The Proofreader's Parlour
A blog for editors, proofreaders and writers
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This week’s reader question is from Pritti, who’s already secured publishing work but wants to move out of her science commissioning role. Lack of practical experience and relevant qualifications are holding her back.
Pritti says:
Thanks so much for allowing this to be a open forum/platform for beginners like me to ask questions! I am a 23-year-old law graduate who currently works as a commissioning editor for a online science publishing company. However, even though this has been a 'foot in the door' type of position, my heart is really set on going into trade publishing and becoming a freelance editor. Not only that, my position here as a commissioning editor isn't what it actually says on the tin – it's more on the commissioning side of things rather than editing. In fact, I do no editing whatsoever, in my opinion! So I feel like I'm not gaining the necessary skills I need for the industry. I was thinking that obtaining a well-recognized qualification would help get me noticed, as my ultimate goal is to become a freelance editor – but without gaining the necessary experience in my current role, and without the qualifications, I do feel like I'm at loss here. I've also applied for a number of roles but been unsuccessful owing to my lack of experience. Freelance agencies have also rejected my application for the same reasons – not having enough experience. Furthermore, there's also no way of acquiring clients where I work. Please help! Thanks so much for your question, Pritti! I accept that your current role won’t give you the practical experience you require because you’re in a commissioning rather than production role. However, I don’t think that needs to stand in your way of embarking on training that will prepare you for developmental editing, line editing, copyediting or proofreading in a freelance capacity. No training provider will turn you away because you don’t already have the experience! The UK’s Society for Editors and Proofreaders, for example, offers a suite of online training courses designed for novices and experienced professionals alike. I wonder whether because you’re working in-house you’ve got yourself into a mindset of thinking like an employee. If want to work as an independent editor, you need to start thinking like an employer (of yourself). That means sorting out everything for your business from your training to marketing to administration. Getting qualifications My first piece of advice is therefore to sort out the qualifications issue. I’ve covered this in several previous Q&As, so take a look at the articles and the list of national editorial societies below. You haven’t told me where you live but there are several distance-learning options available (in Canada, the US and the UK, for example).
Getting work Freelance agencies are certainly one option, but that’s a narrow approach to take given the many others worthy of exploration. Here are some additional ideas:
Your subject specialism You told me that you’d like to work in the trade publishing sector. The term ‘trade’ refers to the publishing of materials for a general audience. If you want to be found by, for example, independent thriller writers, you’re going to need to be visible, and that may take time while you build your portfolio and your SEO. If you want to do freelance work for trade publishers (for example, Pan Macmillan or Little, Brown) you’ll might well struggle until you have more experience under your belt (unless you get lucky). I think this is something you should set your sights on further down the road. In the meantime, focus your efforts on building your freelance business – marketing yourself and practising your post-qualification craft. I always recommend that new entrants to the field focus attention on the market where they’re most likely to stand out. Specialize in what you know first; diversify later. You have a law degree. I don’t. That’s why I’d never copyedit for a law student or an academic submitting an article to a legal journal. And while I have proofread law books for academic publishers, those clients never asked me to copyedit. Your law degree means you speak a language and have a knowledge base that I don’t (and many other experienced editors don’t). You can use that to differentiate yourself. When I began my editorial business journey, I had professional training, a politics degree and experience of working in-house for a social science publisher. I didn’t spend valuable time trying to get my business off the ground by asking Gollancz if I could proofread their SF Masterworks series (much as I would have loved to do that!). Instead, I went and knocked on the door of social science publishers and spent several years honing my craft with politics, sociology, philosophy, economics and media studies books. Over time, new opportunities arose as I became more visible and my marketing efforts began to bear fruit. But it did take time, and while that happened I concentrated on where my strengths lay so that I could gain experience. I believe that you need to do the same. I think you should focus on the following client groups to begin with:
Some academic publishers also have trade divisions/imprints and so the academic work can deliver trade opportunities to the independent editor. Summing up I hope that helps you get your thoughts in order, Pritti. If you take things one step at a time, I’m confident you can get to a point where you’re immersed in the trade sector. But I’d recommend building up to it by playing to your market strengths. Good luck! You ask. I'll answer
I'm more than happy to tackle questions, especially from beginners. If there's something you want advice about, drop me a line and I'll post a solution to your problem here. The more focused your question, the more in-depth my answer will be! And if you want me to mask your identity, no problem.
Check the Q&A archive to see whether your question's already been answered.
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
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, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
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This is the second in a series of guest posts by my colleague Steve Allen, a soldier-turned-editor who specializes in firearms and military-particulars editing. Here are four more tips to consider when writing about firearms in fiction.
1. Is it just a gun?
Is is ever just a gun? Yes and no. Any gun is not substitutable at will for another gun. Not all guns share the same features, nor can one gun do everything. Just as mechanics need more than one wrench, some tasks require different guns. All firearms share common basic features but are quite varied, similar to tools. Choose the correct tool for your characters based on the story and situation. Do not give the hero a 9mm pistol nailing bad guys at 900 yards (823 metres). Use a scoped high-power rifle for shots greater than 600 yards (549 metres). A shotgun, even when loaded with rifled slugs, cannot shoot accurately across a valley. Shotguns and pistols are designed for up close and personal. 
2. Terminology tangles
I don’t fault writers for simple and common terminology and vernacular mistakes, unless their target readers would. I ignore basic firearms terminology mistakes as long as the author is clear on intent and meaning. Most people use cartridges, shells, rounds and bullets interchangeably. Referring to a magazine as a clip is usually not a story-killer – unless you’re writing very gun-centric fiction where the character would not make that mistake. Firearms terminology and acronyms are writer-trapping quagmires – avoid them if you can. Establish gun terms early in the manuscript. If your writing feels like you’re trying too hard, your readers will know. Be consistent with your terminology and keep things simple. If you refer to a magazine as a clip, do so throughout the story. Flipping back and forth between terms confuses readers. Use the term assault rifle with care. Know if you will offend your readers by the use of 'assault rifle' or if they will even care. There is no precise lawful definition of what is an assault rifle. Adolf Hitler is credited with creating the term as a propaganda piece during WWII. In the US, assault rifle is generally used by politicians demonizing a particular weapon, hoping to ban by legislation its ownership and sale. 
3. Clip-fed revolvers … and reloading
The revolver reloaded by a magazine is a less frequent mistake, but one I notice occasionally. Revolvers are loaded by stripper clips, speed loaders or loose rounds, not magazines. Know at least the basics of how and with what the guns are reloaded in your story. Reloading a weapon is best kept general, with as few words as possible, before returning to the action quickly. Explaining that your character popped open his revolver, dumped the empty cartridges, then refilled it with loose rounds from his pocket, snapping it closed when full, is sufficient. Better yet, just mention that the character reloaded and let the readers form their own mental images. You don’t need to describe every single step of reloading a gun, because it detracts from the action. 
4. Your hero put what on a what?
Improper use of firearm accessories or impossible accessory attachment is a fairly common mistake. For example – rogue Chinese general assassinates the Chinese president with a suppressed revolver. Frequent mistakes that I see include:
With attachments and accessories, follow the KISS principle. For a writer unfamiliar with guns, KISS means Keep It Simple, Stupid. More is not always better. Complicating firearms in combat can be disastrous for your hero. Next time, we'll be looking at thumb safeties and silencers among other things. Until then, if you have any questions for Steve about firearms in fiction, drop them in the comments and he'll help you out.
Steve Allen is a retired soldier living north of Seattle, WA, with his lovely wife and daughters, and a neurotic terrier and a goofy black Labrador.
When not editing, Steve wanders the Pacific Northwest on roads less travelled, searching for good books and very cold beer. Email: stevenwordsmith67@gmail.com
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
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, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
Writing about pain is hard, but there’s no shame in that struggle; it’s difficult to articulate even when we’re experiencing it.
‘Pain is […] the kind of subjective and poorly delineated experience that is difficult to express satisfactorily in language […] Indeed, pain shares some of the characteristics of target domains that have received considerable attention in the cognitive linguistic literature. Like LOVE, for example, it is private, subjective [...] cannot be directly observed,’ says linguist Elena Semino. When researching this article, I was surprised by how little has been written about the art of depicting physical pain in fiction. And, yet, the act of hurting is prevalent in most genres; it deserves as much attention as emotional distress. I've come across a few examples in my sentence-level editing work this year where great writers came a little unstuck, tending towards repetition and overwriting the pain. That was my prompt to delve deeper. I thought it would be interesting to look at depictions of physical pain from within the bubble of novel craft ... and beyond, in medicine and poetry. Here are 5 tips to help you write about physical suffering. 1. Don’t always say it hurts – less is more ‘Pain is something we all go through to a lesser or greater extent. It’s something we all know intimately. Yet it’s so hard to describe and write about. It’s hard to push beyond “it hurts” and not wallow in it and also hold your reader,’ writes Justine Larbalestier. She’s spot on. It’s why some beginner writers’ pain scenes end up either repetitive, overwritten or clichéd. Trust your reader. If a character’s elbow is smashed with a hammer, do we really need to be told that it hurt, that he ‘writhed in agony’, that he was ‘wracked with pain’? Sometimes less is more. Readers are very good at filling in the gaps. Just as we imagine (without being directed to) a character rolling her eyes when she’s frustrated, raking her hands through her hair when she’s downcast, or biting her lip when she’s anxious, so we know that she feels pain when she’s kicked or punched, when she stubs her toe, when she’s stabbed, whipped or bitten. Mick Herron is a master of keeping it lean. It’s not that he avoids mentioning pain, but he weaves experience into its telling that makes the reader think, Yes, I get that. Here’s an extract from Slow Horses: Arms pulled River upright and his body screamed, but felt good at the same time – aching its way out of a cramp. A bottle was pressed to his lips, and water poured into his mouth. River coughed and bent forward; spat; threw up almost. Then blindly reached for the bottle, grabbed it, and greedily gulped down the rest of its contents. ‘Shit, man,’ Griff Yates said. ‘You really are a fucking mess.’ 
