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Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
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Some crime writers are planners. Some are pantsers (so called because they fly by the seat of their pants). Neither is better than the other. What matters is that the method you choose to write your story works for you and results in a tale well told.
Being either a planner or a pantser won’t determine whether you sell lots of books. A story that makes sense – one that reads as if you had carefully planned it – is what’s key to creating an experience that readers will relish.
So what do some of the big-name crime writers have to say on the matter? What’s right for you? ‘The more I talk to other crime writers the more I start to become fairly sure that for each writer there is an ideal way, but there isn’t one ideal way,’ says Sophie Hannah. I think I’ve read everything Harlan Coben’s ever written. If I haven’t, it’s waiting in the pile or on the Kindle. If you’d asked me, I’d have marked him as a planner. His stories hang together so well; he ties up every loose end. And I always have that ‘Ah, that’s what happened’ moment. But in fact, Coben’s a pantser:
'I don’t outline. I usually know the ending before I start. I know very little about what happens in between. It’s like driving from New Jersey to California. I may go Route 80, I may go via the Straits of Magellan or stopover in Tokyo … but I’ll end up in California.'
Maybe you’re like him or Julia Heaberlin:
‘I start with just a fragment of a thought in my head. I don’t outline at all. I have no idea where the book is going.'
Or perhaps you’re like Susan Spann:
‘My novels start with an outline, and that outline starts with the murder – even when the killing happens before the start of the book.'
Or Hannah:
‘When I start writing chapter 1, I have a 90–100-page plan … kind of like a list of ingredients of what needs to happen in each chapter. And I don’t write it well. I don’t write it elegantly. It could be written by a robot […] but everything necessary for that chapter, whether it’s a murder or a snide glance, is included in that plan.'
To help you decide whether to plan or pants, consider the following:
Planning and creativity
Some writers fear that planning will mute their creativity and the process of discovery. The following excerpt is from an article from the NY Book Editors blog:
‘For writers striving to create something unique and surprising, the kind of work that will grab the attention of agents and editors, the thorough plotting and planning can be a matter of life and death. By that, I mean that planning your novel ahead of time increases its likelihood of being dead on arrival. […] When writers engage in extensive pre-writing in the form of outlines and character sketches, we change the job of the writing we’re preparing to do. All of a sudden our role becomes that of the translator.'
Heaberlin feels that surrendering control to her characters is essential to the creative unfolding of her stories:
‘I let the characters kind of take me wherever they want me to go. It sounds a little precious but that’s what happens. The plot evolves through the characters telling me what’s going to happen next.'
However, passionate planners feel differently. Their plans are as much a form of artistry as the actual writing. Here’s Hannah on how a plan needn’t thwart spontaneity:
‘Plot and character are not rivals – they’re co-conspirators […] The biggest lie uttered by writers about planning is that it somehow limits or stifles creativity. This is absolutely untrue. Planners simply divide their writing process into two equally important and creative stages: story architecture, and actual writing. Both are fun. And yes, of course you can make as many changes as you want when you come to write the book – I’ve changed characters, endings, plot strands, everything very spontaneously, even with my plan at my side, when it’s felt like the right thing to do.'
Time frame and process
Some authors write multiple drafts to ensure the book’s plot works. That slows down the process. Hannah’s detailed planning approach means her first draft works; she’s already identified where the problems are before she gets started on the actual writing process.
‘A lot of the thriller-writers I know who turn up their noses at planning end up writing four or five drafts of their novel before they’re happy with it. You might want to do that – in which case, you should do it! – but if you’d like to spend one year writing a book rather than five, planning is the way forward.'
Jeffery Deaver concurs:
‘I plan everything out ahead of time. I work very hard to do that. Part of that is planning each subplot – I call it choreographing the plots. I start with a post-it note. I put it in the upper left-hand corner [of my whiteboard] and that’s my opening scene. And then I start to fill in post-it notes throughout the whiteboard. Then I come up with a big idea for the twist, and that goes in the lower right-hand corner. And if that’s going to be a legitimate twist, that means planting clues.'
He then walks around talking to himself, deciding where on the whiteboard the clues need to go so that the main plot and various subplots will work. And if he finds that a clue won’t work in a particular place because, say, character X doesn’t know Y yet, he moves the post-it note. It’s an eight-month process but once it’s done, ‘writing comes quickly’. Still, don’t get too comfy! Andy Martin spent the best part of 12 months in the company of Lee Child as he wrote Make Me:
‘Even before he had written the first sentence, he turned to me and said: “This is not the first draft, you know.” “Oh – what is it then?” I asked naively. “It’s the ONLY DRAFT!” he replied.'
Which just goes to show that being a pantser doesn’t necessarily mean being a slow writer.
Does the plot work?
If you’re a pantser, the idea of finding yourself stuck in a hole after months of writing might not terrify you. Lee Child doesn’t let it stop him.
Says Henry Sutton, ‘When, for instance, [Child] hits a cul-de-sac, say his character – Reacher – might be at the point of an impossible situation to get out of, rather than go back and think, “Right, I’ve written too far. I need to delete that chapter or even the chapter before that”, he will think of a way of him actually surmounting that obstacle and then push him on.'
In an interview with Harry Brett, Heaberlin acknowledges the need for third-party assistance to fill in the gaps and polish her stories:
‘In Black-Eyed Susans I did know I wanted to write about mitochondrial DNA but it wasn’t actually until two thirds of the way through that book that I knew I wanted to write about the death penalty! […] At the end, my book is not perfect, not well-crafted. Mine have all these loose ends and so I work with an editor to kind of tidy up. But I also don’t like everything to be answered always, kind of like in real life.'
Contrast that approach with those of these two planners:
Deaver: ‘I know what I’m going to write. In the case of The Cutting Edge, … I knew where all of the subplots went, I knew where the clues were introduced, I knew where the characters entered the book and when they left. […] When I do the outline, I can see whether the book is going to work or not. And if it isn’t going to work then I can just line up the post-it notes and start over [whereas] it can be a very difficult process to start writing and come to page 200 and not know where that book’s going to go.’
Hannah: ‘Without a start-to-finish plan of what’s going to happen in my novel, I don’t know for certain that the idea is viable. It’s by writing a chapter-by-chapter, scene-by-scene synopsis that I put this to the test. I’d hate to invest years or even months in an idea I suspected was great, and then get to where the denouement should be and find myself thinking, “Yikes! I can’t think of a decent ending!”’ What kind of writer are you? In an interview with Henry Sutton in May 2018, Deaver discussed how planning can help the non-linear writer:
‘Writing for me can be very difficult at times. And I have found that doing the outline allows me, since I know the entire schematic of the book, to write the beginning at the end, or the end at the beginning […] So I go to the outline and think: Today I’m supposed to be writing a vicious murder scene but the sun’s out, the birds are singing, and I don’t feel like it. I save it for those days when the cable guy who’s supposed to be coming at 8 in the morning doesn’t show up until 4 and I’m in a bad mood! I can jump around a bit.'
So Deaver’s method allows him to concentrate on telling the part of the story he wants to tell when he wants to tell it. For every writer who frets at the thought of not knowing where they’re going, there’s another for whom that’s a thrill. Child is a linear writer, and Zachary Petit thinks that ‘very well may be the key to his sharp, bestselling prose’.
'When he’s crafting his books, Child doesn’t know the answer to his question, and he writes scene by scene – he’s just trying to answer the question as he goes through, and he keeps throwing different complications in that he’ll figure out later.’
If you too enjoy sharing the rollercoaster ride with your protagonist, pantsing could be the best way for you to tell your story. If not, detailed planning might suit you better. Clue planting Spann has a two-handed strategy for planning. And it’s all to do with the clues. The first outline – the one that will determine what she writes – needn’t be particularly detailed. It’s a map of each scene, and each clue, that enables her to keep her sleuth on track. Just as important, however, is the other outline:
‘A secret outline, for your eyes alone. This one tracks the offstage action – what those lying suspects were really doing, and when, and why. The “secret outline” lets you know which clues to plant, and where, and keeps the lies from jamming up the story’s moving parts.'
I like her on- and offstage approach, and I think it’s particularly worth bearing in mind if you’re a self-publisher who’s not going to be commissioning developmental or structural editing. What you don’t want is to go straight to working with a line or copyeditor and have them tell you your clues don’t make sense, because you’d be paying them to paint your walls even though there are still large cracks in the plasterwork. That offstage outline could help you to complete the build before you start tidying up.
The importance of structure
One thing’s for sure: whether you choose to plan or pants your way through the process, put structure front and centre. Recall my comment above about how Coben always leaves me feeling like he must have had everything worked out from the outset. That’s because however he gets from A to B, he understands structure. Pantsing isn’t about ignoring structure, but about shifting the order of play. Says Deaver:
‘[Lee Child and I] both structure our books. I just do it first. I run into those same roadblocks. And maybe for me it’s a little post-it note […] But the work has to be done somewhere. Any book should be about structure as much as fine stylistic prose.'
And here’s domestic noir author Julia Crouch to wrap things up for us:
‘There is a reason that screenwriting gurus bang on about the three-act structure – setup, confrontation and resolution – and that’s because it works. If you have any storytelling bones in you at all, you will more than likely, even subconsciously, end up with a structure like this. But it’s helpful to bear it in mind and, whether you structure beforehand (as a plotter), or after (as a pantser), run your plot through that mill.'
Good luck with your planning or pantsing! Further reading
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Editors on the Blog is a monthly column curating some of the best posts from the editing community – articles written by editors and proofreaders for colleagues and clients alike.
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THE BUSINESS OF EDITING
CLIENT FOCUS: BUSINESS AND OTHER NON-FICTION
CLIENT FOCUS: FICTION
EDITING IN PRACTICE
LANGUAGE MATTERS
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Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Three questions for you:
If the answer to all three is yes, you’re in marketing heaven!
I’m not kidding you. If you love learning about how to do your job better, and are prepared to make time in your business schedule for this continued professional development (CPD), you have at your fingertips all the marketing tools you need.
Here’s another question: Do you think there comes a point when you’ve learned all there is to learn about being a better editor? If you answered no to that, you’re in even better shape from a marketing point of view because you will never run out of ideas to connect with your target client. And here’s another question: Do you think you have no time in your schedule to learn how to become a better editor? If you answered yes, you need to make time. Every editor needs to continue learning. Our business isn’t static. New tools, resources and methods of working are a feature of our business landscape. Language use changes as society’s values shift. Markets expand and retract, which requires a response from us in terms of how we make ourselves visible. If you answered no, that’s great news because it means you have time for marketing. I know – you don’t like marketing. But that’s fine because we’re not calling it marketing. We’re calling it CPD, which you do like!
Making time for business
Everyone who knows me knows I love marketing my editing business. Lucky me – it’s much easier to do something necessary when you enjoy it. What a lot of people don’t get is how I make time for it and how I get myself in the mindset to devote that time to it. I don’t have a problem with calling it marketing. But the truth is that so much of the marketing I do is not about marketing; it’s about communicating what I’ve researched and learned. I love line and copyediting crime fiction. I think I’m really good at it. But I don’t think I’ve learned everything there is to learn. Not for a single minute. That leaves me with stuff to do. I have to learn. So off I go to various national editorial societies’ websites. I head for their training pages. I look for courses that will teach me how to be a better crime-fiction editor. There aren’t any. I turn to Google. Plenty of help for writers, but not specifically for editors. That’s fine. And so here’s what I’ve done: read books about crime writing, and attended workshops, author readings, and crime-writing festivals (I live a stone’s throw away from the National Centre for Writing and the annual Noirwich festival). And I’ve continued to read a ton of crime fiction. And to help me digest what I’ve learned, I’ve taken notes along the way. It’s what I’ve done all my life when I’m learning – O levels (as they were called in my day), A levels, my degree … notes, notes and more notes. How much time has it taken? Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been having too much fun. I love reading; I don’t count the hours I spend doing it. How long did the author event last? I’ve no clue. My husband and I had dinner afterwards though, so it was like a date. And it would have been rude to look at my watch.
Is it a blog post?
I wrote a blog post recently about planning when writing crime. I couldn’t churn out 2,000 words just like that; I’m not the world’s authority on the subject. So I referred to my notes from the event with a famous crime writer (the one where I had a dinner date with hubby). Turns out the guy talked about planning, and told us about his and a fellow crime writer’s approach to the matter. I reread a chapter from a book on how to write crime and found additional insights there. More notes. I read 14 online articles about plotting and pantsing too. Yet more notes. And then I put all those notes together, which really helped me to order my thoughts. I created a draft. Redrafted. Edited it. And sent it to my proofreader. Soon I'll publish it and share it in various online spaces. It’ll be on my blog and on the dedicated crime writing page of my website. Some people might call it content marketing. And it is, sort of, because it helps beginner self-publishers work out when they will attend to the structure of their crime fiction – either before they start writing, or after. From that point of view, it is useful, shareable, problem-solving content, which is a perfectly reasonable definition of content marketing.
Or is it CPD?
But look at it another way. I learned a lot of things I didn’t know before. I can use that knowledge to make me a better editor. I took notes and drafted those notes into an article. This is no different to what I did at least once a week at university. I wasn’t marketing then; I was learning. What is different is that no one but my professor was interested in my article. That’s not the case for my planning piece. That article will help some self-publishers on their writing journey. A few might just decide to hire me to line or copyedit for them. It’s happened before. Maybe it will happen again tomorrow, or next month, or next year. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter – the article will stay on my site for as long as it’s relevant.
Change your language
If the idea of marketing your business leaves you feeling overwhelmed, rethink the language you use to describe what’s required. You probably don’t consider attending an editorial conference a marketing activity, even though it might lead to referrals. It’s more likely you think of it as a business development and networking opportunity. You probably don’t consider a training course to be marketing. It’s more likely you think of it as editorial education. You probably don’t consider reading a book about the craft of writing to be marketing. It’s more likely you consider it knowledge acquisition. So how about this?
Training, embedding knowledge, writing essays, publishing research, sharing subject knowledge. Smashing stuff. Nicely done. And between you and me, it’s great content marketing too. But, shh, let’s keep that quiet. I know you don’t like marketing. Make your marketing about your editing If you don’t like marketing, maybe that’s because the kind of marketing you’re doing isn’t likeable. In that case, think about what you do like about running your business, and make those things the pivot for your marketing. [Click to tweet] In other words, it doesn’t need to be about choosing between marketing your editing business and learning to be a better editor, but about the former being a consequence of the latter. Two birds. One stone. Me? I’m off to read the latest Poirot. Just for fun, mind you!
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Are you using free indirect speech in your writing? This article provides an overview of what it is and how it can spice up crime fiction.
What is free indirect speech?
In a nutshell, free indirect speech offers the essence of first-person dialogue or thought but through a third-person viewpoint. The character’s voice takes the lead, but without the clutter of speech marks, speech tags, italic, or other devices to indicate who’s thinking or saying what. It’s a useful tool to have in your sentence-level toolbox because:
The table below shows three contrasting third-person narrative styles in action so you can see how free indirect speech works:
It’s also referred to as free indirect style and free indirect discourse.
1. Flexibility and interest Free indirect speech (FIS) is flexible because it can be blended seamlessly with other third-person narrative styles. Let’s say you want to convey information about a character’s physical description, their experiences, and their thoughts – what they think and delivered in the way they’d say it. You could use third-person objective for the description, third-person limited for the experience, and free indirect speech for some of the thought processes. In other words, you have a single narrative viewpoint but styled in different ways. You’re not changing the viewpoint, but rather shifting the distance between the reader and the character. And that can make your prose more interesting. Here’s an example from Val McDermid’s Insidious Intent (p. 14). She begins with a more distant third-person narrator who reports what had been on Elinor Blessing’s mind, and when. Then she shifts to free indirect speech (the bold text). This gives us temporary access to Blessing’s innermost thoughts – her irritation – and her lightly sweary tone, but still in the third-person:
Philip Prowse employs a similar shift in Hellyer’s Trip (p. 194): 2. A leaner narrative FIS is a useful tool when you want to declutter. Direct speech and thoughts are often tagged so that the reader knows who’s speaking/thinking:
With regard to thoughts, there’s nothing wrong with a reader being told that a character thought this or wondered that, but tagging can be interruptive and render your prose overworked and laboured if that’s the only device you use. Imagine your viewpoint character’s in a tight spot – a fight scene with an arch enemy. The pace of the action is lightning quick and you want that to be reflected in how your viewpoint character experiences the scene. FIS enables you to ditch the tags, focus on what’s going on in the character’s head, and maintain a cracking pace. The opening chapter of Stephen Lloyd Jones’s The Silenced contains numerous examples of free indirect speech dotted about. Mallory is being hunted by the bad guys. She’s already disarmed one in a violent confrontation and fears more are on the way. Jones keeps the tension high by splintering descriptions of step-by-step action with free-indirect-styled insights into his protagonist’s deepest thought processes as, ridden with terror, she tries to find a way out of her predicament:
Here’s an excerpt from Lee Child’s The Hard Way (p. 64). Child doesn’t use FIS to close the narrative distance. Instead, he opts to shift into first-person thoughts. Reacher is wondering if he’s been made, and whether it matters:
Some might argue that this is a little clunkier than going down the FIS route, but perhaps he wanted to retain a sense of Reacher’s clinical, military-style dissection of the problem in hand. If Child had elected to use FIS, it might have looked like this: Had they seen him? Of course they had. Close to certainty. The mugger saw him – that’s for damn sure. And those other guys were smarter than any mugger. [...] But had they been worried? No, they’d seen a professional opportunity. That’s all. It’s a good reminder that choice of narrative style isn’t about right or wrong but about intention – what works for your writing and your character in a particular situation. 3. Deeper insight into characters A third-person narrator is the bridge between the character and the reader. As such, it has its own voice. If there’s more than one viewpoint character in your novel, we can learn what we need to know via a narrator but the voice will not be the same as when the characters are speaking in the first person. FIS allows the reader to stay in third-person but access a character’s intimate world view and their voice. It closes the distance between the reader and the character because the bridging narrator is pushed to the side, but only temporarily. That temporary pushing-aside means the writer isn’t bound to the character’s voice, state of mind and internal processing. When the narrator takes up its role once more, the reader takes a step back. Furthermore, there might be times when we need to hear that character’s voice but the spoken word would seem unnatural:
FIS therefore allows a character to speak without speech – a silent voice, if you like. Think about transgressor narratives in particular. If you want to give your readers intimate insights into a perpetrator’s pathology and motivations, but are writing in the third-person, FIS could be just the ticket. Here’s an example from Harlan Coben’s Stay Close (chapter 25). Ken and his partner Barbie are a murderous couple bound together by sadism and psychopathy. Ken is preparing for the capture and torture of a police officer whom he believes is a threat:
This excerpt is from an audiobook. While listening, I could hear how the voice artist, Nick Landrum, used pitch to shift narrative distance. The book’s entire narrative is in the third-person, but Landrum used a higher pitch when presenting the narrator voice. Ken’s dialogue, however, is in a lower pitch, and so is the free indirect speech of this character – we get to hear the essence of Ken even when he’s not speaking out loud. If you’re considering turning your novel into an audiobook, FIS could enrich the emotionality of the telling, and the connection with your listener. A closer look at narrative distance To decide whether to play with free indirect speech, consider narrative distance and the impact it can have on a scene. Look at these short paragraphs, all of which convey the same information. All are grammatically correct but the reader’s experience is different because of the way in which the information is given, and by whom.
