then meets her in the flesh. Murder, deception, dark secrets, and blackmail follow with our detective finding himself in the slammer framed for a hate-crime murder. He probably didn’t do it.

(03) Describe your genre and topic: Detective Fiction in the Resort Town of Telluride sports a whole new Lost Generation.

(04) Deadline date, if any, for return of complete project. (Please be realistic. Remember that professional editors usually have a project in process.): February 21, 2010

(06) Level of editing desired/expected? critique/evaluation, possible basic edit

(10) Do you have a contract with an agent or publisher? No

(11) Do you plan to self-publish? Yes

(12) What is your budget for the services you are requesting? $500-$800

Answer these questions for your own book and keep working to cut the book in size.

Searching For The Right Editor

There are a number of services available with a wide menu of options.

My first choice would be to locate a talented professional editor, knowledgeable in the work, experienced in the Crime Fiction genre, willing to operate within my budget, and lives here in Telluride. Are you here? (If you are, take a look at Chapters 1-10 and Chapters 11-20 to see what we have to work with. Give me a call.)

A second choice is to go to another writer that you respect and ask them if you could hire them to take a good hard look at the manuscript with a pen in hand. You would probably also have to pay a copy editor for their services to catch the full scope of work a real editor will provide. But this might work in the budget and the chances are better that these two services could be provided locally.

A web search for Book Editing Services produced a number of links with sites across the country. All of them seem to be a clearing house front with a stable of free lance editors who will take your project. Most do not have the option for you to choose your own editor. A few I visited and putzed around on were The Iowa Word Wrights, Manuscript Critique, and The Editorial Department. I also enjoyed articles at Foner Books and Alpha Editing.

What we also need to consider are the packaging plans that most of the POD publishers have linked with their own brand of services. In the next post I will explore the major players in this new industry and we will compare the editing services and prices offered. We will open a Box of Pandoras.

Editing is the last chance you have to make major revisions in your book without it costing you a small fortune. Pay attention.

YourBookBiz -- On Being A Good Date

2010-01-18T16:00:34-07:00

On Being a Good Date

Joseph Conrad once said something about the words getting in the way of what you want to say. It's true. We could all flood a tsunami of verbage around a floating red shoe. The right answer is that we probably shouldn't. Sticking to the spine of the story or the target of your market requires a mean streak. Murdering those "little darlings" of creativity that shine like roses along the roadside takes a firm merciless hand. Your final reading goal in this final stage before we turn the book over to a REAL editor is to take the trimming shears and revisit the hedge for the best cropping you can manage. Have courage.

Kurt Vonnegut, when asked about the secret to great writing, said, "You’ve got to be a good date for the reader." I fretted about that for a while, finally worrying it like a dog with a bone, and began to jot down random thoughts about first meetings, dates, dinners, goodnights, and the ensuing problems that always seem to be working against a happy ending. As you tone and shape your book for the next stage in editing be merciless in shedding flab, sidebar love handles, and keeping the beginning, the middle, and the end as tightly choreographed as a dinner, brandy and a tango.

Here is a bare outline of your task in being a good date for your reader. Feel free to add your own guidelines for success. As a date you must remember:

You only have one chance to make a first impression
Choose your words carefully
Be confident
Ask questions, listen
Don't judge
Deliver what you promise
Go somewhere new
Don’t make a big scene over nothing
Tell your back story with crisp, simple dialogue
Don’t tell too much
Don’t tell too little
Don’t hold back
Don’t hide anything important on purpose
Be honest when you can
Be funny not cynical
Cry only if you must
Get over yourself before the soup
Don’t try and make your date look stupid
Don’t assume you are smarter than your date
Leave room on the table for your date’s story
Lies always come back to haunt you
Tell a secret in a first time way
Always offer something sweet towards the end
Manners count
Smile when you least expect it
Defer from having all the answers
Pay the bill in full
Take your date all the way home
Whisper a very personal aside
Don’t settle for a handshake
Great endings build new beginnings
Leave your date intrigued and wanting more
Call back

YourBookBiz - Forming Your Own Publishing Company

2010-01-17T14:57:25-07:00

Naming your book business.

One of the first tasks on our Tasks and Timelines chart is to start your own book business. Decide on a name. Be conscious that your company’s name will appear in numerous places related to your book. Choose a name that reflects the serious nature or unique quality of your product(s). Think past your first book because you don’t want to change names once you start branding your work and your business.

I chose Sirius Publications because my former business was known as Dog Star Consulting and Sirius is the name of the star, the brightest in the heavens, that carries that nickname. I thought Publications was a better add on descriptor than Books, Press, or Publishing House because of the number of articles and other writing projects I do alongside my books.

Creating a web based business.

DON'T go to Godaddy.com or any other domain name registrar to see if the domain name (Youcompanyname.com) for your new company is available until you are ready to buy the rights.

Do a general web search first (for instance, try entering your proposed domain name into the URL field of your browser) to see if anyone is using the domain. Resellers target such searches and buy the names quickly so that they can offer them to you later at a big markup. If you find the name you want, BUY IT IMMEDIATELY.