2. Consider the type of pain
Commonly understood descriptors can be useful when thinking about pain writing. Semino references the 1971 McGill Pain Questionnaire and summarizes author Ronald Melzack’s categorization as follows:
The first way in which you might use this table is to apply the descriptors to your writing of a character’s pain. These can help you with the shape and movement of it.
Here's a fine example cited by Susannah Mintz. It's a scene from Sharon Cameron's Beautiful Work, where the narrator, Anna, says of her pain: [It is a] beating between my breasts, and a reverberation of beating upward to my collarbone – a low steady hum, close to my body, not touching it. But agitating it. Below the beating, a thick, spikelike pressure was driving down to my belly …. The roof of my mouth was dry. I couldn’t swallow. A harsher beating arose near the surface of the skin in my left breast below the nipple. (84) The descriptors are evident, but Cameron uses them artfully to bring the pain to life; it has intention. It does things to Anna ... it's 'near' her, 'close to' her, rather than within her. In this detached state, the pain becomes a supporting character in the scene. 
3. Focus on pain's consequences
Think about how you might show physical and emotional reactions rather than telling the pain. You could use the descriptors from the table above as nudges as to what those reactions might be. For example, if your character’s pain is crushing, you might express this by showing him struggling for breath; if it’s gnawing, you might have him bent and holding his belly. Back to the hammer and the elbow … what if instead of being told that the character is in agony, we learn that he doubles over, falls to his knees, vomits, or blanches? Perhaps he experiences a white-out, or loses control of his bowels. What about the sounds he makes … or those he doesn’t because he’s rendered voiceless? How does the pain move and what does it look like? Some of these reactions might be brutal, but the injury and consequent pain are themselves brutal and needn’t be shied away from. Similarly, emotional reactions can help with the writing of physical pain. How does your character feel when that hammer hits his elbow? Depressed, frightened, vulnerable, hopeless, despairing, humiliated, angry? In The Poppy Factory, William Fairchild focuses sharply on the sounds and movements his character makes, and shows the hurting through them. Then suddenly you're down and all movement stops like a jammed cine film. You're still screaming but now it's different. It's because of the pain and when you try to get up, your legs won't move. You don't know where you are. All you know is that you're alone and probably going to die. When you stop screaming and look up, the sky is dark and you can't hear the guns any more, only the sound of someone moaning softly. It takes a few moments before you realise it's yourself. In the PDF below, I've included some additional ideas for possible reactions to pain, (based on the nudges from the descriptor table above). There's space for you to add your own. 
4. Acknowledge the limitations of agony
When I’m told that a character is in (physical) agony, my expectations of what she is capable of are changed. I’ve only been in agony a couple of times in my life, and I was good for nothing, rendered almost immobile. Reason left me. So did language. And so just because our protagonist is an MI5 agent with advanced armed-combat skills and interrogation-resistance techniques, there’s probably only so much she can take if she’s in agony. Some genres of writing lend themselves better than others to acute pain tolerance – fantasy and sci-fi, obviously, when world-building rules allow for it; and action/adventure with Jason Bourne-like characters who refuse to go down no matter what they’re subjected to. Somewhere there’s always a line, though – a point where Invulnerable Uberguy becomes unbelievable, laughable. If we’re told he’s in agony but he’s still throwing cool punches, turning roundhouse kicks, evaluating his escape route and planning this evening’s dinner date all at the same time, parody’s not far away. There’s nothing wrong with escapist writing that allows for agony tolerance and superhero-like brilliance as long as that’s your intention and your reader’s expectation. If you’re aiming for authenticity and grit, though, be mindful of pain thresholds, especially what’s possible when your character’s in agony. Agony, drawn realistically, can make us doubt the protagonist’s ability to make it. Why is that interesting? Says K.M. Weiland: ‘A good story should have the power to engage [readers] in a character’s suffering even when they know it’s all going to turn out right in the end. Every time an obstacle shows up between your protagonist and his goal, ask yourself: Is this just something that happens to him? Does he just brush it off and move on? Or does it hit him where it hurts? Does it make him (and readers) doubt his ability to make to the end of his journey?’ 
5. Look at how the poets do it
Milton. Who better? In this excerpt, we’re left in no doubt as to Satan’s physical suffering, and yet there’s no mention of his feeling it. Instead, we see it in our mind’s eye through the effort of his movements (‘uneasy steps’) and the detail in the environment (‘burning marle’, ‘torrid clime’, ‘inflamed sea’) that ‘he so endured’. His Spear, to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great admiral, were but a wand, He walked with to support uneasy steps Over the burning marle, not like those steps On Heaven’s azure, and the torrid clime Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire; Nathless he so endured, till on the beach Of that inflamed sea, he stood and called His Legions, angel forms [...] Which is best? Whether you choose to leave your character's hurt to the reader's imagination, tell it through using commonly understood descriptors, or show it through reaction and environment will depend on your style, genre and intention. If you're in the middle of a fast-paced action scene, Cameron's approach in Beautiful Work might be a distraction for your reader. If you're writing a more introspective scene, Herron's lean approach in Slow Horses could leave the reader wanting. There's no best way of writing about physical suffering. The most important thing is that it shouldn't be boring. Unless your reader has congenital analgesia, they will have experienced pain and know it is anything but tedious. Further reading
Here's your Pain: Type, Shape and Reaction Nudges PDF. Click on the image to download your free copy. 
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
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, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
Here's more from my audio-book creation series. This time, professional voice artist Ray Greenley talks about doing it yourself, how long it will take and what kit you'll need. Over to Ray ...
In previous posts I talked about platforms (ACX), pricing, and sourcing and evaluating a professional voice artist for your audio book.
I know what you're thinking – 'There’s another option you’re not telling me about on purpose … I could avoid all these issues and just record my book myself!’ Yes, that’s true. You could. Okay … are you sure? I mean, REALLY sure? Because producing an audio book does take quite a bit of work. As a rule of thumb, a producer who knows what they’re doing will generally spend about six hours working to produce a single hour of finished audio. So if your audio book ends up being about 10 hours long, that means you could expect to spend about 60 hours working to produce it once you’ve invested the time in learning how, and the money in the equipment you’ll need. You'll need the following equipment (I'll go into more detail below):
There are some decent microphones that plug directly into your computer via USB, but generally you’ll get a better sound with an XLR microphone and a preamp. 
Also, vitally, you’ll need a good space to record in. It should be quiet with plenty of sound-absorbing material in it to make the space sound as ‘dead’ as possible.
A walk-in closet can do the trick in a pinch, although chances are you’ll need some additional sound treatment to really get it acceptable. By the way, if you live in a busy area with a lot of traffic or other outside noises that you can hear from your space, then your space is no good unless you can somehow insulate against all those outside noises or are willing to record in the middle of the night when (hopefully) things are quiet. More on preamps and recording software Okay, well if you’re really on a budget, you can record using Audacity, which is free recording software. It has some solid tools and can do what you need. If you’re willing to invest some money, you can get some reasonably priced software that can do a bit more. I use Studio One Artist from Presonus, and I know some other narrators work well with Reaper. Both of those programs can be had for less than $100. There are many others as well. 
For the preamp, there are some good options at a reasonable price. I currently use a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, but I’m looking forward to upgrading to a Presonus Studio 2|6 soon.
Another reasonable option would be the Presonus AudioBox USB. One of the nice perks to getting one of the Presonus preamps is that it includes the recording software I mentioned earlier, Studio One Artist. Once again, there are lots of other options, many of which would probably be sufficient for your needs. The big question, the microphone So I can tell you that I use a Shure KSM32 and it works well for me. I’m pretty fortunate that I can sound good on such a relatively inexpensive microphone (US$499+). 
Unfortunately, there’s absolutely no way to know if YOU will sound good on it, too.
Microphones really are very personal tools. One that works great for me might be terrible for you, and vice versa. Your best bet is to try several out and see what works well. The easiest way to do that is to find a specialty store that sells them; the store will often let you try some out before you buy because they’re aware of the difficulty in matching the microphone to the voice. ‘Okay, so once I’ve that all set up I’m good to go, right?’ So … no, not nearly. You still need to learn how to USE all that stuff, which takes a lot of time and effort. 
I know this isn’t a surprise coming from me, but I think you’ll REALLY want to consider carefully when it comes to narrating your own book.