Your choice will depend on your intention. Think about your character, their personality, the situation they’re in, which emotions they’re experiencing, and the degree to which you want your reader to intimately connect with them.
Consider the following examples in relation to the table above:
Wrapping up FIS is used across genres, but I think it’s a particularly effective tool in crime writing because of its ability to simultaneously embrace brevity and communicate intimacy. Jon Gingerich sums up as follows: ‘Free Indirect Discourse takes advantage of the biggest asset a first-person P.O.V. has (access) and combines it with the single best benefit of a third-person narrative (reliability). It allows the narrator to dig deep into a character’s thoughts and emotions without being permanently tied to that person’s P.O.V. Done correctly, it can offer the best of both worlds.’ If you haven’t yet played with it, give it a go, especially if you’re looking for ways to trim the fat. Further reading
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
This article shows you what it might cost to get your novel line edited, copyedited or proofread. However, the short answer is: it depends ...
This post headlined in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #94
I’ll look at each of these points in turn, then offer you some ideas of what you can do to reduce the financial hit.
First of all though, a quick word on whether you should bother and, if you do, what type of service you should invest in. Do you have to work with a professional editor? Not at all – it’s your choice. That’s one of the biggest benefits of self-publishing. You get to stay in control and decide where to invest your book budget. However, I absolutely recommend that your book is edited ... by you at the very least, but ideally by a fresh set of eyes, and even more ideally by a set of eyes belonging to someone who knows what to look out for. And the reason for that recommendation is because 99.99% of the time, editing will make a book better. We can all dream about first-draft perfection, but it’s pie in the sky for most, even those who edit for a living. I’m a professional line editor, copyeditor and proofreader, and today I wrote a guest blog post for a writer. I wrote, and then I edited ... first for content, then for flow, then for errors. I found problems with each pass. That’s not because I can’t write. It’s not because I can’t string a sentence together. It’s not because I didn’t edit properly in the first round. The reason I found problems is because writing is one process – editing is another:
And the different types of editing attend to different kinds of problems and have different outcomes. Trying to do everything at once is like trying to mix a cake, bake it, ice it, eat it, and sweep up the crumbs all at the same time. Breaking down the writing and editing processes into stages is a lot less messy, and the quality of outcomes is much higher. Still, that has a cost to it, and it’s a cost that the self-publisher will have to bear because there’s no big-name press to bear the burden for them.
Cost of editing: the individual editor
The independent editing market is global and diverse. Editors specialize in carrying out different types of editing. Some specialize by subject or genre. They have different business models and varied costs of living. And that means that despite what you might read in this or that survey, there is no single, universal rate. Neither is there a universal way of offering that rate:
My preference is to charge on a per-word basis, subject to seeing a sample of the novel. Because economies of scale come into play with longer projects, my per-word prices decrease as the project length increases. For example, in 2020, I charge 7.5 pence per word for a 1,000-word sample edit, but the fee is 20% cheaper if I'm line editing a 5,000-word story and 50–60% cheaper if I'm dealing with an 80,000-word novel. And so it depends on the parameters of the project. Some editors charge more than me, some less, and some the same. My colleagues live all over the world, and fluctuations in the currency-exchange markets mean that comparisons will yield different results from day to day.
Cost of editing: industry surveys and reports
Some professional organizations suggest or report minimum hourly rates for the various levels of editing. They’re ballparks, nothing more, for reasons outlined below the table (fees correct as of July 2019).
ARE THESE RATES REALISTIC?
Do these figures bear any relation to what individual editors charge? Sometimes but not always. Most organizations recognize that these reported prices don’t always reflect market conditions, and they’re right to do so. Many editors and proofreaders, myself included, aim for rates at least 30% higher. Why? Because that’s what it takes for our businesses to be profitable. Editing and proofreading aren’t activities we do in our spare time. They're not side hustles. They’re careers that enable us to pay the bills. If we can’t meet our living costs, we become insolvent, just like any other business owner. The problem with these ballparks is that they don’t reflect the speed at which an individual works, the complexity of each job, the time frame requested, or the editor’s circumstances. An additional problem is that how these organizations define ‘proofreading’, ‘copyediting’ etc. might not reflect an author’s understanding of what the service involves, or what an editor has elected to include. And then there’s the age-old issue of currency-exchange rates. What might seem a high rate to you one day could turn into something quite different the next, and not because the editor’s or the author’s life has changed, but because of Trump, or the Bank of England, or a hung parliament here, or a banking crisis there. Bear in mind that independent editors are professional business owners, and just like any other business owner they are responsible for tax, insurance, sick pay, holiday pay, maternity/paternity entitlements, training and continued professional development, equipment, accounting, promotion, travelling expenses, pension provision, and other business overheads.
Cost of editing: turnaround time
The table below gives you a rough idea of the speed at which an editor can work. Again, we’re dealing with ballpark ranges because the true speed will depend on the complexity of the project and how many hours a day the editor works.
Experienced editors have years’ worth of data that enables them to review a sample of a novel and estimate how long a project will take based on the level of editing requested.
The figures in the table above represent a working day of around 5 hours of actual editing. Additional time will be spent on business administration, marketing and training. Here’s how costs might begin to creep up. Imagine you ask your editor to copyedit your 80K-word novel. The editor estimates the job will take 50 hours, or two weeks. You need it in one. If you want to work with that editor, they’re going to have to work 10 hours a day, not 5. That means they have to pull 5 evenings on the trot in addition to their standard working day. That evening work is when they spend time with their families, recharge their batteries, catch up with friends, support their dependents, carry out the weekly food shop, help their kids with the homework ... normal stuff that lots of people do. If you want them to work during that time, it’s probably going to cost you more. For example, I charge triple my standard rate because my personal time is valuable to me – and to my child, who will need bribing!
Cost of editing: the complexity of the project
The more the editor has to do, the longer the job will take and the higher the cost. Some authors might not be aware of the different levels of editing and what each comprises. And editors don’t help – we define our services variously too! For that reason, sometimes it makes sense to move away from the tangled terminology and focus on what each project needs to move it forward. An author might ask for a ‘proofread’ but the editor’s evaluation of the sample could indicate that a deeper level of intervention will be needed ... something more than a prepublication tidy-up. I’ve copyedited novels whose authors had nailed narrative point of view at developmental editing stage, so I didn’t have to fix the problem. I’ve also copyedited novels in which POV had become confused. The sample-chapter evaluation highlighted the problem, and I had to adjust my fee to account for the additional complexity.
How to reduce your editing costs
So, there we have it – 1,300 words that tell you not what editing and proofreading will cost, but what they might cost, depending on this, that, and everything else! Here are some ideas for how to reduce your costs. GENERAL MONEY-SAVING TIPS
SAVING MONEY ON DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING Hone your story craft by reading books, taking writing courses, and joining writing groups through which you’ll be able to access fellow scribes! You can critique each other’s work and help each other with self-editing. I recommend these books:
Rather than commissioning a full developmental edit, you could pay for a critique or manuscript evaluation, or a mini edit. Those will help you to identify what works and what doesn’t so that you can make the adjustments yourself. SAVING MONEY ON LINE EDITING Hone your sentence-level mastery, again through books, courses and groups. Some editors offer mini line edits for this stage of editing too. Here, the editor offers a line-by-line edit on several chapters and creates a report on the sentence-level problems with the text with recommendations for fixing them. The author can then refer to the mini line edit and mimic the sentence smoothing and tightening. This kind of service is particularly useful for beginner authors who already know they’re prone to overwriting. And I have a book you might find useful:
SAVING MONEY ON COPYEDITING Learn how to use Word’s amazing onboard functionality, and macros and add-ins that flag up potential errors and inconsistencies. Here are some tools you can use:
SAVING MONEY ON PROOFREADING If you’re working on designed page proofs, there are a series of checks you can take your novel through.
That’s it! I hope this article has given you a sense of what you might have to spend, and how you might be able to save during the editing process.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
If you're suffering from yet another dry spell, this webinar will help you get editing and proofreading work in the next few days and weeks.
I'll show you 10 steps you can take to move out of famine mode quickly.
Forget theory. This is all about doing ... step-by-step guidance on short-term fixes that will give you peace of mind in the now, and head space to dig deeper in the future.
Click on the button below to find out more.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
PerfectIt is the premier consistency-checking software for many professional editors and proofreaders around the world. Developer Daniel Heuman and I sat down for a chat about what's new!
So Daniel was in New York, and I was in a tiny hamlet in Norfolk called Panxworth. Despite the 6,000 miles between us, the construction works going on outside his apartment, and the internet-connection problems in my somewhat rural neck of the woods, we managed to produce a video of our chinwag!
For those of you who want to jump to specific parts of the conversation, here are the key themes and associated time stamps: ▶️ Louise introduces Daniel Heuman, developer of PerfectIt: 00:00:00 ▶️ What PerfectIt does and why it’s useful: 00:00:24 ▶️ PerfectIt Cloud – the new solution for Mac users: 00:04:08 ▶️ Windows users: Should we buy PerfectIt Cloud?: 00:06:12 ▶️ The subscription model and a new lower price: 00:09:27 ▶️ The benefits of up-to-date editing kit: Stability and support: 00:12:27 ▶️ PerfectIt and Office 2016: 00:14:54 ▶️ PerfectIt 4: Online, in the cloud, or both? 00:18:35 ▶️ Features of PerfectIt 4: 00:20:24 ▶️ Sign-off: 00:25:44 And below is the conversation in full. Click on the Play button to begin listening. I've included subtitles in case you need to turn the sound off or can't understand our British accents! There's a full transcript below. I've edited this for readability but essentially it's the words as they were spoken on the day. THE VIDEO THE FULL TRANSCRIPT Louise introduces Daniel Heuman LH: My name is Louise Harnby and I’m a fiction editor, and today I’m going to be talking to the founder of Intelligent Editing and the developer of a piece of software beloved by many editors all over the world. And that’s PerfectIt. Before Daniel and I start chatting about all the PerfectIt news, Daniel’s going to tell us a little bit about what PerfectIt does, because some of you might not know. So over to you Daniel! What PerfectIt does and why it’s useful DH: Thank you! It’s lovely to speak to you! This is very exciting. I don’t know that they’ve ever done a video interview like this before so thank you! OK. PerfectIt – for the people who have not come across it before (which is probably exactly who won’t be watching this, but hopefully they are!) LH: You never know! DH: You never know! Exactly! So PerfectIt is mostly consistency-checking software, and the key place where it comes in is that when you’re editing work it’s almost always under, you know, time pressure, and with a pressure to produce perfect work. It’s ultimately dealing with the fact that everything is going to be on a budget. So given a limited time, what is the best document you can produce? And PerfectIt really fits in there. It saves time; it helps you edit faster. And the way I was trying to explain it the other day was at the ACES conference. I have new way of explaining it ... I thought a little bit about what gets people into editing. And I think that without delving into the deep psychology of what makes anyone an editor, I think one of the things that does not drive people is the difference between tiny consistency mistakes. So, yes, it’s fun sometimes when you spot ‘e-mail’ with a hyphen in one place and not in another but mostly that’s not what’s driving people. People get into editing because you care about words, you like reading, you care about communication, you want to explain stories, you want to help people connect better with readers. And these little tiny mistakes that take so much time to spot are not the reason. They are a distraction. They’re significant because they jump out at readers but they’re not the reason why we get into this. And they’re certainly not the reason why one should be spending a lot of time on a document. LH: And you’re so right because they take so long to deal with. I’ve had manuscripts before where, actually, particularly if an author’s got a budget, people like me are spending perhaps hours and hours and hours when we’re using just our eyes, dealing with these tiny inconsistencies, which as you say are red flags. And, yet, actually what we want to do is immerse ourselves in the narrative in front of us and to make it better. And the more time we can spend focusing on the flow of the words ... because every time you come across a hyphen that’s inconsistent, or inconsistent capitalization, as an editor, you’re dragged out of the flow of the work as well. And so being able to do that, to save time by having a piece of software like PerfectIt to do that for you is just wonderful. And you still get the pleasure of knowing that you’re bringing this consistency to the work. But it is back-breaking doing that manually. I think that’s the thing that a lot of editors feel. It’s just back-breaking work. And I would rather an author paid me to do other things with my time. I want them to feel that I’m going to do those things but I don’t want to have to spend more time than necessary doing it, and that’s where your software comes in. DH: Absolutely, and we put on the homepage something like: you spend the time on what matters most, which is your words and their meaning. LH: Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly it. PerfectIt Cloud – the solution for Mac user LH: So, Daniel, in the past, PerfectIt’s only been available to Windows users. Well, that’s not quite true. I do have Mac-using friends who have been able to use PerfectIt but they have to be running something like Parallels, or I think it’s called VM Fusion Ware or something. Or they’ve had to go buy a cheap Windows laptop. So I suppose that’s the thing that everybody’s talking about. Like, what’s new for Mac users? DH: That is the news! So first off, it’s been touching and amazing, the extent to which people have been going to use PerfectIt. Like you say, they’ve been installing Parallels. People have been buying computers to run this program, which is touching. I know that buying another computer doesn’t cost as much as it used to but, still. But for Mac users who hate Windows and just run it for one program has been phenomenal to see. But yes, no longer! So we are producing PerfectIt Cloud, which is ... you’re going to have to forgive ... in the background you can probably hear the construction noise! I’ll do my best to speak over it. So we’re producing PerfectIt Cloud, which is an Office Store add-in. And the great thing about Office Store add-ins is that they are compatible in any version of Office 2016. So if you are on a Mac, if you’re on a PC, if you’re on an iPad, even in Word Online (which I don’t know that anyone actually uses), no matter which version you’re on, you see the same add-in. So the functionality is exactly the same across. And we’ve been developing this for ... I mean, you know, the amount of times people have heard me saying, ‘A Mac version is coming soon. It’s just a few months. It’s just a few months.’ But, no, as of 26 June we will have PerfectIt Cloud, which brings compatibility to Mac and to iPad for the very first time. So it’s really exciting! Windows users: Should we buy PerfectIt Cloud? LH: So what about Windows users? I have PerfectIt 3. I’ve had all the versions since it first launched. I work on a PC. Should I rush out and get PerfectIt Cloud? DH: In a word, no. So the introduction of PerfectIt Cloud is primarily for Mac and iPad users at this stage. So if you’re using PerfectIt 3, if you’ve got a Windows PC, that’s still going to be the best version that we offer. And it’s going to be strange because PerfectIt Cloud looks so much better! The interface is even easier than it was before. It’s a beautiful product, but underneath there are a few things that PerfectIt 3 can do that we haven’t been able to do for Cloud yet. So the most important one of those is customization of styles. That’s still going to take some time to bring into PerfectIt Cloud. The ability to check footnotes – we’re going to be dependent on Microsoft for them to make some changes before we can bring that in. So if you have PerfectIt 3, if you have a PC, in most cases the thing to do is not to rush out, and not to buy this at least until we produce a new version for the PC, which will be PerfectIt 4. There’s one exception, which is, you know, all those people who ... the ones, the amazing wonderful users that you’ve described who have gone and bought VMware, and Parallels, and even separate computers. A bunch of those users are really frustrated with having to turn them on every time, and going through Windows updates, which take forever. And just to get PerfectIt up and running takes two hours. And it’s saving them a lot of time so they do it, but if you’re one of those people who has both a PC and a Mac, in those cases, yes, you would. Not all the options are included but it’s close enough that you may not want to be uploading and updating your Windows computer each time just to run PerfectIt. LH: Yeah, and I suppose also for people perhaps who are, I don’t know ... I was thinking about the increasing number of editors who are location-independent. And, actually, maybe they don’t always have the latest ... you know, they’re don't want to be worried if their computers break ... and the idea perhaps of just knowing that it doesn’t matter which PC you’re on, or which Mac you’re on, that if you’ve got something, a machine in front of you, you can do your work and you can access the core functionality of PerfectIt wherever you are. And that’s an important thing, I guess. I mean, I’m not location- independent. I am very much dependent! I’m in Norfolk with a rubbish broadband speed and so I’m kind of quite keen to keep things offline and local when I can. But knowing that I’ve got the choice – that will be a big issue for me. The subscription model and a new lower price LH: Can we talk about price now? Because in the past, once every two or three years, you bring out a new version, and I’ve paid you, I don’t know, $90? I can’t remember the price off the top of my head. So that’s the way it’s worked. But you’re doing things slightly differently now, aren’t you? DH: Yes. So we are switching to a subscription ... sort of a subscription. And I know the minute I use that word people are turning off this video, don’t want to know anything more. because everyone is sick to death of subscriptions with, you know, Netflix and Amazon, and, oh my God, you can get a subscription for your vegetable delivery now, which is bonkers! But I think what we’re doing is really different to that. We switched to a once-a-year payment. At this point at least, there’s no handover-your-credit- card or anything like that. You pay each year if you want to continue using it. And switching to that kind of model means we can drop the price by a lot. So instead of being a $99 one-off purchase, we’ve made it $70 per year. And on top of that, we’ve really dropped the price for, you know, independent editors. So we’ve worked with as many of the editing societies around the world as we can – certainly all the big ones – to have a kind of a discount. And that’s going to be an additional 30%, so the price is going to be just $49 per year for independent editors who are, you know, a member of any of the big editing societies anywhere in the world. So subscriptions mean we can get down the price down a lot, and they mean we can create a really compelling, simple offer, which is that you will buy PerfectIt and then you will get any version you want on any number of devices you want, and not pay a separate charge, which I think is really what bothers a lot of people. So you buy PerfectIt and you can install the PC version on your PC, you can install the Cloud version on your iPad. You only pay once for that and you don’t get stuck with that additional charge you described, which was the upgrade charge. So, yes, we used to have a one-off price but people liked this product and much more than 60% of people paid the upgrade price anyway. So, really, there was a hidden recurring element. And by switching to ... we can call it a subscription, we’ve made everything included in that price very transparent. And you get all the upgrades, you get all the updates, you get support. So I think the way we’ve switched the pricing is really gonna be attractive, and especially attractive for independent editors. The benefits of up-to-date editing kit: Stability and support LH: I think it’s wonderful because, I mean, I’m a big fan of the subscription model, even with things like Microsoft Office, because I’m a professional, I want the latest software, and I want it to work in an environment that’s stable as well. And so I like having the most up-to-date version of Word. I had a situation a few years back when I first plonked a download of Windows 10 on my Windows 8, or Windows 7 computer or something, and I was trying to get PerfectIt to operate in an environment basically with two operating systems, and guess what? It wasn’t happy. And so at that point ... because PerfectIt was key to my editorial day-to-day working, it was one of the things that triggered me to actually think, ‘You know what? You need to get yourself an up-to-date computer with the latest operating system already installed, so it's not fighting with anything else.’ And to know now that I’m always going to be running the latest edition of Word on the latest operating system and that the plugins that fit into that software, like PerfectIt, are going to be the latest editions too ... for me, that’s just one less worry. It means that I can get on doing the business of editing rather than thinking, ‘I want to be able to do X, Y or Z but I can’t because it’s broken.’ And so I’m really excited about this because, as you say, it’s upfront, it’s clear, everybody knows what they’re gonna pay and what they’re getting. And you mentioned something there as well, and that was the issue of support. Because in days past, it was the case that if you decided to stick with an older version of PerfectIt you wouldn’t have access to you. And sometimes, you know when you get stuck on things, you just want to be able to ask the person who actually really knows the answer. It’s not guesswork. And knowing that that’s always going to be ... you get the full package. So I’m really excited about it. I think it’s a really good deal. I think the price is a steal as well. And for those of us who are members of professional societies, what a perk of membership to know that you can get one of your core pieces of editing software at such a huge discount! Thank you! DH: Yeah, those societies and the editors within them are absolutely the reason why we are where we are today. That’s been the core of this business so now I absolutely think that it’s important to support them. PerfectIt and Office 2016 DH: And I agree with you completely about thinking about Office and updates that way. I know that a lot of editors have been disappointed when we’ve said that PerfectIt Cloud is only gonna work in Office 2016. And they said, ‘Well, I’m never moving to Office 2016 because I’ve heard all these terrible things about it.’ And I just wonder every time I hear that ... I think, I know those stories are true – when you have a piece of software like Microsoft that is installed everywhere then you always are going to have some things that don’t work and that are gonna get on Facebook. And they’re gonna look to seek help. And they’re always going to be the ones who have some kind of problem. You never get someone who installs the latest version of Microsoft and says, ‘Yep, that worked’ and tells all their friends. So our perception of these versions has been really sort of distorted by, I think, the relatively lower number of people who have had problems in perspective to the total, in relation to total. And as you say, when you actually look at the package and what Microsoft are offering, I think it’s really good. And I’m fortunate that I’ve never had any sort of problems with it. I’ve used Word on the iPad, I use Word on the PC. I think they’ve done a really good job of making those two similar and in line. In the past, there’s been big differences between those things. You know, I was able to switch as a long-time PC-user to the iPad version. I had no trouble doing that. And they do it at a low monthly price. And what I’ve sort of been saying to anyone who’s asked about it is something like, yes, there are some users who’ve had problems, and there have doubtless been lots of glitches, and there always are with endless Microsoft updates, but what about trying it for one month? They offer a monthly price. And see if it works for you. And you’ve got your old version and you can always go back, but those old versions, they’re at this point ... you know, Microsoft has stopped supporting Office 2011 anyway, so we’re out of that period really. Yeah, I think I think as you say, the package they’re offering is very good, and especially the kind of value in the monthly offer. It makes a lot of sense. LH: Yeah, and I think the other thing to mention is that, you know, I think sometimes there are people in, well, not just the editing community but all sorts of communities who are trying to run say 2016, or with all the updates, 2018 software but on decade-old computers. And that’s a bit like taking your mobile phone to medieval times and complaining you haven’t got signal! You know, we need as editors to be, I think, working with the latest equipment. Within a budget, of course. Most of us aren’t rich. But I always think, get the best RAM you can ... get the best processor you can for your money. And then things like PerfectIt, within Word, within Microsoft Office, will work the best for you. DH: Absolutely! And we all make these mistakes! I’ve been screaming at my printer all morning and pressing over and over again, and wasting so much time trying to get this printer to work. And I know the reason why it doesn’t work – it’s because it’s really old, and would cost next to nothing to replace. But, you know, we’re old enough to remember that these things used to be very expensive, and it’s so difficult to get rid of them. But, actually, you know, when running a business, to spend my morning yelling at a printer is probably not the best use of my time! PerfectIt 4: Online, in the cloud, or both? LH: So can I just check something with you? Can we talk then about the next version of PerfectIt that will be also usable locally? So we’ve got PerfectIt Cloud but there’ll come a point I’m assuming when there’ll be the next version, like PerfectIt 4 that will be in the cloud. Will that also be something that someone like me who’s got a little bit of an iffy broadband connection can, if they want to, download to their computer? DH: Oh, so we are NOT moving to the cloud in any way, shape or form. We’re doing very much that kind of approach that Microsoft has gone for where you pay once and you have different parallel versions for different devices. We are not switching to the cloud. There will always be a local version. As I said earlier, it’s still kind of the best version for a number of reasons. And so at the moment, if you get a subscription, you will get PerfectIt 3 and PerfectIt Cloud, and as of the end of this year you’ll get PerfectIt 4 and PerfectIt Cloud. And we’ll keep the two in parallel so that they’re running off ultimately the same code, so that you’ll get the update for PerfectIt 4 locally, and at the same time, almost at the same time, we will update PerfectIt Cloud automatically, and they’ll offer the same checking. LH: OK, great, that’s good. I just wanted to be sure of that because ... just because my broadband is a bit of a nightmare here! DH: No, no, I don’t think we communicated that properly in our in our literature so it’s a really good question to ask. I’m sure a lot of people will be concerned about that. Features of PerfectIt 4 LH: So can we talk about ... do you have any specific plans for what will be new with PerfectIt 4 yet, or can we suggest things? DH: Well, obviously, I’m going to dodge that question because the trouble with that question is that if I start saying we’ve got plans for PerfectIt 4, that we’re working on ... I suspect if I start saying the things that I’m working on, the disappointment that will follow when we say we’ve failed ... [laughing]. But I like the idea of suggestions. As I said, this business has very much been built by support from editors, and feedback from editors. So if we wind the clock like all the way back to the first time that I was at SfEP conference, I remember someone mentioning en dashes and and why they could be in the hyphenation-consistency check. And let’s let’s be honest, at that point, which was been ten years ago or so, I didn’t understand the significance of that. Why would we need to be looking for en dashes and hyphenation? What’s the point? And actually it was that feedback which we then took on. And it got quite a few people explaining and saying, well, actually, this is the error that we’re looking for. This is what comes up. It’s really difficult to spot because of this. Is there anything you can do? And I think it was in PerfectIt 2 but certainly in PerfectIt 3. And we’ve built in an en dash versus spaced-hyphen consistency check. LH: And em dashes too. DH: Yes, the way we do the checking for those is a little different but, yeah, it ultimately came down to the same reason, which is editors suggesting that these were the things that they wanted to see. And I’d love to get those suggestions for PerfectIt 4. So, particularly ... LH: I’m thinking legal and medical might be obvious. DH: Yes, legal. I’ve got a long, long list of changes that we want to make for legal, but medical, pharmaceutical scientific ... I know we have a lot of editors working in those kinds of fields and I feel like we haven’t done as much for them as we should and could. So I’d love to get suggestions from every kind of editor, but especially those ones would be really good, because we need to do more in that area. LH: And speaking as a fiction editor as well, I think there are certain functions I’m using ... the possibilities are there but there are certainly things I could think of in terms of the similar-word-find function that maybe even we could put forward some suggestions that might help you to push that stuff further forward, and help us to adapt the style sheets more so that we could get more benefits in that field too. And I’ll certainly be thinking if there’s anything else from a fiction point of view that I can push your way. DH: Definitely. You know, we always get a nonfiction writer saying, ‘Can this be used for nonfiction too?’ We get fiction writers saying, ‘Can it be used for fiction?’ And we hadn’t been quite communicated clear enough that, yes, it’s for all of those things. And, yeah, the similar-words function. Lots of people are using that for character names. Can we improve that? Can we make it clearer that that’s a possibility for character names? Can we look and see if there are ways of improving that? And already you have got me talking about features that I swore just two seconds ago I wouldn’t get into! Some of those things people are really gonna be telling me, ‘But you promised, but you promised!’ I will avoid saying more about that but I am excited by that kind of change and by doing things that are specific to different kinds of editing, for sure. LH: I think from my point of view as an editor, and for people who are watching this who haven’t tried PerfectIt yet, knowing that you’re responsive to ways in which you can develop the software is a really important thing to emphasize, because the various iterations that I’ve used over the years have just got better and better. And that means I’ve saved more and more time. And so I want to say to people that when you invest in this software you are working with a company and a business owner who will listen to you, and that's a good thing. DH: Thank you! And my guess is that at this point in the video, between the dogs barking outside and the helicopter going overhead, anyone who is completely new to this software will probably have stopped watching 20 minutes ago! But, yes, anyone with us longer hopefully has experienced that we are ... it’s actually the other way around. It’s editors who’ve helped build this and made all this stuff possible, so we are absolutely listening, and will continue to iterate and improve. If we improve the product for actual editors, everyone else who uses the software benefits. And, you know, we really have the best people in the world advising us, so I think it’s fantastic. Sign-off LH: Daniel, thanks very much! That’s been really, really useful. So I’m excited about ... not just the cloud but also PerfectIt 4 coming out. I’m excited that I’m going to be able to use it on multiple platforms, in different spaces. I’m excited that I’m going to be able to get it cheaper than I did last year! So thanks for taking the time to talk to me. It’s been brilliant. DH: Thank you! And thank you for all the support through all the years. The excitement and enthusiasm is so encouraging after we’ve been telling people, you know, soon, soon just another month, just another couple of months. Now that it’s done, now this here, it’s fantastic! Thank you.
Contact Daniel Heuman: daniel@intelligentediting.com
Visit the PerfectIt website: www.intelligentediting.com Don't forget to check whether there's a discount available via your national editorial society.
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Are you looking for literary representation? My guest Rachel Rowlands has some helpful advice on how to find an agent, what to submit and to whom, and dealing with rejection professionally.
Literary agents hold the golden ticket that will get you into the chocolate factory. If you want to get published traditionally, they’re essential.
Getting an agent is competitive, and it isn’t easy, but if you’re stubbornly passionate about your work and don’t give up, it can be done. I hope my journey and what I’ve learned along the way will inspire you and help you. Buckle up, because it’s a bumpy ride.
Before submitting
The process starts long before you even think about submitting to agents. Write. Abandon projects. Start new projects. Finish projects. Learn about the craft. This can take years. You may even develop a few grey hairs along the way. I’ll rewind a bit and give you an example: I’ve always written stories. I wrote my first ‘novel’ when I was 16. It was about angels of light and darkness and doors to other planets, and it was heavily inspired by Kingdom Hearts, a game I was obsessed with. But I had fun, I loved writing it, and it taught me how to plan and finish something. I wrote three other books before writing the one that led to me signing with an agent – at 27. You need time to develop as a writer, to hone your craft. Your first book most likely won’t be the one that gets you where you need to be. Your second might not either, and that’s okay. No one becomes an expert overnight. Here are some other things that you might want to do before you start hunting for that elusive agent, aside from writing books until your fingers nearly fall off:
Finding and submitting to an agent
Do your research No agent should charge you money – they work on commission. Any agent who wants you to pay upfront is a scammer and you should run far, far away. A great place to hunt for agent details if you’re in the UK is the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. QueryTracker is great, too; it lists agents from all over the world (although some UK-based agents are missing from the database). You can even use it to track your submissions and the replies you receive. Otherwise, I recommend doing your own tracking via, say, a spreadsheet. It doesn’t matter where in the world you’re based in terms of who you submit to – many agents work with foreign co-agents. So, for example, if you’re based in the UK it’s perfectly fine to query both UK and US agents. Follow submission guidelines Every agency has different guidelines – some want you to send a cover/query letter and three chapters. Others might just want an initial query letter. Treat these guidelines as law. Also, be professional in your letter (read Query Shark, a blog on writing query letters, like your life depends on it). Get someone to critique your query letter before it goes out. Don’t make it easy for someone to say no! Don’t send your book to everyone at once Submit to a small batch of agents first, somewhere between 5 and 10. If you get any feedback, rework your manuscript and then send out a new batch. Note, however, that this strategy can be problematic because you won’t always know why an agent rejects a book; it might be purely subjective. Still, you don’t want to exhaust all your options in one go! Try to keep it balanced. Don’t get keyboard-happy and send your book to 200 agents.
After submission
Be in it for the long haul and be prepared for rejection I submitted two manuscripts over the course of two years, racking up a couple of hundred rejections. It wasn’t easy. The first book I queried got standard, copy-and-paste rejections almost across the board (also known as ‘form rejections’), although two agents did ask to read it. One asked me to send it back after doing some revisions, sometimes called an R&R or a revise and resubmit (sadly it doesn’t mean rest and relaxation). I never heard from that agent again, even after several polite nudges. As for the second book I sent out, there was a flurry of interest. Suddenly, lots of people wanted to read my book. But then … the standard rejections started rolling in. I even had an agent ask to meet me when she was halfway through my book. Then she called and rejected me after she’d finished reading. A phone call from an agent is generally a sign that they want to work with you, so that was pretty crushing. Some days, I wanted to quit because it felt easier than carrying on. But in the wise words of J.K. Rowling, ‘It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously you might as well not have lived at all.’ I kept going. Another agent called me up. We talked revisions. I worked on them for six weeks and we bounced ideas back and forth. She really got my book and what I was trying to do, and she loved my edits. After two and a half years of submitting, five manuscripts, and many I’m-going-to-quit-writing-forever threats, I signed the contract. Don’t reply to rejections Really, don't, unless the agent personalized your rejection and mentioned your book/characters specifically. In that case, feel free to send them a quick thank-you note. Never send sassy or scathing replies like, ‘You don’t know what you’re missing out on’ or ‘Your loss, sucker’, even if that’s what you’re thinking. Vent in private. That’s what writer friends/cats/brick walls are for. If an agent sends you a rejection, but invites you to submit future work, do it! They haven’t slammed the door shut, they’ve left a gap for you – and it means they see potential. Keep their name and email address, and when you have a new project ready, send it to them and remind them who you are. All in all, remember that no project is ever wasted. You’ll learn something from every manuscript, and even if you don’t land an agent straight away, you’ll be making connections and putting your name out there. Treat your rejections as badges of honour because they mean that you’re still in the game, and one day you’ll get to the next level. Good luck! More resources
Rachel Rowlands is an independent editor and an author of young adult books. With her editor hat on, she works for a growing list of publisher and author clients on both fiction and trade non-fiction. She has a degree in English and Creative Writing and is represented by Thérèse Coen at Hardman & Swainson. She can be found at www.racheljrowlands.com and on Twitter: @racheljrowlands.