If the domain name is not available, it might be better to change the business name rather than end up without the logical web connections to your new company.

With your domain purchase (about $10/yr) you will likely also have a new Email address opportunity. Take advantage of it and have the messages forwarded to your present Email account. Publisher@(your new business name) keeps things simple.

Build a web page.

Godaddy also offers a free web page. Build a Home Page. It really isn’t that hard with the templates and on-line tech support. You are now in the dotcom business world. Go to Sirius Publications.com and take a look. Building the site took me about six hours over two weeks and I am the least techie person I know.

Think about adding a logo to the business name. Make it classy because it may end up on your cover. I decided on a woodcut black and white image. I also added Books That Matter below the logo to help brand my product.

Keeping your business legal.

Call your local municipal clerk’s office and ask if a state and/or local business license is required for your enterprise. If so, be sure and get the paperwork done before you start spending money under a business name.

San Miguel County does not require a business license. Telluride does.

Taking care of business.

Set up a new checking account at a bank. You can usually bargain an almost free account because you will initially be writing very few checks.

Buy a blank business card kit and print yourself some cards. You’ll need them when you start talking with or mailing folks about your project. Use your business Email account name on the card.

Establish some guiding principles for your new company, then create a business plan and budget for your project.

Go and be successful.

YourBookBiz©

YourBookBiz -- Seeking the Perfect Peer Reader

2010-01-17T04:00:00-07:00

After reading this post, please take a moment to think about lining up a peer reader for your own project, even if it isn’t finished. Go to the comments section just below this text and enter your name and contact address, the working title, and a three line pitch of the book. It is time to get this part started.

The old friend who called out of the blue and said, “I’ve got a great story to tell you and then you can write the book and we’ll split the profits,” is definitely not the person you should ask to be a peer reader. Anyone who might care if they hurt your feelings might also be excluded. Forget most folks who think Rush Limbaugh is a witty kidder. Relatives and lovers, and friends of lovers. Bookburners. Those who move their lips when they read. You get the picture.

The worst feedback you can get is, “Oh, it’s good.”

What makes the ideal peer reader? Well, it certainly helps if they are an editor at a prestigious New York publishing house with a slot on their spring lists open. Alas, the book biz is not creating too many of those particular sprites these days. The best you can hope for is someone who reads with a firm idea of what they like and what they don’t. It helps if they are also someone who also writes so they know the craft you practice in all its false promise and despair.

As I search for peer readers for The Last Resort: A Telluride Murder Mystery, I want to establish some guidelines up front about the expectations I have for the kind of feedback that would be enormously helpful. Exactly what should we hope a peer reader brings to the table?

In The Game

Your ideal reader should be your peer or better in their love for words and all their quirks. They should be a gifted oral storyteller you love to listen to. They would know the books you read and bring new books to your attention. They speak their mind. They mind what they speak. The thought of driving off for a joy ride with them for a few hours should set the world right.

You should be able to pitch your book to your reader in terms they understand. “Gatsby is a bumbling detective who-dun-it. The sidekick is ten year old Dakota Fanning in Dreamer. The humorous side jokes are a rich drunk barber, runaway libidos, and a town that will do anything for a view. Our hero is a Native American Rocky Balboa without the accent. The bad guys are a motorcycle gang with a sexual orientation dilemma. Think an “R” rated Nick and Nora Charles in modern ski town tinsel.”

Of course you add that it flows like Chaucer.

It is best to remember that if you find all the attributes, comfort zones and social orientation you need, it is equally important that your reader also enjoys the genre that the book comes closest to. Detective fiction for example has very strict traditional story signatures that lovers of the genre expect. The story operates within the nuances of the plot and stylistic needs of the most likely readers. This is important information for your peer reader.

A Critical Reader

Critical reading does not mean reading each word critically. If the job description for peer reader is to find what is wrong with your manuscript we would all be phoning our seventh grade English teacher. You most desire an open mind with the ability, instinctual or studied, to expect and recognize those cornerstone benchmarks every book needs in order to satisfy the demands of the marketplace. Pace, voice, style, humor, transitions, etc. should all be registering as a whole that either works together or not.

Peer readers should read with a pen in hand. Note whatever jolts you along the path of the story. Do a squiggle in the right hand margin of the manuscript to indicate a comment. It is helpful for a reader to refer to the notes taken during the book in which the sequential observations, assessments and comments are collected.

A peer reader is also anticipating how to explain their reactions to you

An Articulate Communicator

Nothing is worse than lukewarm praise. Nothing is worse than, “I kinda got lost.” Anything is better than “What was the point?” What does “it was readable” mean?

The ideal peer reader will not make general comments about the “goodness” or “badness” of a manuscript. A swaddling baby and your work are only measured by their unlimited potential. All feedback must be about a specific feeling, or question, or suggestion to a specific section, word, or storyline of the book.

Conversations between you and the ideal peer reader should be laden with affirmation of the process and the inevitability of a quality final product. I feel, I think, I wonder if, and may I make a suggestion should be the on the advance team for any new point to be made. Enjoy the process; stretching things in your book biz self makes them grow.