If you think you might really want to get into narration and put in the time and energy to learn how to do it right, then have at it. It’s very challenging work, but also very rewarding. There are very few people who have the right talents to be both a writer and a narrator, let alone have the time to train and use both sets of skills. My hat’s off to you! However, if you’re thinking you want to record your own book because you just want to try to save some money over paying a narrator to do it, or hoping to avoid the work of finding a good narrator who’ll take your book on as a Royalty Share project … please don’t. I promise it’ll take time you’d probably rather spend writing, and the chances of it really being a high-quality production are not great (no offence). In the long run, I’d bet it will cost you more than you’ll save, one way or another.
Next time we'll be looking at distribution, briefing the artist, and evaluating the first 15 minutes. Until then, thanks for reading!
Resources
Contact Ray Greenley Website | Facebook | Twitter
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
The Begin Self-Publishing Podcast is dedicated to sharing tools, tips, advice and ideas about self-publishing from industry specialists.
The BSP host, Tim Lewis, kindly invited me onto the show to talk about fiction editing. Tim and I discuss the following:
You can listen to the full episode here: Fiction Editing with Louise Harnby Previous episodes have addressed non-fiction editing (with my friend and colleague Denise Cowle), business tips, marketing advice, social media promotion, cover design, interior formatting and publishing services. For more information, or to subscribe, go to the Begin Self-Publishing Podcast.
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour (subscribe here) and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
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, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
My friend and colleague Denise Cowle is a specialist non-fiction editor who works with a wide range of businesses, so she understands the pressure to publish better than most. Here's her expert advice on when good enough is acceptable ... and when it's not.
Perfection and the pressure to publish
When you write for your business, is it perfect? Should it be? Small businesses without the benefit of a dedicated marketing department are increasingly recognizing the power that quality content has to raise their profile, connect with their potential clients and ultimately drive sales. However, the focus on publishing content regularly can pile on the pressure to get something – anything – out there, to keep up with the publishing schedule for your blog, or to update your web copy and marketing materials to reflect the latest developments in your field. Does this writing have to be perfect? Should we expect everything that people produce to be error-free? If you pay too much attention to the Grammar Police, you’ll be paralysed with fear that a misplaced apostrophe or misused word will bring your carefully constructed business crashing down around your ears. There’s no excuse for poor grammar, they’ll bellow, caps lock on, from behind the anonymity of their screens. Ignorance of correct spelling is the scourge of society, they’ll mutter, labelling you as feckless, careless and lazy, without knowing anything about you or your business, other than the fact you typed except instead of accept. But as an editor, and advocate of content marketing, I beg to differ. I think there are occasions when it’s OK to put out content with errors. Shock! I know! Am I doing myself out of a job here? Not exactly. 
This is not permission to abandon all standards
Before you go rushing off to dispense with the services of your freelance editor and disable spellchecker, let me explain. I’m not for a minute suggesting that you should take this as permission to abandon all efforts to produce great, error-free copy. I’m working on the assumption here that you’ve taken time to make your copy the best it can possibly be within your time and budgetary constraints. I’m assuming you’ve used the tools and techniques available to you; you’ve run the inbuilt spellchecker or other software, read through your text carefully, and used a dictionary when you’ve been unsure. But sometimes, despite all your efforts, errors remain, either because you’ve missed them or because you don’t actually recognize them as errors in the first place. You go ahead and hit the publish button, and your mistakes are out there for all the world to see. We’ve all done it, but it’s rarely the end of the world. When is it OK to publish content with errors? In my view, it’s forgivable to have the odd mistake in content that:
It comes down to the purpose of the content, the medium you’re using, and the value your audience places on it. Your reputation will survive a typo in a tweet signposting your latest blog (I’ve done it myself and lived to tell the tale). Unless, of course, the typo is so unintentionally funny or rude that it goes viral! And even then, is there such a thing as bad publicity? It depends on your business, and what the error is. If you’ve created a free email course as lead generation I’d expect it to be error-free. However, the odd missing apostrophe or spelling mistake may not be a deal-breaker for your audience if the content is amazing and provides lots of value. 
When is it not OK to publish content with errors?
It’s not OK to publish content with any errors if:
If you’re an editor or proofreader, to my mind this is a no-brainer. Your clients are looking for perfection, or as near as dammit. There is no margin for error here. And don’t think you can get away with proofreading your own writing because, let me say this clearly: You. Will. Miss. Things. Who wants to hire an editor with spelling or grammatical errors in their copy? The answer should be: no one. 
Banish procrastination and publish!
No one wants to see any writing, however fabulous the content, strewn with spelling mistakes and grammatical blunders. But I’d much rather see you sharing your content with the world than keeping it in a draft folder because you’re worried that it might contain errors. Don’t allow fear to prevent you from publishing. Do your due diligence – run spellchecker, follow my tips on how to proofread your own writing – and get it out there! The world doesn’t stop turning because of a couple of typos, and you owe it to yourself and your business to write that copy, making it as good as you can. Should you hire someone to edit/proofread blog posts or other content? Rather than slogging over copy like it’s your overdue English homework, you might recognize that your time is better spent elsewhere and free yourself from the burden. If writing isn’t an enjoyable part of your work, wouldn’t it be better to outsource all or part of the process? Giving yourself permission to do this acknowledges that your time is a commodity in your business, and you have a responsibility to spend it wisely. You should consider this option when:
Is good enough, enough? Not everyone is blessed with the ability to write well and consistently, but I believe that everyone can improve with practice. Learning from mistakes is a crucial part of the process, and that can only happen when you write your web copy or publish your blog and allow other people to read it. Good enough can be enough when it’s on the road to even better.
Denise Cowle is a copy-editor and proofreader for non-fiction. She works with educational materials, reports, marketing copy and blogs. Her blog focuses on helping you to be a better non-fiction writer. Denise is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders.
Further reading from Denise
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
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, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources. Slipping into character – understanding the impact of narrative point of view (Sophie Playle)7/9/2017
Point of view can be difficult to master if you've not studied novel craft. My friend and colleague Sophie Playle has. She's an outstanding developmental editor who knows how to help writers get the big-picture stuff right. Today, she takes you through the fundamentals of narrative point of view so you (and your reader) know who's telling your story.
Over to Sophie ... 
As an author, you have a lot of decisions to make when it comes to putting the ideas you have for your novel down on paper. Where should you start the story? Which characters should you focus on? Should you write in past or present tense? Third or first person? The possibilities are overwhelming.
It seems counterintuitive, but narrowing your options can be quite freeing. Once you’ve eliminated the paralysis of infinite choice, you can focus your creativity. Choosing the viewpoint from which you tell your story is one decision you should certainly consider. It doesn’t matter whether you think about this before you start writing or during the redrafting stage. Either way, by deliberately and purposefully aligning your narration with a particular character, you’ll be able to:
When a novelist hasn’t considered the point of view from which they’re telling their story, it makes things a lot harder for the reader. The story might lack focus, the characters might feel at arm’s length, and the writing style could fall flat. If you struggle with any of these issues, considering point of view could be the answer. 
What is ‘point of view’ in fiction?
Let’s start with the basics. When we talk about point of view in fiction, we’re talking about the position from which the events of the novel are being observed or experienced. It’s essentially where you’ve decided to place the lens through which a reader accesses your story. [My writing] students talk about 'point of view' […] as if it were mechanical, when in fact it refers to the hardest and most thrilling thing we do—becoming someone else, becoming that person so thoroughly that if we’ve decided the person is nearsighted, we’ll imagine the room in a blur as soon as she takes off her glasses; if we’ve made him so jealous he can kill, we’ll feel mad rage down to our tingling fingertips when his girlfriend looks at another man.
Alice Mattison, The Kite and the String
But before we get into the details of slipping into character, we should back up a little. There are many narrative layers to a novel, and it’s useful to understand them.
Narrators, not authors, tell stories.** The difference is subtle, but important. If the author tells a story, the reader knows it’s made up. But if the narrator tells the story, it’s much easier for the reader to willingly suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves in what the narrator is saying. When you write, you – as the author – should disappear. Instead, you channel the narrator. The narrator can either be a character in the story or a disembodied observer. Either way, you see what they see, hear what they hear, and smell what they smell as they experience the events of your story. And depending on the type of narrator you’ve chosen to use, the narrator can also slip in and out of the perspective of your viewpoint character (or characters), experiencing the world through their body and mind, expressing those experiences using their language and style. I admit, it’s a little confusing to wrap your head around. So let’s take a quick look at the most common types of narration and the implications each can have on your writing, and hopefully all will become clear. 
The different types of narration
FIRST PERSON First-person narration is when a character is telling the story from their own perspective and uses the pronoun ‘I’. Unless the character is telepathic, they will only be able to express the events of the novel from their own point of view and have knowledge of things only they have experienced. If they learn things from other characters, this knowledge will be filtered through (and potentially distorted by) their interpretation. Pros
Cons
EXAMPLE: If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.