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
If you’re not sure what a first-person narrative point of view is, or how to use it effectively in your fiction writing, this post is for you.
What is narrative point of view?
Point of view (POV) describes whose head we’re in when we read a book ... from whose perspective we discover what’s going on – and the smells, sounds, sights and emotions involved. There can be multiple viewpoints in a book, not all of which have to belong to a single character. And to complicate things, editors’ and authors’ opinions differ as to which approach works best, and what jars and why. POV can be tricky and my aim is to keep the guidance as straightforward as possible, not because I think you should only do it this way or that way, but because most people (myself included) handle complexity best when they start with the foundations and build up and outwards. Why should you bother nailing POV? Pro editors and experienced writers agree on one thing: it’s worth the beginner author’s time to understand POV so that they can make decisions about which to use, where, and why. Consider the following:
Point of view: What are the options?
There are multiple ways in which to narrate a novel. Some are more popular than others, and some easier to master. What you choose will shape not only the story you tell but also your readers’ understanding of it. The options are as follows:
First-person POV First-person narrative POVs are the most intimate, the most immediate, but they’re less flexible. The pronouns used are ‘I’ and ‘we’. The reader is privy to an individual character’s thoughts, emotions and experiences, all told through a distinctive voice. We can only see, hear, smell and feel what the character sees, hears, smells and feels. We are compelled to move through the story knowing only what they know, and at their pace. However, used throughout an entire novel, from on character only, it can be problematic for the following reasons:
Example: Not relying on ‘I’ In To Kill a Mockingbird (p. 5), Harper Lee keeps ‘I’ to a minimum and yet the prose oozes with first person. Note in particular how the voice is rich and distinct, rather than the more neutral tone we’d expect from third-person objective narration.
Because Lee doesn’t append ‘I’ plus a verb to much of the prose, we are given a shown narrative that we can experience rather than being told how the narrator experienced the world being described. Compare it with the ‘I’-heavy made-up example below and consider how the narrator’s told experience keeps the reader at a distance.
I placed my hand on the rusty handle and tugged, but the old oak door refused to give way to me. I heard a rustling sound behind me and turned my head. I spotted movement in the inky shadows and felt the skin on the back of my neck prickle with terror as I realized I wasn’t alone.
Let’s rewrite this with a less invasive first-person narration in which the reader can experience the action as it unfolds. The handle was rusty against my palms as I tugged but the old oak door refused to give. A rustling came from behind and I turned. A shape flitted in the inky shadows and the skin on the back of my neck prickled. I wasn’t alone. Example: Sustaining interest with other interpretations In The Word is Murder (p. 208), author Anthony Horowitz is one of the characters! The viewpoint is first person (his). The author is like a floating camera; we see the protagonist – the detective (Hawthorne) who solves the crime – through Horowitz’s eyes as he accompanies him to interviews with suspects and on visits to crime scenes. The author-character offers his own theories, even pursues his own lines of investigation, and interjects with stories about his life and career. This adds interest but, ultimately, it’s the detective who grounds the crime story, brings reliability to the narrative, and drives the novel forward; it’s through him that we access the procedural elements and the answer to whodunnit. Here’s an excerpt:
Recommendation First-person narratives introduce depth and explain motivations but can be difficult to sustain if not sufficiently interesting and there’s too much told narrative. Watch out for filter words if you think you’re over-telling. Consider whether your whole novel needs to be in first person. Perhaps limiting this approach to specific characters in dedicated chapters would be more effective. If you decide to stick with first person throughout, think about voice and how your viewpoint character (and therefore the reader) will discover the how, when and why of the story at an engaging pace. And, finally, if you’re basing your whole novel in the first person, be cautious about using the present tense throughout. The past might give you more flexibility, particularly if you’re writing action-heavy scenes where, in reality, the character wouldn’t have time to give much thought to the consequences and motivations of their behaviour. Cited sources and related reading
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Have proofreading symbols passed their use-by date? It’s a controversial question, but one that we definitely need to ponder. So, as an unconventional ‘celebration’ of 30 years in publishing, Melanie Thompson is setting out to answer this question – and she needs your help ...
Over to Melanie ...
A few months ago a colleague asked me whether (UK-based) clients want proofreaders to use British Standard proofreading symbols or whether they prefer mark-up using Acrobat tools on PDFs. ‘Good question,’ I replied. ‘I hope to be able to answer that later this year.’ That probably wasn’t the answer they were expecting. The widely different expectations of clients who ask for ‘proofreading’ has been niggling at the back of my mind for a couple of years. What's changed in three decades I have been a practising proofreader for 30 years, I’ve managed teams of editors and proofreaders, and I’ve been a tutor for newcomers to our industry. Yet I still learn something every time I proofread for a new client. It’s several years since I was last asked to use BS symbols for a ‘live’ project,* but I use them a lot on rough draft print-outs – because they’re so concise and … well, let’s face it, to some extent those symbols are like a secret language that only we ‘professionals’ know. I like to keep my hand in. But proofreading is now a global business activity, and ‘proofreading symbols’ differ around the world – which kind of defeats their original objective. And now so many of us work on Word files or PDFs (or slides, or banner ads, or websites or … ) and there are other ways of doing things. This all makes daily work for a freelance proofreader a bit more complicated (or interesting (if challenges float your boat). We might be working for a local business one day and an author in the opposite hemisphere the next. It’s rare, but not unheard of, to receive huge packets of page proofs through the mail and to have to rattle around in the desk drawer to find your long-lost favourite red pen. Usually, however, things tend to arrive by email or through an ftp site or a shared Dropbox folder. Digital workflows
The ‘digital workflow’ is something we’re now all part of, whether we realize it or not. But clients are at different stages in their adoption (or not) of the latest tools and techniques, and that leaves us proofreaders in an interesting position.
We need to be able to adapt our working practices to suit different clients; ideally, seamlessly. For that, we need to understand what the current processes are, and what clients are planning for the future. And that’s where I need your help. A new research project: proofreading2020 I’ve launched a research project, proofreading2020, to investigate proofreading now and where it might be heading.
The study begins with a survey, asking detailed questions about proofreading habits and preferences. Once the results are in, I’ll be conducting follow-up research for case studies and, early in 2019, publishing the results in book form.
You can find out more and complete the survey at proofreading2020. It's open now, and closes on 30 June 2018. Almost 200 proofreaders, project managers and publishers have already completed the survey. Several have contacted me to say it was really useful CPD, because it made them think about how they work and why they do things. So I hope you’ll be willing to set aside a tea-break to fill it in. It takes about 20 minutes to complete, but it’s easy to skip questions that aren’t relevant to you. There are only a handful of questions (at the beginning and end) that are compulsory (just the usual demographics and privacy permissions). Beyond that, the sections cover the following:
Your chance to join in!
Find out more and complete the survey at proofreading2020.
Don't forget, the closing date is 30 June 2018. * If a client does ask for BS symbols, I recommend downloading Louise’s free stamps for use on PDFs – they will save you a lot of time and help you deliver a neat and clear proof.
Melanie Thompson is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and a CIEP tutor.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Running an editing or proofreading business is a journey, not a moment in time. Some of us will be offered work that’s not ideal because of fee, content, client type, time frame, or for some other reason.
Some might tell us it’s a bum job, that we should run a mile. But is it? Should we? Would acceptance be a compromise or an opportunity?
The problem with ‘ideal’
Ideal is something to aim for but rarely what lands in our laps, especially in the start-up phase of a business.
The challenge of visibility Being discoverable is a challenge for many new starters. Ideal projects are out there, but the editor or proofreader isn’t yet visible enough in the relevant spaces. And even if they can be found, they might not yet have enough experience to instil the trust that leads to initial contact. Broadly, it’s easier to get in front of publishers because we know who and where they are. They’re used to being contacted by us, too, so we can go direct and cold. With non-publishers, it’s more difficult. Not every business, charity, school, indie author, or student wants an editor or understands the value we might bring to the table. Going direct and cold is a trickier proposition. The issue of trust It’s not just the mechanics of visibility. Emotion plays a part too, especially trust.
With publishers it’s easier to overcome the trust barrier. They know what they want, what we do, are used to working with us, speak our language, and are experienced in evaluating our competence.
Non-publisher clients are more of a challenge. They might not be familiar with the different levels of editing. Many will not have worked with a professional editor before. Some – for example fiction writers – might be anxious about exposing their writing to someone they don’t know. And for the inexperienced client, evaluating a good fit is more difficult. In the start-up phase of business ownership, editors and proofreaders with less experience might therefore find it easier to acquire work with publishers than with non-publishers. The choices on the business journey So visibility and trust issues mean that new entrants to the field might not have the same breadth of choice as the more mature business owner. It might mean deciding to accept work that isn’t ideal in the shorter term. We could describe this as a compromise, but might it in fact be an opportunity? Does the terminology matter? I believe the terminology does matter because a compromise has negative connotations.
Negatives leave us feeling dissatisfied, that we’ve been ripped off, that we’re not in control. We’re more likely to begrudge the choices we’ve made. Positives are empowering. We’re more likely to see the choices we’ve made as rational and informed. All of this might sound like a mindset game but there’s more to it than that. Decisions to accept work that isn’t ideal have measurable benefits. However, we need a longer-term approach, and that can be tough for the new starter who’s surrounded by colleagues who are booked up months in advance with the work that they want. If that sounds like you, think of your editing business like a garden. The editorial garden What you do this year is not separate from what will happen next year, or the year after, or five years down the road. All the choices you make on your business journey are connected.
The seeds you plant now will grow if you look after them. Give them a little additional feed and they might sprout this season ... if the weather holds and you’re lucky. However, you will not get a tree, not this year, I guarantee it. Trees come later.
If you don’t plant anything, however, nothing will spout, not now, not next year, not five years down the road. You will be treeless. Is planting the seeds a compromise? I don’t think so. It’s the opportunity to grow a tree. Should we begrudge all that work of watering and feeding for just a few green shoots in this season? Again, not to my mind. The effort we make now will bear fruit later. Our businesses are the same. A patch of my editorial garden I thought it might be helpful to share a story about my own business journey. It’s about how I accepted work that was way below my ideal price point, and did so with pleasure, because I believed I’d be able to leverage it later. See these books?
These are some of the books I was commissioned by publishers to proofread a few years ago. I proofread these books for about 13 quid an hour. These days, I aim to earn between £35 and £40 per hour. It doesn’t always work out that way, but I hit my mark in the last financial year when I averaged out my annual project earnings. A few years ago, my aim was around the £30 mark. Those books pictured above earned me less than half what I was aiming for. Did I compromise? Well, it depends how you look at it.
If I believe that each decision I make exists in the bubble of now, and that nothing affects anything else further down the road, then yes, I compromised. If I think that what I’m earning now is despite my decision to accept those proofreading projects, it was a massive compromise.
If, however, I decide that each decision I make can affect my choices down the road, that the walls around those individual decisions are permeable, it’s a different story. If I think that what I’m earning now is because of my decision to accept those proofreading projects, it’s a story of opportunity. Authors make decisions to work with editors based on a whole host of factors, but the first step is deciding to get in touch in the belief that the person they’ve found feels like a good fit. Back to trust To take one example, those of us who edit fiction for self-publishers are asking those authors to put their novels into the hands of complete strangers. Many of those authors have never worked with an independent editor. Some are anxious about the process of being edited. And for some, the editor’s might be only the second pair of eyes to read the text. It’s a big ask that takes courage. And that’s where the trust comes in. The editor who can instil trust quickly is more likely to compel authors to make the leap and hit the contact button. And what better way to instil trust than offer a portfolio of mainstream published books written by big-name authors? And that’s how I leveraged those half-my-ideal-fee books. They tell an anxious indie author that publishers of big-name books trusted me a few years ago. And that helps the author trust me now. Those proofreading projects – and the £13 ph fees that came with them – encourage authors to contact me now, and trust that my £35–£40 ph line/copyediting fee is a worthwhile investment. And I know it’s true because they’ve told me it's so. I didn’t compromise. I planted a seed. Now the tree has grown, and I’m able to harvest the fruit. I had to wait a few years but the decisions I made then affect the choices I have now. And that’s how an editing garden grows. Your choice I’m a great believer in leveraging for future opportunity. It’s not everyone’s bag. It doesn’t fit with every editor or proofreader’s business model. And that’s fine. I offer this not as THE way of thinking, but as one approach. It’s something that those at the beginning of their journey might like to consider if they are still building visibility, but struggling with the age-old rates debate! As independent business owners, we are free to accept or decline fees from price-setting clients as we see fit. We are also free to propose rates that meet our individual needs, regardless of what our colleagues are offering. If you’re offered work, can see the benefit of that work for your portfolio, but can’t stomach the price, decline. But if you wish to accept, even though others tell you the price is ‘too low’ or ‘unfair’, go for it. The hive mind of the international editorial community is there to offer support and to share its wealth of experience, but no one knows your business and your needs better than you! More resources
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Sentence length can affect tension. This post looks at how overwriting can mar the pace of a novel and frustrate a reader, and how less can sometimes be more.
Around eighty per cent of the books that end up in my editing studio are in the crime fiction genre.
One of the most common problems I encounter is overwriting. That’s not because the authors are poor writers. It’s because they’re nervous writers. It takes a lot of hard graft to put enough words on a page to make a book. Yet it takes an equal amount of courage to remove them ... or some of them. ‘What if the reader just doesn’t get it?’ ‘What if they’ve forgotten what I told them above?’ ‘What if I haven’t provided enough detail?’ ‘What if I just love both ways I’ve said that?’ These are the kinds of questions that result in anxious authors bulking up their prose. In a bid to help you trim the fat, I’m going to explore the following:
Trusting your reader The issue is sometimes one of trust – in the author’s own writing and in the reader’s ability to fill in the gaps. Some genres of fiction lend themselves well to more flowery prose that goes off at a tangent for a moment, a little narrative indulgence for the purpose of artistry or even titillation. Crime fiction, however, is all about the page turn. That doesn’t mean that the description isn’t rich, but there is an expectation of forward momentum. Avid readers of the genre love it for the thrill of the ride. Great characterization is key, of course. We want the protagonist to draw us in, the antagonist to pique our curiosity, and the supporting cast to deepen the picture, but ultimately we want to know whodunnit. And that means we want words that help us understand what’s happening, why, where, who’s doing it, whom it’s being done to, why it’s being done, and how it feels. And we only need to be told once. We might need a little clarifying nudge here and there but we’re capable of extracting a lot with less than you might think. Feisty fragments and snappy shorties If you’re trying to evoke tension in your reader, short sentences and fragments can be very effective. Look at the following examples and notice how the authors keep their narratives lean. Here’s an excerpt from Gone Bad by JB Turner:
Turner gives us just enough to set the scene – when, where, who and what – but no more. He trusts us to fill in the gaps.
He might have given a more detailed description of the forest – its sounds and smells. He might have delved deeper into Cain’s emotions, or helped us to picture the backpack by detailing the colour, make, number of pockets and zips, and where the ammo was being held. He could have told us, word for word, how Cain loaded the gun, how careful he was, which bullets he used. But he doesn’t. Turner leaves it to us to imagine the woods, to see in our mind’s eye the loading of the rifle, and to sense the cold hard determination of the shooter. And the backpack gets no more than a passing mention, because to do more would slow the pace and act as a distraction. And the result is just right – Goldilocks would approve. Now consider the choppy fragments in Jens Lapidus’s Life Deluxe:
Lapidus loves the colon more than any other author I’ve come across! It’s a hard piece of punctuation but it works because the characters we’re being introduced to lead hard lives. They’re always looking over their shoulders, thinking in short snaps, weighing up what’s in front of them ... and what might be behind.
Lapidus dares to trust us, dares not bore us. And because of, rather than despite, the short sentences and fragmented prose, reading the scene is an immersive experience for the reader. I recall a sense of taut fatigue as I read this book, like I was right there, ever watchful, on my guard. This author’s deliberate punctuation choices and choppy style mean the word count is reduced but the tension is heightened. He doesn’t pad his narrative with purple prose and stage direction. Like Turner, he trusts us to do the work. Damage by dilution Consider your own writing. Leave your draft alone for a few days. Then return to it and see what happens if you take a more reductive approach to a scene. It's all about balance at the end of the day. Not too much but not too little. Howard Mittelmark & Sandra Newman write:
I’m not suggesting you remove information the reader needs to know, but asking you whether there is material your reader doesn’t need to know, material that might bore them or hold them back.
Neither am I suggesting you avoid creating emotive scenes that are high on tension. Rather, might you build this tension with shorter, tighter sentences that demand your reader do some of the work? And I’m not suggesting you should limit every sentence in your book to five words – not at all. I’m suggesting that you might use this technique when you think it would work, when it would push your reader forward, when fewer words – the right words – would work as well or better than more, especially if you know you tend to overwrite. Letting go of what you love For some authors it’s not about trust, but about not wanting to let go. Perhaps you found two delicious ways to say the same thing and now you can’t bear to cut either. Or you constructed a stunning paragraph but it’s interrupting the conflict or the action. In The Magic of Fiction, veteran editor Beth Hill says:
Hill asks authors to grab ‘the liberty to cut words as freely as you added them’ and then to enrich what’s left.