Reward your peer reader with high respect and a hefty personal reward. A meal with wine and good conversations about books and the creative process in general, but not just yours in particular. Many peer readers become good friends with the authors they help. Often peers and authors will exchange roles. Remember, take the advice or leave it, but don’t miss this part of the journey, both you and your book will be better for it.

To see more about PEER READERS go to the 10 Rules of Peer Reading at SiriusPublications.com

YourBookBiz - Editing Your Own Book

2010-01-14T07:37:38-07:00

Editing your own book is comparable to giving yourself a good spanking. Most of us are not anatomically or emotionally suited to carry out the job.

Our goal is getting the manuscript to the stage that a real editor can concentrate on the professional nuances of their task without getting bogged down, knee deep in our stupid. Obvious mistakes in voice, grammar, tense, and narrative consistency stand out like rat turds in a tapioca pudding. Here are a few suggestions to avoid the most obvious errors we all make.

Be consistent – It’s called voice…

Watch for changes in Point of View (POV) of the characters. Restrain from bouncing from first person to third person. Take full control of those possessive little blunders in time perception by our imaginary friends.

Edit for a consistent mood. You might want your narrator to be chatty and casual, or reserved and dour, or confused and frustrated. They all work; but, aside from high drama or action parts, stay with a recognizable tone.

Watch for long bouts with heavy handed paragraphs of text. Backstory and detailed explanations can be done creatively in the fewest words possible, often with dialogue. A spritely conversation can do the heavy lifting of content in non-fiction books as well.

Keep sentences short and direct. Search for passive voice and root it out like cancer.

Keep the cast of characters minimal and make them all polar opposites. Names are important and relevant; be creative carefully.

Don’t use dialect unless you’re Tom Wolfe.

"Leave out the parts readers usually skip," says Elmore Leonard, "and never qualify the verb said with any other word."

Use simple grammar

Keep it simple. William Zinsser cautions us to get to the period as quickly as possible. Big words delay the journey. It is ditto for strings of adjectives and colorful, disruptive, qualifying, pandering adverbs.

Study the correct use of the period (full stop) and comma (a yield). They will get you out of most dangerous word-slides. Learning the rules for the correct use of the apostrophe is crucial. Words and punctuations must fit together like middle puzzle pieces.

Don’t rely on the computer’s word processing dictionary and grammar functions to review your work. Go to merriam-webster.com and check it there. Never run a grammar checker when writing fiction.

Remove inadvertent rhyme.

Delete redundancies. A cold chill, hung down, past history, he slowed down, she whispered softly, a little baby, etc, etc.

Very is the weakest of all adverbs. Drop every very and change the verb to one that doesn’t need help.

Watch it. "It" should replace the noun immediately preceding it. Not "He took a cherry from the bowl and ate it" but "His hand went to the bowl found a cherry and ate it."

Watch for misplaced modifiers. "She lay on the bed beside him" is different from "She lay beside him on the bed."

Avoid the introductory participle that doesn’t modify the subject of the sentence. "Leaving the village, the mountains glowed red in the sun."

There is no sentence except "I am" that can’t be made crisper with a diet plan and a change of scene.

Tense usage

Readers notice tense shifts from past to present and present to past.

Most people write instinctively in the past tense.

All dialogue is happening now.

Staying in the first person, present tense is hard as hell.

Pronouns must remain consistent with the narrative’s chosen tense and the character’s place in the story’s evolution.

Use the past tense rather than the word "would" to show habitual action. "Each morning he would walk the dog" should be "Each morning he walked the dog."

Only Hemingway got away with using the second tense. Refrain from addressing the reader as "you."

Formatting

Pay attention to the format of your manuscript. It is a big part of preparing your book for the upcoming stages in editing.

Use Arial or Courier Font. 12 point size.

Set left and right margins at one and one-quarter inches. Set top and bottom at one-half inch.

Double space all text.

Never use bold, other type faces, or sizes. Justify to left margin. Always indent paragraphs.

Only one space after a period.

In the upper left hand corner of each page, against the top and left margin, type a "slugline": your last name in uppercase and lowercase letters, a slash, then your novel’s title in all capital letters. On the top right hand margin number your pages consecutively. Don’t write "page" before the number.

Narrative consistency

Your story needs to have a clear start, middle and end. If you can’t find the exact page numbers that start and finish of each of these sections you are lost and better ask a professional for directions.

Unity is the anchor of all writing. The reader wants to have his or her need for order and sequence pandered to. This does not mean surprises are forbidden. It means they must be expected.

Use character sheets to keep the physical, emotional, motivational, and physical descriptions of your characters from changing and confusing the reader.

Use a Query letter format to plot the "spine" of your book. Refer to this marketing tool constantly and revise as needed if the storyline deviates from your main point of the book.

Read your book aloud. Print the section and read it to yourself. It is amazing how our mouths find awkward connections and word usage that look so wonderful on the computer screen.

More

For more resources on self editing check out our Editing page at Community Publishing 101 on the Sirius Publications website. Our next blog will deal with the process of finding peer readers and a guide to copy editing.