J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
THIRD PERSON OBJECTIVE
Third-person narration refers to characters as ‘he/she/it’. Third person objective is used when the point of view from which the story is told is like a floating camera following the characters around. The narrator is almost invisible as it won’t express any thoughts and emotions and can only report on sensory experience – what could be seen, heard or smelt by any onlooker. There is no direct access to the thoughts and emotions of the characters, other than what can be interpreted by their dialogue and actions. This viewpoint isn’t normally used over the course of a whole novel, and it can be blended with third-person subjective (see below). Sometimes new writers will inadvertently use this viewpoint if they’ve taken the advice ‘show, don’t tell’ to an ill-considered extreme! Pros
Cons
EXAMPLE: Spade rose bowing and indicating with a thick-fingered hand the oaken armchair beside his desk. He was quite six feet tall. The steep rounded slope of his shoulders made his body seem almost conical—no broader than it was thick—and kept his freshly pressed grey coat from fitting very well. Miss Wonderly murmured, “Thank you,” softly as before and sat down on the edge of the chair’s wooden seat.
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
THIRD PERSON SUBJECTIVE (OR LIMITED)
Unlike with third person objective, the reader has access to the thoughts and emotions of the viewpoint character. The story is told only through one viewpoint character’s perspective at a time. We see, hear, smell, taste, feel and think what they do; the narrative is written in the character’s voice; and the reader can know only what the character knows. Third person subjective narration can be blended with third person objective narration to varying degrees. If the narrative is slightly more objective, the character’s direct thoughts might be made visually distinct from the main narrative by either being presented in italics or quote marks; if the narrative is very much subjective, separating direct thoughts isn’t necessary because the whole narrative is written from the direct perspective of the character. Jumping from one viewpoint character to another in close succession is known as head hopping and can be very confusing for the reader. It’s advisable to stick to one viewpoint character at a time. Pros
Cons
EXAMPLE: It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something about to happen. Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice.
-- Lois Lowry, The Giver
OMNISCIENT
With omniscient narration, the narrator knows everything and isn’t limited to the viewpoint of any single character. An omniscient narration could be written in present or past tense, and use first or third person; they could be a character in the story (like a god or an enlightened person), or they could be an observing nonentity. Completely omniscient viewpoints are difficult to pull off well and have fallen out of fashion. Pros
Cons
EXAMPLE: Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt ... Elizabeth – or Beth, as everyone called her – was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression, which was seldom disturbed ...
— Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
Omniscient narration is quite complex, so let’s go into a little more detail. Omniscient narration can never truly be all-knowing because of the limitations of the nature of writing and reading: words must be read in order, so experiences must be felt in a linear way, which is not the same as having all knowledge in your head simultaneously.
Because of this, as with all writing, the issue is that of choice: what information does the omniscient narrator choose to divulge at any given time and, more importantly, why? Jumping from one viewpoint character to another (head hopping) should still be kept to a minimum to avoid confusion, and using an omniscient narrator is not an excuse for using this device in an uncontrolled way! 
How to choose the right viewpoint for your novel
Choosing which type of narration to use will depend on the kind of effect you want to create, and the kind of knowledge-handling your plot requires. When deciding which point of view to choose, ask yourself the following:
These might not be simple questions to answer, but if you can figure out which answers are most important to you, you should be able to decide which narrative form and which character’s or characters’ viewpoints will allow you to tell the type of story you want to tell. How to control the POV in your story Once you’re aware of the issues of point of view, it’s surprisingly easy to control it and avoid confusion and inconsistency. All it takes is a little logical thinking, depending on your answers to the following questions:
Once you’ve answered these questions, it should be simple to use your chosen viewpoint in a consistent and focused way. How to handle multiple viewpoints Should you have multiple viewpoints in your novel? It’s really up to you – and will depend on the type of story you want to tell and the effects you want to create. The main advantage of sticking to one viewpoint is that it allows you to explore it in greater depth; the main advantage of using multiple viewpoints is that it allows you to explore the events of the novel in greater breadth. Switching the POV often makes it harder for the reader to really get to know a character. It’s the equivalent of going to a party and talking to a different person every twenty minutes. My advice is to keep your number of viewpoints to a minimum. Use only what the story needs – not what you feel like writing. If you have two narrators or characters telling the same story, you need a very good reason for it. When using multiple viewpoints, it’s imperative to make the switch between them seamless and clear. It’s best to start a new chapter or scene when switching viewpoints; at the very least, start a new paragraph. Whichever method you choose, keep the pattern consistent. Don’t just have one chapter in which there are multiple switches when all your other chapters stick exclusively to one viewpoint. Summing up The way you chose to narrate your story will have an impact on how your story is read. Different narrative styles allow you to create different effects. Choosing viewpoint characters brings focus, tension and originality to your writing. Controlling the point-of-view elements in your novel and learning to slip into character is one impactful way to become a better writer and write better books.
Further reading from Sophie
* One crucial thing you probably didn't realize about point of view ** Whose story is it anyway? How to choose your narrator
Sophie Playle runs Liminal Pages, where she offers editorial services to authors and training to fiction editors. Want a freebie with absolutely no strings attached? Sure thing. Click here to download ‘Self-Editing Your Novel’.
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
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, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
If you're proofreading final designed page proofs, there's more to look out for than the odd typo or double space. Professional proofreaders identify and find solutions to a range of layout problems too.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #84
Who's this checklist for? This is for anyone checking final designed page proofs, For example:
I've proofread over 500 books for the mainstream publishing industry. The checklist below is based on the house guidelines provided by the publishers I've worked for. The titles I've proofread include social science textbooks, handbooks and monographs, and works of fiction and narrative non-fiction. And while the subject matter has varied, the requirements for checking final page proofs hasn't. Note my use of the term 'final designed page proofs'. This checklist is not for those doing a final quality-control check in a Word document. Rather, we're dealing with a typeset PDF or hardcopy of the book as it will appear when printed or published online. For that reason, the proofreader is tasked with ensuring that the appearance of the book is consistent and correct according to client preference. This PDF provides a summary of the required checks. Click on the image to download your free copy. 
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
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, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
This is the first in a series of guest posts by my colleague Steve Allen, a soldier-turned-editor who specializes in firearms and military-particulars editing.
Today we're looking at applying caution when loading up your hero with high-tech kit. Is he or she tactical, tacti-fool or tacti-cool? Over to Steve ...
I’m a specialist freelance editor of firearm and military-related particulars. I see gun-related writer mistakes all too frequently. Many simple firearm mistakes can be avoided without problems.
Unfortunately, many of the firearm mistakes I see are not simple, nor are they so easily fixed. Insignificant firearms mistakes inflame the nitpickers and have them shitting on your reviews. Savvy readers catch even the smallest of mistakes. After a mistake, readers question your writing, wondering what other mistakes you’ve made. Make too many and your story falls apart. Basic firearm mistakes cause you to lose credibility. Even in fiction, you must maintain credibility. What follows in this series are the frequent firearm mistakes that I see in fiction manuscripts and some advice on how to avoid them. Tactical, tacti-cool and tacti-fool Give your characters a good weapons load-out and good gear. Know the difference between tactical, tacti-cool and tacti-fool. Arming your characters reasonably takes some practice and restraint.
Unless writing satire, parody, comedy, etc., avoid giving your characters tacti-cool gear. Loading a character with tacti-cool gear, and having him learn the hard way the value of quality gear is a good use of tacti-cool stuff – just don’t overdo it. This is what tacti-cool looks like:
Oooh, shiny! I cringe every time an author tells me, ‘But it looks cool.’ Don’t give your characters ridiculous and worthless gear based on looks. Movies are incredibly influential, which is why I mention them so often in this series. Looking cool is great in the movies; it can get you killed in the field. Avoid gear such as:
Low-cost, mass-produced tactical gear is designed to empty the tacti-fool’s wallet, not actually to be used in combat. A simple rule of thumb to follow is: if the elite troops don’t carry it, avoid arming your character with it. A caveat is: if the weapon fits the character’s back story, then it might be okay. For example, if your character studied Silat (Indonesian martial art) and carries a kerambit it fits the story. If your character learned Eskrima (also known as Doce Pares; Filipino martial art) while living in Cebu, then arming her with fighting sticks fits the story.
If you enjoyed this, there's a PDF summary of the key points here. Just click on the image to download.
You can access the full 45-page ebook now by joining Louise's Writing Library. If you'd prefer not to sign up, that's fine. Instead, watch out for forthcoming posts in The Art of Firearms in Fiction series here on The Proofreader's Parlour.
Steve Allen is a retired soldier living north of Seattle, WA, with his lovely wife and daughters, a neurotic terrier and a goofy black Labrador.
When not editing, Steve wanders the Pacific Northwest on roads less travelled, searching for good books and very cold beer. Email: stevenwordsmith67@gmail.com
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
‘A good design should be almost invisible. It should support your words, deliver them to the reader, not get in the way.’
Rebecca Brown, Design for Writers 
I'm delighted to welcome Rebecca Brown of Design for Writers to the Proofreader's Parlour. Design for Writers is the team I refer my authors to when they ask for help with book formatting and design.
In this post, Rebecca offers her expert advice on how to get the best from your book interior ...
Congratulations! Having shed blood, sweat and tears, and arrived at a finished manuscript, you’ve decided to take the plunge and self-publish.