It’s tricky for some beginner writers, I know, but repetition and interruption mean there are redundant words in your writing. And to make your novel sparkle, you need to let go of them because they’re not adding something new, they’re not in the right place, or they’re in the way. Take courage. Try it with and without. You might be surprised.
Cited works and further reading
If you'd like to access more tips and resources for self-publishers, visit the Self-publishers page on my website. Try these in particular:
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
If speaking in public gives you the heebie-jeebies, professional presenter Simon Raybould has some advice that will improve your performance and calm your nerves.
Over to Simon …
You edit words for a living, right? It’s a cool job, I admit, and not one I could conceivably aspire to.
As someone once put it, 'Simon, being your proofreader must be like being Seán McGowan’s dentist.’ And yes, it’s true. She once sent me an email with the words ‘… first paragraph alone! Are you doing it on purpose? Are you trying to annoy me?’ But I think I have an even more cool option for you. Instead of editing words, why not edit minds? I’m not talking about some sci-fi concept – it’s what I do for a living. A good presentation will change someone’s mind ... and with it, their world. A good presentation is a form of telepathy – sending ideas from your mind to someone else’s. The upsides are awesome, but the downsides are pretty serious too:
But all is not lost – there are cures … or at least things that will help. Here are a few quick-to-master ideas and tools that will help you to present at conferences (or anywhere else) with confidence. Some are easy, some are harder, but all of them work.
1. The least popular tool – just doing it
Let’s start with the least popular option. When I ask people why they want to be confident, I often receive answers such as ‘If I were confident I’d be able to XYZ.’ And that’s great – they have a specific thing in mind. What’s not so great is that they seem to think that confidence alone will mean they don’t have to invest time in doing XYZ. I’m going to be blunt … you can’t shortcut your way to confidence. Don’t try to get confident before you do something. You can only get confident by doing that thing. Think about how you learned to ride a bike. Did you look at it, thinking, Cool! What an awesome bike. As soon as I’m a confident cyclist I’ll hop right on and go for rides in the hills? Nope. What you did was sit on it, fall off, get back on, fall off, get back on … and so on. Presenting is like that. Of course, with bikes you have stabilizers (and parents) holding you up. Stick with the analogy for a moment and figure out how you can make presentations in safer ways and places – stabilizers, as it were. How about making presentations under the following conditions:
I’m sure you get the idea. To mix my movement metaphors … don’t run before you can walk.
2. Know what success looks like
We all know what could go wrong, right? People might laugh at us; we could fall off the stage; cold sweat might drip down our backs or melt our mascara. And that’s the thing… we know what the bad things look like. But what about success? Not fainting on stage doesn’t count. Things like this count:
Define it. After all, if all you can identify is failure, that’s what you’ll concentrate on. But if you can define success, you stand a chance of concentrating on that instead. (Defining success also helps you to design your conference presentation more effectively. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, you’re more likely to omit core material.)
3. Sentence zero ... the breathing tool
When we’re scared, we breathe from the top of our lungs. Air comes out in a rush, making our voices sound thinner, breathier and – frankly – less authoritative. Hold that thought in your head for a moment and think about this: Lots of people tell me that once they get going in a presentation, things get better. So the important thing is to start well, right? Right. If you can control your breathing at the start, things are going to go better. Sentence zero is a handy tool for doing just that. Get the very first sentence of your presentation straight in your head. Be specific. For now, let’s pretend that Sentence One is ‘Hello, my name is Simon.’ Now think of a sentence that could go before it, finishing with the word ‘and’. For now, let’s pretend it’s 'Goodness, what a hideous lime green that back wall is, and …' We’ll call this Sentence Zero. Now, as you start your presentation, say Sentence Zero+Sentence One in one breath, but only use your voice for Sentence One. What that means is that your audience only hears Sentence One but you’ve already used the high-pressure, anxiety-sounding breath from the top of your lungs on the silent Sentence Zero.
4. Ditch the script
Writing is difficult. That’s why authors need you, right? So what on earth makes you think you can write a script for your presentation? If it was that easy, we’d all be writing massively successful West End and Broadway plays. Don’t try. Instead, define your structure.
Then, when you stand up to present, use the keywords as markers around which you improvise. Trust me, you’ll sound more natural and be much, much more interesting. Plus, you won’t spend time worrying about the massive confidence-drainer that is 'Did I get the wording absolutely right according to the script?' As an aside, the answer is no. No one does unless they’re RSC-grade actors. What you’ll lose in the occasional fumble you’ll more than gain in sounding more relaxed and natural. Plus, you won’t commit the ultimate presenter’s sin of using Latin words. It’s an over-simplification but we’re more likely write using the Latin-orientated words (‘commence’ rather than ‘start’) and speak using the Saxon versions (‘guts’ rather than ‘intestines’). Ditching the script means you don’t speak like a textbook.
5. Wasp-swatting: The power of the list
A while ago, my team and I sat down for a meeting. Pizza and wine might have been involved. One of the things we asked each other was what made us nervous. It turned out that about one-third of our conference nerves came not from the presentation but from the logistics that went with it.
Logisitical/trivial problems are like wasps. One seems manageable. A swarm’s a different matter. Each issue might be negligible on its own, but all of them together have a noticeable impact. Similarly, each on its own is easily dealt with, but taken together the problem loses its perspective. The solution is simple: a list. At least two weeks in advance of the conference, create a simple checklist – one line for every issue. For example, I don’t have a 'cables' tick box on my list; I have entry for the power cable, another for the VGA adaptor, and another for the HDMI adaptor, and so on. Before you go live, check the list. That way, when it’s time to perform, you can do so confident that you’ve not forgotten anything. It also frees up the parts of your brain you’d otherwise have wasted on trying to remember things. 6. Practice and rehearsal This is so fundamental it probably shouldn't come last. It also needs the fewest words. You will perform better if you go over your presentation and practise improvising using your keywords. Wrapping up There’s a lot more you can do to conquer your nerves – ideas range from breathing techniques to standing in certain positions – but these are good starting points. So go change the world and edit people’s heads!
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Simon's a presentations expert and productivity guru. If you want to get in touch beforehand, here's what you need:
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Today, I discuss the negative impact that just one word can have on narrative tension: Suddenly.
I’m not suggesting writers eradicate it, but rather use it judiciously and with intention.
I edit a lot of crime fiction written by beginner and emerging authors. I’m an avid reader of the genre too. Reading a genre isn’t enough to make anyone an expert in it, but it does afford the editor plenty of opportunities to see it written well, and to experience it as a punter ... to ask: Why do I like that? What is it about that scene that works so well? What’s hooking me here?
There’s one word that great crime writers put on the page with care – suddenly. However, many new or developing writers struggle to leave it out. Two reasons for overuse stand out:
I’ve grabbed a handful of crime fiction from my own bookshelves, and taken examples from these books to show how suddenly-free writing can be more immediate and immersive. 1. Countering wordiness Some developing writers record every nod, every furrowed brow. All that mundane stuff happens in real life. And in the movies we get to see it played out onscreen. That doesn’t mean it all needs to go into a novel. Readers don’t behave like viewers. When I’m watching a film I expect to be spoon-fed to a degree – dialogue, facial expression, action, and a healthy dollop of incidental music to tell me who’s feeling what and why. The reason it works with film is because a chunk of that stuff happens simultaneously, and even I, impatient soul that I am, don’t get bored. When I’m reading a book, my brain works differently. I don’t want all that stage direction. Too much of it distracts me and that’s when I’m most likely to lose interest. When a new writer hasn’t learned the art of crafting the story so that there are just enough nudges to keep the narrative rich, but not so many that it becomes tedious, suddenly rears its head. Suddenly becomes an apology for overwriting – an exciting reward for sticking around. Only it doesn’t work. It’s just one more word on the page that the reader doesn’t need. Solution: Keep your crime writing lean Not every writer wants to strip their writing back to the bare bones but ask yourself whether you’ve introduced a sentence with Suddenly purely to reengage the reader. If so, tighten up the preceding narrative so that you don’t lose them in the first place. Less is sometimes more. Example Here’s a scene from Tell No Lies by Gregg Hurwitz, featuring the protagonist, Daniel Brasher (p. 393):
A less experienced writer might have been tempted to overwork the preceding description and the line conveying Daniel’s anxiety ... and that could have led to a Suddenly barging its way onto the starting blocks of the final sentence to drag the reader out of the protagonist’s head and back into the external action. It could have gone like this:
He was ushered through the door into a small, dank, grey windowless room with a stall terminating in a shield of ballistic glass that looked onto the mirror image of a facing stall. Only a steel table and two chairs furnished the room. A coaster-size speaking hole in the glass rendered jailhouse phones unnecessary.
He waited, counting the seconds, working to stay calm. Sweat dripped from his forehead, ran down his back and soaked his shirt. He massaged his temples to stave off the growing panic and raked a clammy hand through his damp hair. Just relax, he thought. You’re in control. Suddenly, a metallic boom announced the opening of an out-of-sight metal door ... Instead, Hurwitz has given us just enough to know that our protagonist is fretful. We hear the metallic boom in the same moment Daniel does. We imagine how it might make him jump. There are 58 words instead of 114. And the writing in the shorter, published example is tighter, the tension higher. The boom comes suddenly, but Hurwitz doesn’t tell us so. He doesn’t need to. 2. Redundancy – the verb’s already done the work Even those novice writers who’ve conquered their noisy narrative can still be tempted to nudge unnecessarily with suddenly. I see this most often in the following scene types:
Certainly, writers who use suddenly are doing so with good intention – to give the reader a now-nudge. However, in most cases it’s unnecessary to convey immediacy and adds nothing to the narrative. In the above examples, the immediacy is rendered perfectly with the verbs launched, dawned, lit up, exploded, trilled and slammed. By adding suddenly into the mix, the reader is pulled out of the story, as if the author has tapped them on the shoulder and whispered, ‘Hey, you, something big’s coming. Just so you know. Right then, as you were. Carry on reading.’ That’s an interruption – the opposite of what the writer intended. Now the reader’s no longer moving at the same pace as the character. They’re one step ahead rather than immersed in the moment. Solution: Test the sentence out loud Say it first with suddenly, then without. Ninety per cent of the time, the slimline version will work better. When that’s the case, hit the delete button.
Published suddenly-free examples Here are some published examples for comparison. None of the authors felt the need to nudge the reader into immediacy.
The Barclay example is particularly interesting. The narrative point of view in this chapter is that of the antagonist. From his perspective, the violence is almost mundane, which renders the scene all the more horrific for the reader. A now-nudge in this paragraph wouldn’t have been just superfluous; it would have countered the perversity of our tension being heightened through being forced to immerse ourselves in Cory’s psychosis. When suddenly works a treat Suddenly-free isn’t a rule. Don’t ban it from your novel! There are times when it works beautifully:
In this made-up example, the inclusion of suddenly subtly changes our perspective of Pip’s situation. There's a subtle immediacy to his discomfort has emerged only now, that in the seconds before he’d watched bu not felt threatened. And so it’s not that suddenly does or doesn’t work. Rather, it depends on the writer’s intention. Your turn ... how do you maintain tension with minimal interruption? Are there particular adverbs you use with caution? If you'd like to access more tips and resources for self-publishers, visit my resource centre. Try these in particular:
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
This tutorial shows you a fast and free method to turn your video’s subtitles/closed captions into text that can be repurposed for blog posts and DIY transcripts.
There are 2 reasons you might want to do this:
Using the subtitles files in your existing videos means you can create content in a written format without starting from scratch. That saves you precious time, allowing you to focus your attention on creating words (if you’re an author) and amending them (if you’re a proofreader or editor). Watch the video or use the written instructions below. Instructions
Your subtitles file now looks like this:
Edit your text to ensure the spelling and grammar are correct, and tweak the writing so that it meets your audience's expectations of written content.
If you're creating a blog post, introduce paragraphs, bullet points, headings and any supporting imagery. Generating keyword juice for SEO purposes Video is compelling. It allows our audience to see our faces and hear our voices. That intimacy can be compelling, and it’s a fast-track to building trust. That’s important for authors seeking to build a readership, and editors wanting to attract clients who need editing help. However, there are no keywords in a video. Yes, YouTube is a search engine in its own right, but it’s not the first point of search for every member of our audience. By repurposing video as blog content, we’re increasing our chances of being found in the likes of Google and Bing too. Being findable on multiple platforms makes sense in an online world that’s becoming noisier by the minute. Respecting customer/client preferences Not everyone wants to watch video, and even if they do, it’s not always the most convenient option. Imagine the following scenarios: Our reader’s broadband speed is slow A blog post will load faster than a video on those occasions that the internet seems to be creaking at the seams. If we’ve solved a reader’s problem in our videos, but they can’t play those videos, they could become frustrated and go elsewhere. If we’ve offered a written alternative, we’re more likely to keep them on our websites. Video is difficult to scan Written content is easy to scan and digest quickly. That makes it attractive to busy people. If our visitors can’t work out whether we’ve solved their problem without watching a video in its entirety, we might lose them. When we provide written content as well, we can quickly show them what’s on offer with headings and bullet points. Our readers can scan this information and decide whether to dig deeper. Blog posts can be printed Some people still like to print useful content so that they’re not reliant on digital means to access it. A video can’t be printed; a blog post can. Again, it’s about respecting what’s convenient for our readers, rather than focusing on our own preferences. Other options What I’ve offered here is a DIY solution for authors and editors who need to keep an eye on the purse strings when they're repurposing vlog content. It’s the method I use when I’m starting with a video rather than a blog post. Plus, I rather enjoy the process. However, it’s not everyone’s bag. If you have the budget, you can commission a professional transcriptionist or content repurposer. They’ll have the tools and expertise to create top-quality written content from video that fits your brand and voice. Summing up Editors and authors who are creating valuable content to make their books and editorial services visible can repurpose it in multiple ways. No one method trumps another – audio, video and words all have their place. However, our audiences will have different preferences. What’s convenient today might not work tomorrow. Repurposing content allows us to respect those preferences. The trick is to find shortcuts to that repurposing so that we’re not starting from scratch each time. This is one of them. Acknowledgement Thanks to JavaScript Nuggets for sharing this new and improved method of accessing transcript text. Much appreciated! Related resources
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Here's a treat for PerfectIt users ... a custom style sheet that includes the find-and-replace strings in my free ebook, Formatting in Word.
If Formatting in Word has made your life easier, you'll love what my colleague Andrea Kay of Yours Truleigh Editing has done. Yep, she's upped the efficiency game for all of us by creating a custom style sheet that can be imported into PerfectIt.
Thank you so much, Andrea! For those unfamiliar with either the software or the booklet, I've provided an overview of both, and the benefits of importing the style sheet. Below that are the installation instructions and the ready-to-download files for Formatting in Word.
What's PerfectIt?
For those readers who are not familiar with this software, PerfectIt is a sophisticated consistency checker that works with Microsoft Word. By customizing its built-in style sheets, or creating your own, you can define your preferences and let PerfectIt locate variations and possible errors. I recommend every professional editor add it to their toolbox. You can read my more detailed review of the product here: PerfectIt 3 – must-have software for the editorial freelancing pro. If you don't yet have PerfectIt, contact Intelligent Editing for pricing and download information.
Ebook: Formatting in Word
This free ebook helps editors and self-publishing authors tidy up Word documents. In addition to showing you how to use some simple macros, it includes search strings to help you locate and fix potential problems, including rogue spaces at the beginning and end of paragraphs, double line returns, tabbed paragraph indents, lower-case letters at the beginning of paragraphs, paragraphs that end with no punctuation, and more.
What's the style sheet?
Andrea Kay just saved PerfectIt users a ton of time by building an importable custom style sheet that features the key search strings from the ebook! That means you don't have to manually type the strings into your Word document one by one, then repeat the process each time you work on a new document. Instead, import the style sheet, run PerfectIt, and let the software locate the potential problems for you. All you have to do is decide whether to implement the suggested change in your document. How to import your style sheet Importing the style sheet is a doddle, I promise, Follow the instructions and screenshots below. If PerfectIt is already installed, the process will take no longer than 20 seconds. 1. First, email me to get the style sheet.
2. Once you've installed PerfectIt, open the Word document you want to check.
3. Launch PerfectIt. 4. Click on Manage Styles.
5. Click on the Import button.
6. Select the pft from your device and click OK.
7. Click OK in the Manage Styles window.
8. Select the your pft from the Current Style drop-down box.
9. To run PerfectIt on your current Word document using the custom style sheet, press Start.
If you're not a PerfectIt user ...
If you're not yet ready to invest in PerfectIt but still want access to the find-and-replace strings and other tools in the ebook, click on the image below.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
If we’re serious about setting up an editing and proofreading business, free resources will get us so far, but only so far.
What free is good for
Free is brilliant when we’re starting out, particularly in the following circumstances:
Free is equally great when we’re experienced but looking to shift the goalposts:
Free stuff is about discovery, so that when the time comes to reach into the coffers we’re spending money in the right place. Free helps us to turn expense into investment. What free is not good for Free isn’t great in the long term because the offering usually comes with limitations. It will give us a glimpse, enough to help us on the journey. But that’s all. The reason free has its limitations is because even creating free stuff and offering free help takes time, and time is money. Imagine the following scenarios:
CASE STUDY 1
Jane wants to offer developmental editing but has no experience. She does some research and finds the following:
CASE STUDY 2
Jack has identified a skills gap. He’s a great editor but a poor marketer and is dissatisfied with the rates he’s earning from his existing client base. Currently, he works with project-management agencies who find publisher work for him. And those publishers find authors for the agency. There’s a cost to that author-acquisition work – those agencies and publishers take a cut of the fee at each stage because they have to invest their own time and expertise in making themselves visible. It's that visibility that puts the editing work on Jack's desk. He starts a discussion in a large editorial Facebook group about his concerns and is offered the following:
What tasters teach us ... and what they don't In both cases, the freebies are of exceptionally high quality and Jane and Jack learn a ton from them. Creating that content must have taken time and effort. However, free articles, blog posts and webinars are tasters. Those kinds of things help us understand the lie of the land, and give us a deeper sense of what more we need to learn. What they won’t do is teach us everything we need to know. We can’t learn how to become professional developmental editors from those resources alone ... any more than we could learn to cut hair or wire a house to acceptable standards without proper training and guidance. Same goes for marketing. Take me, for example. It’s not luck and Google that made me a strong marketer. I pay a monthly sub to learn how to do it well from professional marketers, and invest time in implementing the strategies I’m learning. If Jane wants to become a professional developmental editor and Jack wants to become a strong editorial marketer, both need to take all those freebies and use them to make informed decisions about the money they will invest to turn their investigations into reality. Examples might include:
Free will help Jane and Jack make decisions. Investment will make them fit for professional purpose.
A better money mindset
It’s perfectly okay to decide that you can’t afford to run a professional editorial business ... but only as long as you decide not to run a professional editorial business. No one on the planet owns a business that doesn’t have operating costs. Business owners have to take responsibility for training, equipment, invoicing, money transfer, software, marketing, client acquisition, office space, pension provision, taxation responsibilities, and more. It’s true that the international editorial community is incredibly generous, which means that free resources and guidance abound on multiple platforms. However, those who are serious about running an editorial business know they have to avoid hobbyist and employee mindsets.
The shoe on the other foot – when you’re asked for a freebie
We can’t have everything we want when we want it. We have to make choices. Freebies help us make the right choices so that the money we spend actually increases our prospects and income in the longer term. And imagine yourself on the other side of the fence for a moment. A potential client calls you. They have a book that needs copyediting. ‘The thing is,’ they say, ‘I can’t afford professional editing. How can I get out of paying you? To be honest, I’m just looking for free stuff.’ How fast would you hang up? Now imagine another writer calls you. ‘I’m in the middle of doing as much self-editing as I can using some free tutorials I found online and some advice from my writing group. There’s a fair way to go,’ they say, ‘but I figured I’d start saving now. Can you give me a rough idea of how much it might cost and how much notice you’d need? That way I can start planning my book budget.’ That’s the kind of client I’m excited about working with. The editor with the same mindset will be rewarded with guidance and help because they deserve it. The editor who wants it all for nothing won’t and doesn’t. By all means, grab all the freebies. The creators of those resources want you to have them. Making free stuff that’s invisible and unused is a waste of time and effort. Just don’t forget that free is the starting blocks. Investment is what gets us to the finish line! Further reading
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
If you’re an editor or proofreader who finds marketing your business overwhelming, here are 6 ideas to help you rethink your mindset and pull you out of the mire.
Recent discussions with colleagues on social media made me realize two things:
It made me sad to think that some of my colleagues could be negatively affected by those of us who find marketing easier or who enjoy it more. If you're one of those who's struggling, this article is for you. It looks at the perceptions that might be triggering your discomfort and offers you new ways of thinking about each problem so that you can move forward. If you want a reminder to pin on your wall, download the infographic at the bottom of the post. Or download the free PDF booklet to your preferred device. Perception 1: It shouldn’t be done unless you can do it perfectly Some editors are suffocated by their perfectionism. Not being able to do marketing perfectly and completely stops them from starting it. And so nothing gets done. Here are five examples that reflect the truth of the matter:
I have been blogging since 2011 and I only just got around to uploading a banner image that reflected the parlour theme of the blog. I’m confident that my audience will forgive me. Those who won’t are likely not my audience. If you’re someone who finds themselves falling into this trap, give yourself a break, please. Everyone else will. Social media profiles can be tweaked, banners can be uploaded, testimonials can be added, and headshots can be updated. In fact, everything about your marketing strategy can be amended, deleted or completely rethought whenever you wish. Ask yourself this: When you edit for a client, do you guarantee perfection? Do you think it’s even possible? I don’t. One reason is that much of what I do depends on brief, style, preference or voice. Editing work isn’t an exact science. I have some good news for you – nor is effective marketing. Overcoming marketing overwhelm: Tip 1
You don’t have to do it perfectly. You just have to do it.
Perception 2: Everyone else is doing way more than you It might look like that but the reality is probably different. A colleague recently told me: ‘I know how hard you work on marketing. I can tell by how many posts you write and share on LinkedIn each day.’ I tend to share 7 blog articles throughout the day on both LinkedIn and Twitter. That’s 49 social media shares of my blog content every week on each platform. But I write one blog post a week. Just one. I share that new post on a Monday. The other 48 are reshares of older blog articles that I hope my community will be interested in if they missed them the first time around. And people might well have missed them. Tweets and posts on Facebook are more likely to be missed than seen on busy social feeds with ever-changing algorithms. That’s why many editors reshare their older content. Those of us who’ve been blogging for a few years have a lot of content banked, which means we have plenty to share. If you’re starting out on your blogging journey, you’ll have a smaller bank. And that’s absolutely fine! It’s not a numbers game; it’s a content-delivery game. If you have older blog posts, reshare them. If you don’t, wait until you do and then reshare. And if you'd rather write an article every two weeks, or once a month, that's your choice too. It matters not that I’m sharing 49 articles and you’re sharing 2 or 5 or whatever. What matters is that we’re delivering articles that will solve our colleagues’ and clients’ problems, and making our businesses more visible. Don’t waste precious time worrying about my 49. Those are mine and for me to worry about. You need to think only about how to promote your 2 (or 5 or whatever) posts because those are what will drive traffic to your website. Overcoming marketing overwhelm: Tip 2
Focus on delivery not numerical comparisons.
All that’s relevant is what you do for your business. Perception 3: Some editors don’t do any marketing but have loads of work anyway Marketing has many faces. Remember my 49 blog-post shares? Those are part of a strategy to make me discoverable online and appealing to self-publishing authors of fiction. What I do with my blog is a very visible form of marketing because the international editorial community is active on social media, and I use social media as one delivery tool for my blog content. But what if an editor has a different target client base? Imagine Dan. He’s a copyeditor who specializes in social science books. His primary client base is publishers. Last week he did the following:
None of this marketing activity has been tweeted, liked, shared or commented on. No one knows what Dan was up to last week. However, it’s excellent, targeted promotion, and worth every minute he spent on it. What one editor does to put themselves in front of potential clients will not necessarily mirror what another is doing. An editor whose schedule is full but who doesn’t appear to be busy with marketing is likely promoting their services in less visible but just as powerful ways. None of us is handed work. We have to find it, or enable it to find us. Perhaps the marketing work you need to do is not about blogging, vlogging, tweeting or chatting. Maybe it’s about making a telephone call, attending a networking group, writing an email, sending a letter, or advertising in appropriate spaces. Overcoming marketing overwhelm: Tip 3
Follow your own path. Marketing doesn’t have to be shiny and out there. Good marketing focuses on your business and clients not your colleagues’.
Perception 4: Unlike everyone else, you don’t have anything to show off about I bet you do! Once a week in my Facebook group, I host a marketing #Carnival. It’s a celebration of wins. Any wins – big or small. And it isn’t just shiny-shiny stuff like winning an award, securing a new client, launching a new product, or publishing a 2,000-word blog post. It could also be completing a test, sending out 10 letters to prospective clients, filling out a LinkedIn profile, uploading a picture to a website, booking a course, securing a testimonial, creating a marketing to-do list, buying a domain name, or applying for a membership upgrade to a professional editorial society. Anything that takes our businesses forward is worth celebrating. I’m good at holding a list of my wins in my head but you might prefer to keep a physical record of your achievements. You don’t need anything fancy – a spreadsheet, a notebook or a space on your wall for Post-it notes. Then, when the overwhelm hits, look at that spreadsheet, notebook or wall, and remind yourself of all that you’ve achieved. That focuses attention on what’s been done rather than what’s left to do. Overcoming marketing overwhelm: Tip 4
Create your own carnival. Record what you’ve achieved as well as what’s left to do. Busy people's wins deserve to be celebrated.
Perception 5: Editor X is producing a seemingly impossible amount of regular new content Unlikely! I suspect repurposing is what's going on. Bear in mind the following:
I've done the following with some of my older blog posts:
There are even more ways to repurpose content for promotional means but you get the picture. Repurposing is quicker than creating from scratch and therefore great for the time-poor editor. But it also respects the fact that people like to access help in different ways and at different times. Even if an editor appears to produce a lot of visible content, it’s more likely that they’re taking shortcuts to make life easier. And so can you! Overcoming marketing overwhelm: Tip 5
The busiest marketing editors are not magicians; they’re just good at recycling! You can repurpose your content too.
Perception 6: There’s just way too much to do at once You’ve made a list of all the things you’ve seen others doing and it’s huge. Overwhelming, in fact. Ugh. There’s so much:
You don’t have nearly enough time in your life to get all of it sorted. It would take months and months and months to do all that! Yep, it would. It might even take a couple of years to get up to full speed. And you know what? That’s fine! It’s supposed to be like that because you're a professional editor not a professional marketer. So, if you feel overwhelmed by all that needs to be done, take a breath and think in ones. Even the most visible and active of marketing editors started out with just one blog post, just one tweet, just one small list of publishers, just one directory entry, just one page on a website, just one online group they lurked in. Everyone has to start somewhere. None of us creates a marketing strategy and nails it a month later. And marketing gets easier over time because there comes a point where it starts to work for you instead of being a burden. Take me, for example ...
Some years back, I was still in the process of developing that stuff. I didn’t do it all at once. I did a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more. Over time, the foundational work was completed, leaving me space to focus on the marketing activities that work best for me now. Look at your marketing list. Instead of seeing it as an ocean in which to drown, break it down into cups from which you can sip. Create a doable schedule. Choose a couple of things and an acceptable time frame in which to do them. Then choose a couple more and do those ... small steps that respect and reflect your client base, your personality, and the demands of your work and personal life. Overcoming marketing overwhelm: Tip 6
Think in ones. Schedule step by step so that your goals are achievable in the long term and suit your business, not mine or anyone else’s.
Beating the overwhelm: A downloadable checklist There’s more than one way to do marketing. Your way might look different to mine. It might be less visible. It might involve targeting different clients. It might require a different pace. That's all fine. Download the infographic below and pin it on your wall. It'll remind you that marketing is not about catching up with colleagues. It's a journey, a building process. It does require your time, but you get to choose the methods and the schedule. If you feel the paralysis setting in, join my Facebook group, tell me what's holding you back, and we'll work out some steps to get you moving in a way that works for you.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. FIND OUT MORE > Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader > Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn > Learn: Books and courses > Discover: Resources for authors and editors
If you’re an editor, making Word work hard for you is a must. The new and revised edition of Editing in Word 2016 is one of my recommended resources. Here's why.
I’m a fiction editor who works solely for indie authors and self-publishers. I work on raw-text files, and Microsoft Word is one piece of software that I cannot afford to be without.
Word has its snafus but I don’t know of any word-processing software that comes close to offering its superb functionality. I don’t just edit in Word; I’ve also created print- and digital-ready books directly in it. So when fellow editor and author Adrienne Montgomerie asked me to review the second edition of Editing in Word 2016, I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. I’ve been using Word since 1991, so could Montgomerie teach this old dog a few new tricks? How about younger pups? Let’s see ... More than an ebook This is a digital self-study course. Yes, you get the ebook with all the contextual information and foundational teaching. But there are also videos that show Word in action, and a bunch of exercises with which to practise what you learn at each stage of the process. I love the fact that the advice is actionable. You read, you see, you learn, and then you do. There’s no better way to ensure it’s all sunk in. A focus on core tools
‘We need a resource that gets right to the tools editors can’t live without; the tools that make our job easier and faster. We need to know about the tools that are the very reason we use Word at all.’
PREFACE, Editing in Word 2016
We certainly do. Here are some of the tools that Montgomerie focuses on:
If you don’t know 8 out of 10 of the above tools inside out, you’re likely not as efficient or productive as you could be. That alone makes this course a worthy purchase. That it’s a steal at just under 25 quid (excluding VAT) makes it a no-brainer. Let’s dig a little deeper ... Screens, operating systems and how we work with Word One of the best things about this course is its acknowledgement that editors work in different ways.
Top tips This course is rammed with useful and actionable tips on how to get stuff done and in ways that respect your preferences. For example:
And along the way, Montgomerie includes ‘Pro tips’, ‘Read more’ and ‘Troubleshooting’ callouts to keep you on track. Video demos I’m a big fan of multimedia learning. And when it comes to editing, sometimes just hearing your tutor’s voice and watching them go through the motions onscreen can trump the written word. In addition to the ebook, there's a support website with 27 video tutorials for both Mac and Windows users.
This feature is excellent. I’ve come across a lot of editors who’d like to enhance their digital skills but are held back through fear. Montgomerie takes the stress away via accessible walkthroughs that even the most tech-nervous of nellies will be able to follow.
Here are just 3 examples:
Practice makes perfect There are 24 exercises in this course that help you to hone your skills and start doing what’s written in the book and shown in the videos. Just a few examples include:
A note on versions This course was created in 2017 using Word 365 on Windows 10 and Sierra OS. Given that the author’s using the latest software and operating systems, you might find that the instructions need a little tweaking here and there if you’re using medieval Word (or should that be Wordeth?)! For example, older versions of Word might have different ribbon displays, icons and menu options. That’s unavoidable, and a reminder that, as professionals, we should be aspiring to use up-to-date equipment. I’d prefer my dentist not to fill my teeth with 10-year-old composites; we should treat our clients similarly. My verdict Did I learn anything new? Yes, I did. But editorial training isn’t just about finding out what you don’t know; it’s also great for affirmation of what you do know. I was pleased to learn from a pro that a lot of my Word usage is on track. Here’s another thing, though: there are functions in Word that I use infrequently (e.g. erasing time stamps). I know it’s possible but I’ve simply forgotten how. And instead of trawling Google or spending valuable time asking questions in editing forums, I can have Editing in Word open on my desktop. From there, I can search, locate and solve my problem in seconds. I recommend this without reservation for any editor who wants to get the very best from Word with a one-stop shop, especially those who've been held back by fear. Montgomerie will take that away from you – I promise.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Crime fiction falls into a range of subgenres. Knowing where your novel fits helps you understand what readers expect, which published writers you can learn from, and how you might stand out.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #91
If you'd prefer to watch a video, scroll down to the bottom of the article.
This article provides an overview of some of the established subgenres, though the list isn’t exhaustive.
There’s crossover certainly and, depending on the commentator, crime fiction gets chopped up into subgenres variously. I’ve elected not to focus on inverted-detective fiction, heists and capers, LGBTQ mysteries, feminist crime fiction, or romantic suspense, but these subgenres and more all have their place in the market. One thing’s for sure: ‘Crime fiction is never static and never appears to be running out of ideas,’ says Barbara Henderson. Two more reasons to know your subgenre If you’re going it alone, one of your publishing jobs will be to help your readers find your book. When you upload to Amazon, Smashwords or any other distribution platform, you’ll need to decide which BISAC headings to place your book under. And if you’re going down the traditional publishing route, identifying your subgenre(s) will help a literary agent understand which publishers have a best-fit list and where in a bookstore your novel will be shelved. If the fit isn’t obvious to you, it could be harder to convince your agent that your book’s marketable. Ultimately, though, it's the writing that needs to be top-notch, not strict conformity to one or another subgenre. These days, it's probably harder to find crime fiction that isn't fusion of subgenres!
Cosy crime fiction
If much of today’s crime fiction seems gritty, even gratuitously violent, and that’s not the way you want to write, fret not. Cosy crime is alive and kicking (though gently).
Publishers are rushing to bring “lost” golden-age authors such as Annie Haynes back into print, and to repackage the likes of Margery Allingham and Francis Durbridge. (Alison Flood)
What distinguishes the cosy? Murder yes, but leave out the gore, the pain, and depressing social commentary. Your protagonist might well be flawed but no more so than anyone else in the novel, and your readers will embrace your hero’s quirkiness with a skip in their step. That doesn’t mean the cosy isn’t tight on plot and well-paced action that drive the novel forward. Contemporary readers want fantastic mysteries with twists and turns that will keep them guessing. Cosies can be liberating for the playful crime writer who wants to explore the genre with non-traditional characters placed in non-traditional settings:
Classic detective – the Golden Age and beyond
RD Collins locates the start of the genre with Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue. It found its feet with Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and entered into a Golden Age in the 1920s with Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey, among others.
The Golden Age introduced ‘rules’ for the genre. Reba White Williams summarizes these as follows:
See also the quote further down from Otto Penzler about locked-room mysteries – no cheating with doubles and magic! Today’s authors must abide by the same rules, no matter whether their tales are set in Oxford with Morse, LA with Bosch, or Reykjavik with Erlendur.