As part of the process of finding the best people to help you do that, one of your priorities will be making your book look as professional as possible. Everyone’s heard the saying ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. Yet most people do just that. And they judge it by how it looks inside, too. The cover will get people to pick your book off the shelf; the interior will help make it a pleasure to read. Why is interior design important? Your words have been carefully edited and chosen to hook your readers, but the best opening lines may never even be read if they’re set in a font that’s difficult to read, the margins are so small that you need to crack the spine just to read the start of each line, or the overall design looks rushed and unprofessional. Many self-published authors rely on online sales of both print books and ebooks though, so, okay, a badly designed book might not necessarily put off all prospective buyers. But do you want your readers to leave reviews saying, ‘I don’t know if this book was any good because it was horrible to read’? It does happen, just as readers will leave reviews that criticize poor editing or a weak story line. And those readers are less likely to return for Book Two. What does a well-designed book look like? The best way of answering that is to look at some professionally published books. This is what you’ll find. Text: The text is large enough to read – usually around 11 or 12 point – but not too large (unless it’s a large-print edition) of course; the point is that the text size is appropriate for the target audience. Margins: There’s plenty of space around the text. You don’t want tiny margins; you need to be able to see the text as it goes in towards the spine, and you need to be able to hold it around the edges without your thumb obscuring the words. Some titles will have bigger margins, like children’s books. Again, it’s about an appropriate design for your readership. Typeface: The most obvious and striking feature is the chosen typeface. It should be a serif font (like Garamond, or Times) not a sans-serif font (like Arial) for the body text. Serif fonts are easier on the eyes for long format, physical text. Sans-serif fonts are easier for on-screen reading on a computer. However, this itself can depend on the type of book – many people prefer a sans-serif for some kinds of non-fiction. For fiction, though, choose a traditional serif font. That way, if you need to make part of the text stand out – for example, if your protagonists exchange text messages, it’ll be more obvious that you’ve made a deliberate style choice, and have a more professional impact. When it comes to print books, small details like embellishments and display fonts for titles all add to the pleasure of reading, and to the sense of your book as a beautiful piece of work. That doesn’t mean you should try to mimic the same experience in your ebook, though …
Print and digital books are different animals Authors often hugely underestimate just how different ebooks and print are. Don’t aim for a duplicate of your print book – it’s a different reading experience. A stand-out feature of ebooks is the extent to which the reader can set up the reading experience to fit their personal preferences (for example, text size, font, and spacing). If you try to force a replica of your print book, you’re doing your book a disservice and making things more difficult for your reader. For example, every ebook device is slightly different, so if you have many different embellishments and beautiful fonts, you’re increasing the risk of the book not displaying as you intended, perhaps not working properly at all. Doing it yourself Authors can, and often do, carry out the work themselves. There are many good guides to setting out your text, and if you bear certain guidelines in mind, such as those mentioned above, you’ll be able to produce a decent book. If your budget is limited, this can be a good option. Bear in mind the following:
Ebook
Hiring a professional
While you can do it yourself, there is a risk that you'll miss out those extra design elements that make your book stand out. Hiring pro interior designers ensures that your files are absolutely guaranteed to work with the major retailers, and that your book will offer your readers the best reading experience possible, regardless of format (e.g. paperback, hardback, ereader). So what should you look for? Price is always a consideration of course. This can be an expensive endeavour, but sometimes you do get what you pay for, and cheaper is not necessarily better. Look for what’s included in the package:
For print, at least, the designer’s use of InDesign demonstrates a level of skill and commitment to using professional tools. Ask to see examples of your prospective formatter work. Find out what books they’ve worked on (from their website or social media, for example) and take a look at the ‘Look Inside’ feature on Amazon, noting the following:
Evaluating the professional designer’s process It’s important to understand how your designer works if you’re to get the best value for your investment. If they’re not interested in getting to know your book and your style, that should be a red flag. Ask them how they would like your manuscript to be sent to them. Most will want final, fully edited text in a common format (such as a Microsoft Word document), but often they’ll allow a ‘reasonable’ number of small changes after proof stage. That’s because designers are human, too! We realize that seeing your work laid out for the first time can alert you to small typos and errors, no matter how carefully you’ve checked it. However, multiple rounds of editing once the text is laid out can have a bigger impact than you might think, so get it as close to finished as you possibly can, and make sure you understand what levels of revision are included by your formatter. Finally, and this goes for any book-publication service, think about your initial contact with them. What are they like to work with? There’ll be quite a lot of back-and-forth. Discussion is important because this is such a personal, important project for you. Having a great rapport with your designer is essential. Good luck! Rebecca’s top tip
Whether you’re doing it yourself or paying someone, keep it simple! Your text is what the reader’s bought, so a good design should be almost invisible. It should support your words, deliver them to the reader, not get in the way.
Design for Writers
For drama-free book design, contact Rebecca or Andrew at hello@designforwriters.com or www.designforwriters.com
Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths about ‘rules’ in writing. Sorting out what’s right or wrong versus what’s preferred or asked for can be tricky for the inexperienced author. In this article, I offer some guidance.
Don't forget to claim your FREE copy of my Guidelines for New Authors booklet at the bottom of this post! Writing well means understanding the difference between a rule and a preference. In the world of the written word, these two things often become confused.
How do you sort out the rules from the preferences?
There is a difference between choosing where to place an apostrophe and choosing how to spell ‘focused’. You can get the first one wrong because different placements will create different meanings. You can’t get the second one wrong, but you can be inconsistent; ‘focused’ and ‘focussed’ are simply variants of the same word and both are correct in British and American English. So, how do you work out what’s a rule and what’s a choice? Check a good-quality dictionary or reference manual if you’re unsure. Oxford Dictionaries Online is a great place to start because it shows spelling variants – e.g. whiskey/whisky, organize/organise, centre/center – and explains whether these are equally acceptable across different regions, more likely to be used in one particular part of the world, or distinct to a particular area. Refer to a style manual. A good-quality style manual should distinguish between a rule and a preference. Which one you choose should be relevant to your audience. If you’re working with a publisher, the press will probably have its own house style, or refer you to a preferred guide like New Hart’s Rules or The Chicago Manual of Style. If you’re a self-publishing author, you can create your own, though a professional editor and proofreader should offer this as part of their service. Creating your own style sheet enables you to record decisions about hyphenation, numbering, capitalization, spelling variation, punctuation style, etc., and enforce common-sense consistency without becoming bogged down in overly prescriptive ‘rules’ taught to you by someone who thought they knew better. You can find a free template for a style sheet on my Self-publishers page. Check online resources from grammarians and linguists to help you separate the good sense from the nonsense. That way, you can defend your decisions. Consider your audience. Certain types of writing (and those who will be reading it) bend more easily to particular style choices.
Broadly speaking, a good piece of writing will be sensitive to its audience. Variations in punctuation style, idiom usage, spelling and grammar abound, but they are just that – variations, not mistakes. The most common myths debunked … There are plenty of excellent online articles highlighting common things that writers are told are ‘wrong’ when in fact they’re perfectly fine. I’ve provided a summary here, though if you read the linked-to articles in full you’ll quickly realize that the same sticking points arise time and again. Myth 1: Verbs with -iz suffixes are Americanisms (for example, specialise vs specialize). This isn’t true. In fact, use of the -iz form has been around for over 400 years and is a completely standard variant that’s recognized, and widely used, within UK publishing and beyond. Consistency is what you should look out for. A word of caution, though – take care not to apply the style globally to your text. There are some words that must retain their -is suffix (e.g. compromise, advertise). Oxford provides a useful list of the most common words that must be spelled with -is. If you’re in doubt, look up a word’s spelling in a good-quality dictionary that includes variants. Myth 2: You can’t split an infinitive. There are numerous online articles debunking this myth, but one of my favourites is Language Myths by Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman (Grammarphobia). They write: ‘Writers of English have been merrily “splitting” infinitives since the 1300s. It was perfectly acceptable until the mid-nineteenth century, when Latin scholars – notably Henry Alford in his book A Plea for the Queen’s English – misguidedly called it a crime. (Some linguists trace the taboo to the Victorians’ slavish fondness for Latin, a language in which you can’t divide an infinitive.) This “rule” was popular for half a century, until leading grammarians debunked it. But its ghost has proved more durable than Freddie Krueger.’ Myth 3: You can’t use a preposition at the end of a sentence. This is incorrect. You can use a preposition at the end of a sentence – in fact, sometimes it’s far more comfortable for your reader. Says the OxfordWords blog: ‘Most of us learned in school that ending a sentence with a preposition was a mistake. This “rule”, however, is misguided, dating from the 17th century, when several notable writers tried to codify English to fit more neatly with Latin grammar. Clearly, there are instances where attempting to avoid ending a sentence in a preposition results in a statement that is either over-formal or simply poor English.’ Consider the following examples:
Myth 4: You mustn’t begin a sentence with a conjunction. This is yet another dose of hypercorrection – obviously, you don’t want your writing to be boring, so it pays to not overdo it, but there’s nothing grammatically wrong with starting a sentence with a conjunction. And in some cases it can even add punch to a sentence (see what I did there?). Richard Feloni, in 10 popular grammar myths debunked by a Harvard Linguist, reviews linguist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style (published by Allen Lane in 2014), and writes: ‘Teachers instruct young students that it is incorrect to begin a sentence with a conjunction (and, because, but, or, so, also) because it helps keep them from writing in fragments, Pinker writes, but it's advice that adults don't need to follow. Avoid writing an ugly “megasentence” full of connected independent clauses, and feel free to start a sentence with a conjunction’ (Business Insider UK, 2015). Myth 5: You must place two spaces after a full point. Actually, it's best not to – it looks awful on documents produced with modern word-processing software such as Word or InDesign. Publishers don’t do it; nor do professional typographers. When we do it, it makes the text look gappy and amateurish. You can do a quick search and replace in Word to remove double spaces (simply click Ctrl H, and then type two spaces into the Find What box and a single space in the Replace With box). This supposed typographical rule is purported to be a hangover from the days of monospaced letters on typewriters; these had only one font that gave equal space on a page to a wider letter such a ‘w’ and a narrower symbol like a full point. Whether that's true is not the point. Go to your bookshelf and pick up any contemporary, professionally published book; I promise you this – all full points will have a single space after them. Delete your double spaces and you're more likely to look like a pro! For an entertaining discussion of the issue, read Farhad Manjoo’s article Space Invaders (Slate, 2011). Myth 6: You can’t use ‘they’ as a singular pronoun. This old chestnut gets a lot of peevers in a pickle. It’s a shame because it’s a rather splendid solution for those who want to write clearly and succinctly while avoiding gendered language. It’s been in use for a while too – from at least the sixteenth century. Some publisher house styles demand the avoidance of the singular ‘they’; others embrace it, given that, as Arike Okrent notes, ‘[i]t’s perfectly good English. It sounds completely natural. Great writers like Shakespeare and Austen used it’ (4 Fake Grammar Rules You Don’t Need to Worry About, Mental Floss, 2015). Oxford Dictionaries concurs. Note, though, Oxford’s follow-up caution: ‘Two things are matters of fact, however: many people use it, and many others dislike it intensely. If you’re writing something, it is therefore advisable to consider who might read it, and what their views might be.’ Myth 7: You shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘However’. You can, but getting the punctuation right is essential. (a) When it’s being used in the sense of ‘Nevertheless’ or ‘But’, it acts as a connector or conjunction with the previous sentence:
(b) ‘However’ can also be used to mean ‘in whatever way’ or ‘regardless of how’. In this case, I wouldn’t place a comma after it because it would interrupt the sentence.