Hardboiled crime fiction
Los Angeles had never been written about. California had been written about, a book called Ramona ... a lot of sentimental slop. But nobody in my time had tried to write about a Los Angeles background in any sort of realistic way.
That’s a quote from Raymond Chandler in conversation with Ian Fleming in 1958. Chandler’s response was to write crime fiction that was gritty, depressing, violent, cynical and seedy. Hardboiled crime writing, as it came to be known, pulls no punches. The protagonists aren’t invulnerable superheroes. And the environments within which they operate are those of contrast – urban decay and tourist hotspots, hope and corruption. If your crime writing falls into this category, don’t set an amateur protagonist sleuth alongside foolish law-enforcement officers who have neither brains nor access to detection resources. Hardboiled isn’t pretty but it’s rich in believability. Plots are fattened with complex characters, social commentary and, of course, murder. Says Matthew Lewin on the contemporary hardboiled crime fiction of James Lee Burke and James Ellroy:
There is a fury and desperation in this new writing that touches on the violence and depravity of our time as well as the grace and beauty of the best in human nature and the physical world.
Think Harry Bosch. Tim Walker refers to his creator Michael Connelly as ‘the modern Raymond Chandler’. ‘Connelly says he still sees it as a duty to acknowledge the social climate in his novels’. Think also Rebus; Ian Rankin, like Connelly, fuses hardboiled with police procedural masterfully. With hardboiled, even when the crime is solved, your readers won’t expect to close the book feeling that everyone will live happily ever after.
Historical crime fiction
Popular series feature CJ Sansom’s Shardlake, SJ Parris’s Giordano Bruno, Susanna Gregory’s Thomas Chaloner, and Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael.
The genre is as interesting for its criminal investigations as for the lessons in social history afforded to the reader. And because the reader needs to understand the historical setting, these novels are often long. Sansom’s Dark Fire comes in at a whopping 600-plus pages. I have the hardback version and I’m sure I bulked up my biceps just carrying the book from Waterstones to the car park. If historical fiction floats your writing boat, be prepared to put in the research. Many of your readers will know their history so you’ll need to dig deep. It’s no accident that the protagonists in these novels are curious renegade monks, lawyers, scholars and the like. The criminal justice system as it exists in our era bears little resemblance to that in these bygone days. Consider the following:
Some historical fiction is cosier and shorter. Consider David Dickinson’s Lord Powerscourt and Emily Brightwell’s Mrs Jeffries. These Victorian mysteries offer plenty of intrigue and good old-fashioned murder, but we’re spared the grisly details. Don’t be surprised to see this lighter crime fiction splashed with a dose of humour as the authors cast their gaze over the social-economic and gender disparities typical of the era. Still, if the Regency or Victorian cosy is your bag, you’ll still need to gen up on period details.
Legal and medical crime fiction
Courtrooms, labs and hospitals make for great crime fiction, and ‘lawyers and doctors make effective protagonists since they seem to exist on a plane far above the rest of us. Although popular, these tales are usually penned by actual lawyers and doctors due to the demands of the information presented,’ writes Stephen D. Rogers.
Here are some examples:
That old trope of writing what you know comes into play here and it’s a good reminder that using your own specialist knowledge to bring authenticity to your crime writing makes good sense. And if you’re not a former cop, doc or lawyer but you have friends who are, be sure to pick their brains. In particular, research the role of your legal or medical protagonist and ensure that the powers of investigation you assign to them are appropriate for their location. Even if you’re pushing the boundaries of existing science, to give your reader the best experience the foundations will need to be solid.
Locked-room crime fiction
The crime scene is that of a moving train, a secluded and heavily guarded house, an aeroplane, a single-track road with only one way in and one way out ... less whodunnit, more howdunnit.
A locked-room novelist is the illusionist of crime writing, the creator of ‘impossible’ fiction. And yet not so impossible as it turns out, as our brilliant protagonist gradually reveals all. Take care though. No cheating is allowed with locked-room crime. Says Otto Penzler:
The solutions to none of these locked room murders and thefts have supernatural elements and there is no cheating about hidden panels, long-lost twins, waking from dreams or hallucinations. No, they are deduced by detectives, who explain all to the incredulous characters and the baffled reader.
Well-known examples include:
The artistry of the locked-room mystery lies in the author’s ability to deliver a reveal that doesn’t rely on a device that doesn’t exist in real life, that doesn’t require information to be deliberately withheld from the reader, and isn’t so obvious as to be deducible at the beginning of the story. I recommend The Locked-room Mysteries, Penzler’s superb anthology for aspiring locked-room crime writers who want to see masters at work. It's huge – over 930 pages – and heavy, but literally worth its weight.
Police procedural
If you’re writing a police procedural, your in-depth research will need to be top-notch. The angle you take will be determined by your protagonist’s skills. Examples include:
Procedurals are notable for their thoroughly researched and authentic rendering of detection, evidence-gathering, forensics, autopsies, and interrogation procedures in order to solve the novel’s crime(s). Wowser tools and tech don’t come at the cost of strong characterization though. Rhyme is paralyzed following an on-scene accident. Cooper is recovering from the breakdown of her marriage. Rebus has a history of trauma dating from his former military career. Wallander has diabetes, and his daughter attempted suicide in her teenage years. These in-depth backstories provide complexity and conflict – a kind of layering that fattens the plot without complicating it. I find Cooper a little whiny, Rebus grumpy, Scarpetta arrogant, Wallander depressing. That doesn’t stop me falling in love with them though. In fact, flawed characters can balance the sterility of the procedural details. And you, the writer, might find a protagonist with foibles more enjoyable to write. Mankell did:
It’s quite true that I don’t particularly like [Wallander]. But then I think most writers would say it’s more interesting to write about a person you don’t like. I’m quite sure Shakespeare enjoyed writing Iago much more than he did writing Othello. [...] It’s much better to have something between you and your main character that grates.
Spy thriller
When it comes to spy stories, your protagonist is a spook, the nation’s safety the hook. It’s a race against time – against a larger-than-life antagonist – in order to save, well, everyone. The plots are usually complex and the action high-octane.
‘When you’re writing spy fiction you have one overriding goal: to keep the reader turning the pages,’ says Graeme Shimmin. Here’s some great advice from Kathrine Roid: Don’t wing it when it comes to plot:
A spy novel needs to be thought out beforehand, even more so than novels of most genres. Unlike, say, a quest fantasy, where plot points can be shuffled or cut out or added without too much trouble, everything needs to be compactly connected to the main plot. (Unplotted) whims simply do not have a place.
If you’re wandering into spy-fi territory, you’ll have a little more freedom to play with gadgetry. If you’re keeping it real, do the research. Know your guns and your gear so that your protagonist doesn’t end up more tactifool than tactical. But old on a mo. Your spy crime fiction doesn’t have to be a sprint like Robert Ludlum’s or Clive Cussler’s. Mick Herron is one of my favourite writers. The pace might be a little gentler but the brooding narrative is utterly believable. His Jackson Lamb series features the ‘slow horses’ – MI5 agents who’ve messed up and been put out to graze in the backwoods of inactive service. Herron’s crime isn’t spy-fi – there are no wacky gadgets to get Lamb’s crew out of a fix. The characters are vulnerable, disgruntled, and bored ... until there’s a crime and Lamb suspects the spooks. It’s a fine example of character-driven writing with attention to detail on Service procedural and detection legwork.
Private eye and amateur sleuth
The private-eye tradition crosses subgenres: from cosy to hardboiled to classic thriller.
Telling your story through a point-of-view character who works outside law enforcement has its advantages: your protagonist can behave and move in ways that a detective can’t, at least not without risking their job. On the other hand, your sleuth won’t have access to the wealth of contemporary resources available to the police. And take care not to make your amateur’s successes depend on witless professionals. Certainly, every organization/service has its fools and bad apples, and crime fiction is the perfect tool with which to explore police and state corruption, but contemporary readers are unlikely to engage with a novel whose chief investigator is an oaf.
Transgressor/noir
If this is your bag, you’ll go where others fear to tread. Whodunnit is still in the mix, but whydunnit is close behind.
It shares the grit of hardboiled but is distinctive for its focus on the narratives of the transgressor (Eoin McNamee: Resurrection Man), the victim (Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), or both (Lippman: I’d Know You Anywhere). The authors who do this subgenre best seem almost to be able to channel their characters’ psychosocial conflict, and dig deep into the predator–prey relationship. And even when the detective is the protagonist, they’re less superhero than anti-hero, troubled by demons, working despite – rather than within – an establishment as troubled as them (James Ellroy: LA Confidential; Antonin Varenne: Bed of Nails). Says Penzler in ‘Noir fiction is about losers, not private eyes’:
There are no heroic figures in noir fiction. [...] The noir story with a happy ending has never been written, nor can it be. The lost and corrupt souls who populate these tales were doomed before we met them because of their hollow hearts and depraved sensibilities.
Regional variants – e.g. Tartan, Scandinavian, Emerald – that represent the landscape, culture, idiom, and social and political identity of their settings have emerged to international acclaim.
A quick note on subgenre fusion
Your book might well fall into what Agnieszka Sienkiewicz-Charlish calls genre syncretism: ‘the hard-boiled detective story, the police procedural, Gothic fiction and the psycho-social novel’. She offers Rankin’s Rebus novels as an example.
Consider also China Miéville's The City & The City. In this novel, two locations occupy the same physical space. At heart, it's a police procedural, but there's a speculative/fantasy take on the hardboiled tradition: the shiny surfaces of one city butt up against a grubbier alternate, yet residents of each are legally bound to 'unsee' each other. As such, Mieville incorporates a subtle commentary on state authoritarianism, surveillance and corruption into a murder investigation. Genre syncretism can help your work stand out, but take care to recognize the conventions of each so that the core subgenre elements are all done well. No reader will thank you for promising a fusion of hardboiled and police procedural if both are half-baked. Good writing trumps everything. I hope you find this useful and wish you sleuthing success on your crime-writing journey! And there's that video I promised for those of you who'd prefer to watch or listen.
Further reading
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
How do you get fiction editing and proofreading work? This post offers some pointers for newbie freelancers, and experienced editors looking to shift specialisms.
1. Start with baseline training
To be fit for working in any editing discipline, fiction or otherwise, training is the foundation. Even if you’ve been devouring your favourite genres for years, you need to understand publishing-industry standards. This isn’t about snobbery. It’s about serving the client honestly and well, especially the self-publisher, who might not have enough mainstream publishing knowledge to assess whether you’re capable of amending in a way that respects industry conventions. It’s about the reader too. Readers are canny, and often wedded to particular genres. They’re used to browsing in bookshops and bingeing on their favourite authors. They have their own standards and expectations. One of our jobs as editorial professionals is to ensure we have the skills to push the book forward, make it the best it can be, so that it’s ready for those readers and meets their expectations. And so if you want to proofread or edit for fiction publishers and independent authors, high-quality editorial training isn’t a luxury: it’s the baseline. What kind of training you need will depend on what services you plan to offer.
Courses
I recommend the Publishing Training Centre and the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) for foundational copyediting and proofreading training. I’m based in the UK, and those are the two training suppliers I have experience of so I’m in a position to recommend them. That doesn’t mean that other suppliers aren’t worth exploring. Rather, I don’t recommend what I haven’t tested. Keep an open mind. Check a range of suppliers and their course curricula. Then choose what suits your needs.
If you want more information about how the PTC and CIEP courses compare, talk to the organizations’ training directors. 2. Decide which fiction editing services you want to offer Some beginner self-publishers don’t understand the differences between the different levels of editing, which means they might ask for something that’s not in their best interests (e.g. a quick proofread even though the book hasn’t been critiqued, structurally edited, line- and copyedited). It’s essential that the professional fiction editor is able to communicate which levels of editing they provide, and recommend what’s appropriate for the author. That doesn’t mean the author will take the advice, but the editor must be able to articulate her recommendations so that independent authors can make informed decisions.
3. Invest in appropriate specialist fiction training
The next step is to gain skills and confidence with fiction editing and proofreading work. As with any type of editing, the kinds of things the editor will be amending, querying and checking will depend on whether the work is structural, sentence-based or pre-publication quality control. When deciding what specialist fiction editing courses to invest in, bear in mind the following:
Courses and reading Explore the following to assess whether they will fill the gaps in your knowledge. Check the curricula carefully to ensure that the modules focus on the types of fiction editing you wish to offer and provide you with the depth required to push you forward.
This isn’t a definitive list but it’ll set you on the right track.
4. Get in the right mindset
Fiction editing requires a particular mindset for several reasons: Style and voice We’re not only respecting the author, but the POV character(s) too. The fiction editor who doesn’t respect the voices in a novel is at risk of butchery. Being able to immerse oneself in the world the writer’s built is essential so that we can get under the skin of the writing. If we don’t feel it, we can’t edit it elegantly and sensitively. Intimacy Non-fiction is born from the author’s knowledge. Fiction is born from the author’s heart and soul. If that sounds a little cheesy, I’ll not apologize. Many of the writers with whom I work are anxious about working with an editor because they’ve put their own life, love and fear into the world they’ve built. A good fiction editor needs to respect the intimacy of being trusted with a novel. If that doesn’t sound like your bag, this probably isn’t for you. Unreliable rules At a fiction roundtable hosted by the Norfolk group of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, guest Sian Evans – an experienced playwright and screenwriter – talked about how punctuation in screenplays is as much about ‘the breaths’ the actor is being directed to take as about sentence clarity. These ‘breaths’ exist in prose. They help the reader make sense of a sentence ... not just grammatically, but emotionally. And so the addition or removal of just one comma for the sake of pedantry can make a sentence ‘correct’, or standard, but shift tone and tension dramatically. The fiction editor needs to be able to move beyond prescriptivism and read the scene for its emotionality, so that the author’s intention is intact but the reader can move fluidly through the world on the page and relish it. All of which is a rather long-winded way of saying that if you want to get fiction editing work, and keep on getting it, you’ll need to embrace rule-breaking with artistry! Fiction work requires us to respect both readability and style. The two can sometimes clash so gentle diplomacy and a kind hand will need to be in your toolbox. 5. Read fiction If you don’t love reading fiction, don’t edit it. And if you don’t love reading a particular genre, don’t edit it. Editing the type of fiction you love to read is a joy, and an advantage. If you read a lot of romance fiction, you’ll already be aware of some of the narrative conventions that readers expect and enjoy. I started reading crime fiction, mysteries and thrillers before I’d hit my teens. I turned 51 in March and my passion for those genres hasn’t waned. That stuff makes up over eighty per cent of my work schedule too. Here’s the thing though – my pleasure-reading has supported my business. I get to see first-hand how different authors handle plot, how they build and release tension, how they play with punctuation, idiomatic phrasing, and sentence length such that the reader experiences emotion, immediacy and immersion. And that helps me edit responsively. Honestly, reading fiction is training for editing fiction. In itself, it’s not enough. But professional training isn’t enough either. Love it and learn it.
6. Learn from writers
If you want to understand the problems facing the self-publishing author community, listen and learn. Join the Alliance of Independent Authors. Even lurking in the forum will give you important insights into what self-publishers struggle with an how you might help. Take advantage of online webinars aimed at beginner writers. Penguin Random House offers a suite of free online resources. Experienced writers and instructors take you on whistle-stop tours of setting, dialogue, characterization, point of view, crime fiction writing, children's books and a whole lot more. Listen to published novelists’ stories. My local Waterstones hosts regular author readings/signings. I’ve seen Garth Nix, Jonathan Pinnock and Alison Moore speak. In April 2018, Harry Brett is chairing a session on how to write crime with Julia Heaberlin and Sophie Hannah. In May, fellow editor Sophie Playle and I are attending 'Why Writing Matters', an event hosted by the Writers' Centre Norwich in association with the Norwich & Norfolk Festival. And Jeffery Deaver's coming to town too. Ticket booked! These workshops cost from nothing to £12. That's a tiny investment for any fiction editor wanting to better themselves.
7. Get in front of publishers
The best way to get publisher eyes on your editing skills is to go direct. Experienced fiction editors are sometimes contacted direct but sitting around waiting to be offered work never got the independent business owner very far and never will. Experienced ... but not in fiction If you’re an experienced editor or proofreader who already has publisher clients but they’re in a different discipline (e.g. social sciences, humanities) you’ll likely have built some strong relationships with in-house editors. Publishing is a small world – in-house staff move presses and meet each other at publishing events. It might well be that one of your contacts knows someone who works in fiction and, more importantly, will be happy to vouch for your skills. With specialist fiction training, you’ll be able to leverage that referral to the max. So, if you have a good relationship with an in-house academic editor, tell them you’d like to explore fiction editing and ask them if they’d be prepared to share a name and email and give you a recommendation. Newbie If you’re a new entrant to the field, it’s unlikely that a cold call to HarperCollins or Penguin will be fruitful. The larger presses tend to hire experienced editors with a track record of hitting the ground running. There are two options:
8. Be visible online
There’s no excuse for any twenty-first-century professional editor to be invisible. There’s no one way to visibility – take a multipronged approach. Directories If you’re a member of a national editorial society, and they have a directory, advertise in it as a specialist fiction editor/proofreader. If you’re not a member, become one. It won’t be free, but running a business has costs attached to it. If we want to succeed, we need to be seen. That doesn’t land on our plates; we must invest. If your society doesn’t have an online directory, lobby for one to be set up and promoted. I’d go as far as to argue that a professional editorial society that isn’t prioritizing the visibility of its members isn’t doing its job properly.