She also provides some thoughtful advice about avoiding placing ‘However’ at the beginning of a sentence: ‘Sometimes it’s still a good idea to avoid it because a lot of people think it's wrong. I don’t advise starting a sentence with ‘however’ in a cover letter for a job application, for example. You don’t want your résumé to get dumped because someone thinks you’ve made a mistake even if you haven’t’ (Quick and Dirty Tips, 2013). Depressing, but worth bearing in mind! Final thoughts … First, consider Jonathon Owen’s reminder that good writers should never ignore register. ‘There’s a time and a place for following the rules, but the writers of these lists typically treat English as though it had only one register: formal writing. They ignore the fact that following the rules in the wrong setting often sounds stuffy and stilted. Formal written English is not the only legitimate form of the language, and the rules of formal written English don’t apply in all situations. Sure, it’s useful to know when to use who and whom, but it’s probably more useful to know that saying To whom did you give the book? in casual conversation will make you sound like a pompous twit’ (12 Mistakes Nearly Everyone Who Writes About Grammar Mistakes Makes, Arrant Pedantry, 2013). Second, bear in mind that some people’s ‘rules’ are actually just their pet peeves. Taking time to understand the difference between a rule and a preference will at least enable you to defend your choices. However, don’t be surprised if some sticklers still object to your decisions – there’s no consensus. Says editor and writer Stan Carey, ‘There are local and institutional conventions, but since English lacks an official language academy, there is no universal Standard English. Pick a version and you will find it riddled, as Geoffrey Pullum wrote, “with disorder, illogic, inconsistency, oddity, irregularity, and chaos”. Amidst such ragged variability, clarity is desirable and elegance is admirable, but while certain rules facilitate these qualities, others are misguided myths that undermine them’ (Descriptivism vs. prescriptivism: War is over (if you want it), Sentence First, 2010). And as promised, here's your free booklet! It includes lots of useful guidance and links for newbie writers. I hope you find it useful. Click on the picture to get yours. 
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
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, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.
Andrew Langley is the author of the Nathen Turner supernatural thriller series. He kindly agreed to answer some questions about his journey as an independent writer. Below, he talks frankly about marketing, the research and writing processes, and the pros and cons of self-publishing.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #82
Hi, Andrew! Thanks so much for talking to me. So what have you found to be the most effective methods of marketing your books?
Thanks for having me! So, for me, the whole point about marketing a novel is profile-building and connecting with an audience, not about hard selling. Someone might write the best book in the history of publishing, but if nobody’s heard about it then nobody will buy it. The most important thing for me at the beginning was to have a website. That way, if anybody asked me about the books, I could give them the web address and they could find out more, and maybe subscribe to the newsletter. It’s more about relationship-building than trying immediately to close a sale. Months before the publication date, I send leaflets to as many bookstores as I can find, just to make them aware of the book. One time, I bumped into a bookshop worker when I was doing a radio interview. She asked me the name of my latest novel. When I told her, she said, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about that!’ So, basically, the leaflets had done their job. I also think the publication date is important. If it can be tied into some event relevant to the ideas in your story, then it gives you an angle with which to approach the press. My first two books are mysteries based in the world of the supernatural, so I published them on Halloween. I’ve found things like book signings and talks – in fact, anywhere you can meet potential readers face-to-face – much more effective than social media, though they can be a little nerve wracking! I have multiple sclerosis, so when I’m booked for a signing or interview it’s always a bit stressful because I’m wondering what my health will be like on the day. Will I feel fatigued? Am I going to start twitching? What will my pain levels be like? All those issues tend to cloud my mind before the event I’m sure authors without health complications experience nervousness too. Once I'm there, though, it’s great. I’ve found that the public tend to be genuinely interested in authors – why they write, what the book’s about, etc. – and you get to meet some truly lovely people. Another thing that worked well for me was making a load of bookmarks with the web address on. I gave out the bookmarks everywhere I could. The theory was that readers would use them in the novels they were currently reading and they’d have a constant reminder about my books. Have you tested a method of marketing but later shelved it? I’m not the best on social media. By nature, I’m quite a private person, so baring my soul to the world really doesn’t feel comfortable for me. Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads all have their place, and I do think you need to have a presence there to give readers another way of contacting you. But, for me, they don’t really generate sales. Is there anything you’ve not yet tried but would like to in the future? For my third novel in the supernatural series I’m moving the publication date away from Halloween. Although it worked well for the first two in terms of generating press interest, it’s very close to Christmas. The bookstores tend to be focused on seasonal stock and promotions at that time of year. This makes it a real challenge to arrange signings or talks. Thankfully, my local Waterstones has been very accommodating despite the staff workload. So, for the third book, even though it’ll be ready to publish Halloween 2017, I’ve moved the date to Easter 2018. This also ties in to some other events that are relevant to the story. Plus, it’s given me a different idea for a marketing strapline – ‘Relax and read a book for Easter (but keep the lights on!)'. That kind of thing! 
Do you have a method or process when writing?
I live off notebooks! Everywhere I go I carry a notebook and jot down ideas. I was a photojournalist for a long time and I got used to this method of working when I was on location. Sometimes I’ll overhear a funny story in a bar and think it’ll be great to add that to a novel in the future – it all goes in the notebook for recycling later. All my background research goes into the notebooks and I handwrite the synopsis and first chapter long before I sit in front of a computer. Then I usually test the story idea with my friends and family. If they’re not immediately interested, I change it until they are. Once I have the bones of the story, I create a storyboard from beginning to end that covers the key scenes, and I write some dialogue as well to get a sense of how the characters feel in these. Once all this is done, I finally sit in front of the computer. As I already have a clear idea of the story and the characters, I try to write a chapter per day. At this stage, I don’t worry about perfect grammar or even a single nuance – I just want to get the story down from start to finish and see whether it works. I write every day for as long as it takes until I’ve nailed that chapter. It can mean very long hours. The following day, I read through what I’ve done and then start the next chapter. Once I’ve got the book finished, I put it away for a few weeks. The second pass is when I fine-tune the grammar, and make sure I’ve added in all the scents, sounds, feelings and nuances that bring the story to life. At this point I’ll let a few friends or family members read it so I can get their feedback. Then I revise the manuscript again. I might repeat this process many times before I send the file to a professional editor for review. How much research do you do for your novels, and how do you go about it? Researching a story takes me many months, even years. I always write about what I know or have experienced in some way or another. So I’ll visit the locations in the story if at all possible, take photographs, talk to the locals and get a feel for the location I’m writing about. In my photojournalist days, I travelled a lot and kept notes, so in some cases I can rely on those. My main character’s base in the supernatural series is Whitby, on the east coast. This is a town I’ve been visiting since early childhood and I still go there with my family. I love the place. The second book is set mainly in the Scottish Highlands. My father was Scottish and, again, it’s a place I know well from both work and leisure. I do other research by trawling the internet, reading relevant books or interviewing people who know about the subjects I’m writing about. I try really hard to make things as authentic as possible even though I’m writing about things like ghosts and witchcraft in the first three books. The fourth book, which I’m working on now, is a historical adventure based on the legacy of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. For the past six months I’ve been back and forth to Scotland, checking out the locations, talking to people, visiting museums and so on. I’m hoping to finish this research by August; then I’ll write the story. 