Create content for indie fiction authors Any self-publishing fiction writer looking for editorial assistance is more likely to think you’re wowser if you help them before they’ve asked for it. Create resources that offer your potential clients value and you’ll stand out. It makes your website about them rather than you. And it demonstrates your knowledge and experience. Doing this might require you to do a lot of research, but what a great way to learn. Don’t think of it as cutting into your personal time but as professional development that makes you a better editor. And think about it like this: Who would you rather buy shoes from? The shop where the sales assistant tells you all about her, or the shop where the sales assistant helps you find shoes that fit? It's no different for authors choosing editors. I have an several pages dedicated to resources for fiction authors. I’m not alone. These fiction editors have resource hubs too: Beth Hill, Sophie Playle, Lisa Poisso, Kia Thomas and Katherine Trail. There are others but I’m already over the 2,000-word mark!
Shout out your fiction specialism
Shout your fiction specialism from your website’s rooftop. Why would a fiction writer hire someone who doesn’t specialize in fiction when there are so many people dedicated to it?
Related reading
Here are some additional articles that you might find useful if you're considering moving into the field of fiction.
Good luck with your fiction editing journey!
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Some blogs are poorly right from the get-go. If yours is feeling under the weather, here are 6 treatments that will turn it, and your website, into a vibrant resource centre that drives your business forward.
I’ve been blogging since 2011 and my blog is the single biggest driver of traffic to my website – around 36,000 page views per month. Given that 99% all of my clients come to me via Google and two online directories, having a strong web presence is the difference between being booked up six months in advance and being unemployed.
Those visitors end up on my blog for three reasons:
Big-picture focus This article doesn’t focus on the technical minutiae of whether to use Wordpress or Weebly, filling in metadata, writing great headlines, breaking up text with pictures, adding in calls to action, SEO keywords, paragraph length and so on and so forth. That’s not because all the micro stuff isn’t important, but because none of it will amount to anything if the macro issues aren’t in order. Instead, I focus on six big-picture reasons why blogs become poorly, and offer some medicine that will turn them, and the websites hosting them, into vibrant resource centres that drive our businesses forward.
Problem 1: The blog doesn’t solve problems
Some of the blogs I wrote between 2011 and 2015 are a technical disgrace but they worked – and still work – because the content is helpful and shareable. A blog that doesn’t solve problems is a written exercise in self-indulgence and won’t make us the go-to professionals for anything. At best, we’ll be instantly forgettable; at worst, people will talk about us for all the wrong reasons. A colleague recently told me about a piece of video content he’d watched: ‘After 10 minutes I’d lost the will to live. After 20, I’d lost the will for the vlogger to live.’ I trust my colleague, whereas I don’t know or trust that vlogger. Consequently, I didn’t watch the video. There are a ton of online examples of desperate business owners employing attention-seeking methods to get eyes on their content. It can work once, maybe twice. But if we rely on shock, surprise, upset or gaining sympathy with our audience, and no solution, our content-marketing successes will be short-lived. Don’t puke over the reader We all have problems – that doesn’t mean we have to vomit over our audience with our content. Plus, shock and controversy have a short shelf-life. Today’s audiences are easily desensitized and quickly bored, so high-quality problem-solving content will trump the shock factor every time. Nothing should appear on our blogs that doesn’t help the reader move forward in some way. And if we can’t solve a problem, we should hold off, research and rewrite. Only once we have a solution should we publish. When we do solve problems, we make ourselves valuable. People are more likely to talk about, share, like and comment on our blog content. And that has huge SEO benefits over time because the search engines love seeing evidence of a great user experience. Focus on solving the audience’s problems from the get-go and we are well on the way to building a platform that puts us top of mind and discoverable in the search engines.
Problem 2: The blog is published irregularly
Lack of regularity is probably the most common reason for blog failure. We do it for a bit, then run out of ideas, or time, or passion. This is how a reader perceives a blog that publishes content irregularly:
Those feelings don’t inspire trust. If your window cleaner couldn’t be bothered to clean your windows on a regular basis how quickly would you try to find a replacement? It’s the same with blogging. No one’s going to talk about or share our content if we can’t be bothered to create it regularly. Earning the rankings and referrals We have to earn the right to be top of mind for referrals and benefit from our colleagues’ and clients’ SEO-driving activity. And without those likes and shares, Google won’t recognize us as business owners who are actively engaging. That will impact negatively on our rankings. Build a blog plan If you don’t have the time or commitment for blogging, that’s absolutely fine. Don’t do it – focus on making your business visible in other ways. Blogging is just one option. However, if you do want your blog to be your primary content platform, the solution is to build a blog plan beforehand. Here are four initial steps for your plan:
Here are four ideas for how to generate content:
Here are four ideas for how to save time:
Problem 3: The blog is unnavigable
No one searches online for a blog. They search online for solutions. If they click through to our websites, the first place they’ll head for is unlikely to be the blog tab. And even if is, will our visitor find the answer to their problems in the content that’s visible on the first page of the blog? If we only have 10 pieces of content, yes. What if we have 40? How about 500? Second homes The solution is to create second homes for our blog content – libraries, hubs, resource centres ... call them what you will. I have two on my website – a self-publishers page and an editor resources page. There is not one single piece of fresh content on those pages. They’re libraries of titled images that depict what problem I’m solving. However, if you click on the images you’ll end up reading the full articles on the blog. These libraries help my audience find my very best content – the stuff that’s most likely to be talked about, get me known, and make my visitors think I’m helpful and knowledgeable. I only started creating content for one of those libraries in May; it’s already the fourth most popular page on my site ... and that’s because it’s obvious what’s on offer and whom it’s for. Few business bloggers funnel their content through to other pages, and it’s the biggest lost opportunity I can think of. Do this and you will stand out from your competitors for very little additional effort. Here, we’re using our blog content to turn our websites into resource centres rather than all-about-me-and-how-great-I-am sites.
Problem 4: The blog is shallow
My marketing coaches Andrew and Pete preach the art of creating content that makes people fall in love with you. I love this idea because it focuses on emotion – of getting under people’s skin, making them feel something. This sits nicely with the problem-solving principle discussed above. When we solve problems we make people feel something – happy, grateful, relieved, empowered. Emotion born from solutions Just to be clear, those emotions should be evoked as a result of our solving a problem. For example, our funnies alone won’t be enough to make anyone subscribe to and share our content in the long term. No one will waste time reading a funny photographer’s blog if he or she doesn’t solve photography problems too. That’s because if all we want is a laugh, Dara Ó Briain and Rich Hall will do it better. Tone on top of solutions Even if our content is technically good, we have competition. Readers need to hear our voices and our personalities in our posts so that we stand out. I tend to go for warm and friendly. Other tone options might include cheeky, funny, blunt, sweary or ranty. All of that stuff is great but bear in mind that it’s just dressing at the end of the day. It should always hang on a body of solutions. Going deeper with solutions There are already a bajillion blogs with the basics just, about everything. Repeating the same old stuff is boring, and boring blogs are a killer. We need to bring our blog posts alive with case studies (made-up ones if necessary), and stories based on our own experiences, so that our readers have gravy on the meat and two veg. That kind of deeper detail draws people in, makes them feel like we’re really talking to them, not just stuffing our websites with keywords. That is not to say we shouldn’t aim our content at beginners or focus on the basics – far from it. Rather, our content needs to have personality and detail. When we go deep we make an old subject sound fresh because it’s rich with our voices and our experiences.
Problem 5: The blog doesn’t fulfil audience expectations
I don’t visit a dentist’s website expecting to find a treatment for the verruca on my foot. I’m there to sort out my teeth. A blog needs to have a recognizable and understandable raison d’être too. We’re busy and none of us has time to read everything, join every group, watch every vlog, listen to every podcast, do our jobs, and have a life. Blogs that don’t give people a very good reason to be there are doomed. They won’t be bookmarked, subscribed to or shared. If a reader doesn’t understand why they should bother, they’ll quickly lose patience and go elsewhere. There are two reasons why an audience could become confused and disengage: The content is coherent but isn’t aligned with the business creating it. This happens when the blogger has misunderstood the audience’s expectations even though there are myriad specialist solutions that could be offered. The content is incoherent and there are too many audiences. This can happen when a business – usually a product-based one – can’t sustain long-term content creation around the product alone. To compensate, the blogger covers multiple topics for multiple audiences whose problems are already being solved in depth by relevant specialist bloggers elsewhere. Here are two examples where those problems have been solved. Coherent and aligned: The pro presenter There’s plenty one can write about presenting, and that content can be targeted at non-presenters who need to tackle the process, and those who want to run a presentations business. Relevant content might cover the following: dealing with stress, introversion, lack of confidence, speech impediments, organization and planning, which software to use, which venues are best, managing acoustics, scheduling, equipment, payment terms, contract problems, learning resources, apps and plugins to aid preparation, training opportunities, marketing a presentations business, getting published, creating engaging slides, finding and retaining clients, and so on. The presenter is blogging about topics aligned to their core service and targeting an audience with problems related directly to it. The blog is therefore coherent and aligned. Coherent and side-aligned: The condom company There’s only so much one can write about condoms. Durex knows that it will not be able to sustain its audience’s interest in latex and lube, and there are only so many flavours and colours. However, it also knows that its audience is interested in sex, otherwise people wouldn’t need condoms. Durex has created a blog called Love Sex that offers all sorts of tips about perfect massages, advice on STDs, relationships, other forms of contraception, orgasms, positions ... you name it, it’s there. It’s a very clever way of creating content about a related but more interesting issue. If you can’t sustain long-term content creation around your product or service, shift your thinking sideways but make sure it’s focused on your audience’s problems. Durex isn’t blogging about condoms, but it’s still focusing on content that’s related sideways to its core product. Its blog is therefore coherent and side-aligned. Nudging with a name Naming our blogs can help signal purpose. Mine’s called The Proofreader’s Parlour, which should be an indication that my focus is on words. I also publish a lot of content about marketing, but it’s marketing for editors and proofreaders. And I offer content about training, but it’s training for editors and proofreaders. It’s not as interesting as the Durex blog but it solves my clients’ and colleagues’ problems and that’s all that matters!
Problem 6: The blog is invisible
Blogging without blog promotion is a supreme waste of time. It matters little that we’ve nailed all of the above if our blog’s invisible. We could spend hours crafting beautiful content for our target audience, but if we don’t invest the time or effort in making it visible it will have no purposeful business or economic value. Superhero delivery There are numerous ways to promote a blog, and what works for you might not work for me. One thing’s for sure though – social media is the superhero when it comes to content delivery. Three huge platforms – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook – offer a superb suite of tools to help us get seen out there. What clear is that it’s about more than just posting links and pretty pictures, now more than ever. Indeed, we have to work increasingly hard on these busy platforms with their ever-shifting algorithms. However, persistence pays and there is no faster way to get your blog content, and your business, in front of people than by embracing social media. Automating to make space for crafting Content should be scheduled regularly because on some platforms, Twitter especially, the feed moves so fast that your blog-post links are more likely to be missed than seen. I post on Twitter ten times a day, seven days a week. Automate your evergreen posts where you can (full automation will shortly not be possible on Twitter via the likes of Recurpost). That will free up time for posting manually on your core platforms. Manual posting allows us to craft our posts with the algorithms in mind. An example: Crafting for Facebook Here are some of the ways in which you might promote your blog content on Facebook:
Six-tip summary
Good luck building a healthy blog! Here's a free ebook. Visit the Blogging page in my resource library to download this free booklet. And if you're ready to dig even deeper, take a look at my course Blogging for Business Growth.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. FIND OUT MORE > Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader > Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn > Learn: Books and courses > Discover: Resources for authors and editors
Here's the fourth part of my audio-book creation series. In this article, professional voice artist Ray Greenley discusses distribution options, the importance of having your manuscript edited prior to narration, and briefing your voice artist or producer. Here's Ray ...
Distribution decisions
So you’ve listened to your auditions, you’ve researched your potential producer and think they’re the one for your book, and you’ve come to an agreement on payment terms. There are a few other bits you’ll need to work out before you can offer the producer a contract. One is whether you want to distribute exclusively through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for a higher share of the royalties from sales (royalties are 40% of sale price), or non-exclusively, which means you can set up distribution yourself through other platforms, but you’ll get a smaller share of royalties from sales through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes (royalties are 25% of sale price). Note that if you want to do a Royalty Share or Hybrid contract on ACX, you MUST do exclusive distribution. There’s some other information you’ll need to work out with the producer:
Different producers work at different paces; and many will have other books already waiting to be recorded. They might be able to start on your book right away and have it done in a week or two, or they might be scheduling out months in advance. Talk to your producer and let them know if you have any schedule in mind, but be ready to be flexible. Once you have those dates, you can offer the contract, and when it’s accepted you’re almost ready to go! There’s just one more thing you need to do, and that’s provide the producer with your final, ready-to-record manuscript.
Editing your manuscript
Now, I promise this isn’t just me sucking up to my gracious host, but please, for the love of all that’s good and holy, make sure your manuscript is edited and proofed by someone who knows what they’re doing. It makes the project many times more difficult when we have to struggle through bad grammar, missing punctuation, and poor formatting. In some cases (as happened with me early on), we can’t do it and the contract has to be canceled. If you find a producer who you like working with and does good work for you, then you’ll want to build that relationship into something ongoing. Handing them a manuscript that they can barely get through isn’t going to help. And while those grammar errors may seem innocuous enough on the page to your eyes, they’re VERY hard to hide in audio. Now, we producers know enough to not expect perfection. We can handle a reasonable number of errors in a manuscript. But in the end, it’s best for you, for us, and for your readers to get your manuscript properly edited, so please do it before sending the manuscript to us.
Briefing your producer
From here on out, it sort of depends on you and the producer. One thing that’s often very handy for a producer is to get some additional information about the characters in the story, including:
Also, if your book has words that your producer might have a hard time finding pronunciations for (particularly with made-up names in science fiction or fantasy books), having a key is really helpful. It’s really important to get this sort of information as early as possible while the producer is preparing to narrate the book, but before they’ve actually hit ‘record’. None of that stuff is vital; if you picked your producer well, they’ll be ready to handle all of that on their own. But having some guidance can definitely help. In the final article, we'll look at evaluating the first 15 minutes and production approval. Until then ... Resources
Contact Ray Greenley Website | Facebook | Twitter
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
If you're thinking about self-publishing a book, there 's something you need to know about prepping your prose before you go public: Proofreading is the last thing you need.
Begin on the starting blocks
When I say proofreading is the last thing you need, I mean it literally. Proofreading is the final stage in the editorial process prior to publication. The self-publisher who moves straight from writing to proofreading is trying to win the race by starting on the finish line. And unless you’re an extraordinary self-editor, you’ll be disappointed because it’s likely your book won’t be ready for market. Retain control but mimic the mainstream The beauty of self-publishing is the control you have over the process – you get to write the book you want on your terms. This means:
Still, the mainstream publishing industry knows a thing or two about producing books, and so they should – they’ve been doing it for long enough. And in their production world, proofreading comes last. This isn’t because it’s less important than the previous stages of editing, or easier, or quicker, but because it’s the final quality-control check to pick up what the interior designer, copy-editor, line editor and even a developmental editor missed – anything from an inconsistent character’s name to a misplaced apostrophe, a missing page number to a misspelled word, a rogue paragraph indent to an incorrectly formatted reference. This staged approach to editorial production, carried out by fresh, specialist sets of eyes, increases the likelihood that when the book hits the shelves – even the digital ones – most of the errors will have been fixed. If you mimic the mainstream publishing industry when you self-publish, you reach for the same bar. The different stages of editing When it comes to the different stages of editing, things are complicated by the fact that there are no universally applied terms used within the publishing industry or by the thousands of independent editors and proofreaders. However, what the industry doesn't disagree on is the order. Here's a framework to help you visualize the process: 1. SHAPING
This is the big-picture work that focuses on stuff like structure, plot, pace, narrative point of view and characterization. Terminology varies but look out for the following: developmental editing, content editing, substantive editing, story editing or structural editing.
2. SMOOTHING
This is sentence-level work that focuses on flow, form, readability and engagement. You might hear it called line editing or stylistic editing.
3. CORRECTING
This is sentence-level work that focuses on correct and consistent spelling, grammar, punctuation and layout. It might include fact-checking, too. It’s usually referred to as copyediting.
4. VERIFYING
This is the quality-control stage that picks up anything missed beforehand. This is where proofreading comes into play. If working on designed page proofs, the proofreader will also be checking that the layout matches the brief.
Be realistic: artistry versus wizardry Some new writers think that hiring a round of proofreading will be enough to make their book ready for market. It comes as a shock, not least to the wallet, when they realize what mimicking the mainstream publishing industry will entail. However, I promise you this – a proofreader will not be able to fix 14,000 spelling, punctuation and grammar errors, strengthen the narrative arc, and omit all the wordiness – all in one pass – and hand the file back to the writer with a guarantee of perfection attached to the invoice.
8 tips for self-publishers on a budget Here are some ideas that will help you make the tough decisions. Click on the image to save and download your own copy of the infographic. Last but not least … the proofreader One pass is not enough. Proofreading is an essential part of the self-publishing process, but it’s only one part. Staged editing isn’t cheap – ask any mainstream press – but it’s the surest way to professional self-publishing that turns discerning readers into fans. And fans won’t just buy this book; they’ll buy every book you’ll ever write. Related reading
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses. |
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