Where do you get the inspiration for your stories?
The idea behind the supernatural series came from a conversation about psychic mediums. There’d been some news claims about a famous psychic using devious methods to gather information that they’d then used in their shows to wow the public. Whether this story was true or not I don’t know, but it gave me an idea. What if there was a psychic who knew he was a fake but whose heart was in the right place? So he didn’t believe in any afterlife or spiritual world but could fake it because he believed he was doing the right thing – bringing comfort and closure to the bereaved. Now, what if this person then unwittingly summoned a very real ghost in one of his sessions, and this ghost was intent on wreaking revenge? The basic idea struck me as funny and something people might enjoy reading about. Hence, Nathen Turner, my psychic medium character, was born. The idea behind the adventure I’m writing now came after I stumbled across a news story about the Jacobites. I can’t say too much about this one at the moment but I’ll put information about it on the website or my Goodreads blog once I’m further into the process! Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? If so, how did you get through it? A very weird thing happens when I’m stumbling over my writing – the characters seem to come alive and tell me what they’d do! I know this sounds bizarre but the characters are real people in my head. Many times, I’ve wondered where to go in a scene but written it anyway. Then I’ve read it back and thought: This person wouldn’t behave like that. So I change it. I think that the more you work with your characters the more this tends to happen. Sometimes I look back and can’t even remember writing a particular scene – it's like I’ve had a stream of consciousness and become so wrapped up in the story that I’ve put it down without thinking too deeply about it. Occasionally, I’ll end up pacing around the garden or heading for a strong caffeine fix if I can’t figure out the best way to get the words on paper. Having the bones of the story already mapped out in my notebooks is a huge help here. I go back to them and make sure that what I’m writing stays true to the original idea. Is writing a series an important part of your strategy? Personally, I think that writing a series is vital for an independent author. The more books you have out there in a series the more visible you become to readers. Also, people who like one book will usually buy the others in the series. Hence your sales increase without any expensive promotional activity. When I wrote the first book I already had the basic stories for the other two in my head, as they were part of my main character’s development – he gets more and more involved in the supernatural and the legacy of his past. I’ve planned out other stories for this character already but I’m taking a break from him to write an adventure story. Again, the characters in this new adventure can build into a series, and I have a rough idea of how I could make that work. How have you found the experience of self-publishing? Self-publishing has been a huge learning curve. I was used to a press background where you do a story and it gets in the press or on TV the next day. Fiction publishing is simply not like that. Writing a novel is a slow process involving many revisions long before it gets anywhere near a professional editor or proofreader. Even after that, there’s the time it takes to typeset and come up with a cover design you hope will appeal to readers. And then there’s Nielsen, Ingram Spark, CreateSpace and so on, and learning how their systems work. So, yes, a huge learning curve. Luckily, there’s a lot of information on the internet to guide you. The biggest nail-biter is after you’ve sent the finished novel off for independent review and you’re waiting to see if the reviewers like it. This is a story you’ve poured your heart and soul into for a long time. If your work gets pulled apart it’s a bit like someone criticising your children. I was very worried about that! I’ve been very fortunate so far – the books have been well received. It’s a huge boost to your ego but there’s always something in the back of your mind that’s waiting for that first bad review. At the end of the day, it’s impossible to please everybody, but I always hope that if the novel has been through the various editing steps, then most of the flaws have been ironed out before it faces the public. The biggest benefit is control over your own destiny and the sheer pleasure of writing. The downside, as ever, is financial. Without a publishing contract behind you, you’re taking all the risks and have to pay for all your promotion. And you don’t know whether it’ll pay off. My attitude is simply that I have to make it work somehow. With my health condition, there are very few options left to me workwise, and desperation can be a great motivator! 
Do you have any tips for new writers who are considering self-publishing?
For anyone considering self-publishing I’d say give it a go. It’s a fascinating world that has revolutionized the publishing industry. There are two general approaches I’ve seen other writers take. The first is to study what’s currently in the bestseller market and write something that will appeal to the same readership. As I don’t want to write about kinky sex scenes or zombie apocalypses, I didn’t choose that approach but there’s nothing wrong with it. The second method is to have an idea that might work within a specific genre that you know about and enjoy reading. This is the approach I took as I felt my writing would be much more genuine and true to myself, and my readers. Once you’ve decided on an approach, I suggest studying what’s out there. What do the covers look like? Which titles appeal to you? How can you create something new? How will you build a brand identity for your own work? I spent a very long time on this before I created a look for my novels that was true to myself and fitted my genre. After that, there’s the interior design. Which styles do you like and how could you make your work indistinguishable from a mainstream publisher’s? I think readers expect a certain quality in their print and ebooks – after all, they’re paying good money for them. I chose a font and style that I liked and then tested it on family and friends to see what they thought. Getting feedback is, I think, vital. An independent publisher will be investing hundreds of hours in their project so it’s important to have the right mindset from the start or all that time will be wasted. Once you’ve got the finished article, I recommend giving away some signed free copies to people you know socially who run local reading groups, bookstores and organisations. Really, it’s just about letting people know you’re an author, and if you’ve done a good job with the cover and the typesetting, they’ll definitely take you seriously. Anything you wish you’d known before you wrote your first book, and that you’d do differently now? At the beginning, I was obsessed with getting an agent and a publishing contract. I didn’t know at the time how many submissions the agents receive and that the chances of securing representation for the genre I write in are between slim and none. I also didn’t know that the majority of mainstream published books are not a commercial success and that many sell less than 750 copies even with a heavy-hitting publisher’s backing and advertising. If I’d known that, I think I’d have gone straight into self-publishing without a second thought and not bothered submitting to agents at the beginning. The other thing I found out is that, because of their workload, only 30–40% of the agents get back to you, and your submission might even be overlooked by mistake. So it can be disheartening. Sometimes it just means that your book doesn’t fit their current needs. I don’t think it’s worth getting too worked up about. Many self-published authors can make a success of their work – it just needs perseverance and more relationship building than hard sell, in my opinion. Anything else you want to mention, Andrew? I think the best advice I could give anyone who wants to be an author is simply to write. Stick to a schedule and do a daily stint. Don’t worry about coining the perfect phrase. After it’s down on paper, you can alter and correct as much as you like. A first draft is exactly that – the basic story in the raw, if you like. Add in weather, smells, sensations etc. to make your imaginary world believable, to bring it alive. Background research is key for me, and it’s wonderful to discover new places and experiences. Keep a notebook and write down everything that you come across. It might not go in your current work; instead, think of it as a treasure trove for the future. Most of all, enjoy it! I love writing and creating new stories. I’m a lot less mobile than I used to be. Creating my new adventures on paper has been more than a lifeline – it’s been an adventure in itself, and one I thoroughly enjoy! You can find out more about Andrew and his novels on his website: www.andrewlangley.co.uk 
For instant access to more self-publishing and indie-author resources, visit my Self-publishers page. Or join the library to get monthly updates.
Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Here's more from professional narrator Ray Greenley on how to create an audio book.
The following article is an excerpt from a 26-page booklet in which Ray offers his experience and advice. At the bottom of the post there's information on how to access Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer.
In this post, he focuses on evaluating the quality of a professional voice artist, and offers advice on an alternative form of contract that shifts some of the risk. 
‘I don’t know anything about audio books. How can I tell if a producer will do a good job on my book?’
That’s a tough question with few solid answers, but I can offer some tips. 1. Take some time to listen to some good, well-produced audio books. You are usually safe with most stuff from the larger publishing houses and big-name authors. Try to listen to not just the narration but also to how the narration SOUNDS. Then compare that to the auditions you’ve received. 2. How loud is the recording in the pauses between sentences? There shouldn’t be a lot of background noise, but neither should it sound like the recording drops off a cliff in between sentences. 3. Are there ANY extraneous sounds in the background, like a barking dog or a car driving by? Those sorts of sounds should NEVER be in the recording and I would consider them an instant red flag. 4. Can you hear a lot of ‘mouth noise’? Strange clicks, smacking lips, that sort of thing. This is a challenge for almost all narrators, and if you catch a little, it’s not a cause for major concern. But if you find yourself distracted by the sounds, be careful. See, the thing is that a Producer on ACX really does have to be more than just a narrator. They have to be a narrator, a director, an editor, and an engineer. There are a lot of skills involved and not everyone is equally good at all the facets of each job. This is why you need to listen to more than just the performance when evaluating auditions. Note that no one is perfect and you can get a good audio book from someone who has at least a base level of competency in some the various skills while excelling in a few others. Again, it’s up to you to determine if a producer is capable enough to do a good job with your book. Also, when evaluating any producer, be sure you look them up to see what other books they’ve done. Do they have a bunch of books already out there?
Note that some producers publish under a pseudonym, so if you can’t find anything on your own, ask. If they’re really brand new and have absolutely no history to go by, don’t be afraid to ask about what sort of training they have that can give you confidence that they’ll do the job. In short, do your homework on your potential producer, or you’ll only have yourself to blame if things don’t work out!
‘Is there some other option besides making a big up-front investment for a seasoned professional or rolling the dice on an unknown talent?’
Yes, there actually is another option. How astute of you to ask! So if you think about it, the bottom line for a Pay for Production contract is that the risk is entirely on the rights holder. You put up all the cash and hope the audio book sells enough to make that money back and more, while the producer gets paid and moves on to the next project. Meanwhile, the bottom line for a Royalty Share contract is that the risk is entirely on the producer. We do all the work involved in getting the audio book recorded and don’t see any return on our time until it starts selling, while the rights holder doesn’t have to put up a dime. The third option is a split between those two, known as either a ‘Hybrid’ or ‘Stipend’ contract (the name ‘Stipend’ comes from an incentive program offered by ACX; just be aware that that program is something different than what I’m describing here). A Hybrid contract is ostensibly a Royalty Share contract, but the rights holder offers a modest Pay for Production payment in addition to the Royalty Share. The producer gets enough up front to cover some of their production costs, while the rights holder can attract a higher tier of talent to their project. Exactly how much a producer will be willing to take for their payment as part of a Hybrid contract depends on the producer, but I’d venture that most would be happy with $100 PFH. That can still add up to a fair amount of money. However, at one half to one third of what you’d expect to pay an experienced pro, it’s much more affordable. The key is that you’re going to want to be able to at least cover the post-production costs for the producer. Remember when I talked about all the things a producer needs to be good at in order to do a good job on your book? Well, most producers would really rather focus on the narration side of things, so they look for editing and mastering professionals to handle that stuff for them. They end up as better narrators, and the post-production is higher quality because they’re working with people who dedicate themselves to that aspect of the production. It’s a win–win, but it does cost the producer money. Few producers will be willing to put up that cash on a Royalty Share project with uncertain prospects. It’s bad enough to produce a book and not make any money on it. It’s even worse to produce a book and LOSE money on it! One tricky part with the Hybrid contract is that it’s not officially supported by ACX. To do one, you’ll need to set up the contract in ACX as Royalty Share and then handle the additional payment on the side. Next time, we'll look at yet another alternative: doing it yourself! Until then, thanks for reading! Resources
Contact Ray Greenley Website | Facebook | Twitter 
Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer
This 26-page primer includes over 5,000 words of guidance from Ray, a professional voice artist, on the following:
Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. 
Online writing courses
Just a quickie ... a member of Louise's Writing Library asked me if I'd put together a list of online writing courses. It's a work in progress and I'll be adding new resources as I become aware of them. If you think I've missed something, drop me a line at louise@louiseharnbyproofreader.com. You can access the current list via the Self-publishers page on my site, where all the library resources live. Just look for Online Tutoring for Self-Publishers: Writing Courses and click on the image to download the free PDF. Until next time ... 
For instant access to more self-publishing and indie-author resources, visit my Self-publishers page. Or join the library to get monthly updates.
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
I'm so, so grateful to Ray Greenley for taking the time to write a comprehensive primer on audio-book creation for me! It's absolutely brilliant.
Ray's a professional voice artist (he's the narrator behind, among other audio books, Philip K Dick's The Unreconstructed M and Other Stories) but he's a fab writer as well.
I love listening to audio books, but creating them? That’s quite another matter. And yet I wanted to know more, and I figured some of you would too. And because it’s one of those aspects of self-publishing that’s just too expensive to get wrong, I felt that my writing a guide to the process simply wouldn’t do. I wanted to offer you something that would give you in-depth, honest and usable insights. That way, if you do decide to create an audio book, you can do it right. I hoped a professional narrator could furnish you with those insights, and Ray hasn’t disappointed. The following article is an excerpt from the full 26-page primer. At the bottom of the post there's information on how to access Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer. Enjoy! (And thank you, Ray!) 
An introduction from the voice artist, Ray Greenley
Hello, dear author! Congratulations on your latest book! Have you considered having an audio book of your work produced? If not, you should! More and more consumers are buying audio books for a variety of reasons, and audio-book sales are booming compared to digital print sales (see Resources: Kozlowski). As an author, you absolutely want to be a part of that growing market. But audio books are an entirely different beast from print books. Getting into a new market is always intimidating. Where do you even start? I’m here to help. I’m an audio-book narrator who has worked with indie authors to produce audio-book editions of their work. In Audio-book production I give you a high-level look at what you need to know to get your book produced as an audio book. In this post, we're focusing on platforms and prices. There’s work to be done, but it’s probably not as difficult as you might think. Read on! ‘So how can I get my book produced as an audio book?’ It wasn’t all that long ago that virtually all audio-book production was handled by a few big publishers, and getting your book produced was probably a similar feat to getting a big print publisher to publish and distribute your book. That’s all changed. Getting your book produced as an audio book is easier now than it’s ever been. Probably the biggest factor in that change is a site called ACX. That stands for Audiobook Creation Exchange. It’s run by Audible.com (the world’s largest distributor of audio books, and owned by Amazon.com). It’s essentially a meeting place where rights holders (that’s you!) can list their books in order to find producers (like me!) who are interested in producing the book as an audio book. Producers (that’s the term used by ACX; consider it synonymous with narrator for the sake of this discussion) can see the listed book and submit an audio audition for it. The rights holder listens to the auditions and can offer a contract to the producer they think will do the best job. Once the producer accepts the contract, they produce the book and submit it through ACX. The rights holder can then listen to the book, and if they approve it, it gets prepared for release. ACX manages the contract, the payment of royalties, and distribution to the associated platforms (Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes.com).
‘That doesn’t sound so bad, but cut to the chase: How much will all this cost me?’
Cost is, of course, always a factor. With ACX, there are multiple options that allow virtually anyone to have their book made into an audio book. But as with many things in life, you often get what you pay for. First a quick note that there is no fee from ACX for registering on their site or for listing your book. They get their money on the back end once the book goes up for sale, so they just want to encourage as many books to be produced as possible. ACX allows rights holders to offer producers two types of contracts: Pay for Production and Royalty Share. Note that regardless of the type of contract, the rights holder always gets full ownership of the audio produced. A Pay for Production contract means that you’re paying the producer a flat fee for their work. Once you’ve paid the fee, the audio book is published and you’ll receive royalties from sales of the audio book. So what’s a typical fee? Well, first off, the fee is based on the length of the completed audio book. When you offer a contract, you agree to pay a certain amount Per Finished Hour (PFH) of the audio book. So if the audio book ends up being 10 hours long, you’ll pay the agreed-upon amount times 10. What sort of PFH rate can you expect to pay? Well, it depends on the type of talent you’re looking to attract. If you want a top-rate, full-time professional narrator, you can expect to pay around $300 PFH, or even more. ‘Wait, what!? That means for my 10-hour book …’ … you’d pay around $3,000, yes. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, it is a lot, and I touch on why that number is what it is in the full ebook. But for now, let’s get back to the discussion on cost. Because you don’t have to offer that much for a Pay for Production contract. You can offer less, and are likely to get producers willing to record your book for less. Just keep in mind that as you go lower in what you’re offering, so the caliber of producers you attract to your project will change. I’d say that once you get below $200 PFH you’re pushing out of the zone where most quality producers feel like they can get a reasonable return on their time, but that may not always be the case. A quick note: There absolutely can be an aspect of negotiation with regards to the contracts you offer. ACX doesn’t care what the final number is. That’s entirely something to be worked out between you and the producer.
‘I really don’t want to put up that kind of money. Is there another option?’
Yes, there is! It’s the Royalty Share contract that I mentioned above. In this contract, you don’t pay the producer anything up front, but instead split the royalties on sales of the book with that person. ‘Hang on – I can get my book produced as an audio book without having to actually pay anything?’ Yes, that’s pretty much it! Sounds great, right? ‘It sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch?’ The catch is that the top producers are VERY selective about the Royalty Share contracts they’re willing to accept. It takes lot of time and effort to produce an audio book, and producers who are trying to pay their bills and feed their families with money from their work won’t take a second look at your book unless it has a record of strong sales. Even if your book isn’t breaking any sales records, you can still list it and are likely to get some auditions. Just be realistic about the kind of producers who are going to be sending those auditions. They may be low on experience, talent, or both. That’s not to say it’s a hopeless case. We all have to start somewhere. Once upon a time, I was that producer who was low on experience and sending out my first auditions. The author who picked me to narrate my first audio book was an indie author who had just written his first book. While I’ve learned quite a bit since that first book, and there are definitely things I would do differently now, I’m still proud of my work on it and the critical reception has been overall quite positive. But it’ll be entirely up to you to make that determination. Just as ACX allows rights holders to sign up and post their book for free, they also allow anyone to sign up as a producer and send in an audition for free. And I do mean ANYONE. Do NOT assume that just because someone is a Producer on ACX that they actually know what they’re doing. In the full edition of the ebook, I offer guidance on how to assess whether the narrator/producer is doing a good job. For now, thanks for reading! Resources
Contact Ray Greenley Website | Facebook | Twitter
Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer This 26-page primer includes over 5,000 words of guidance from Ray, a professional voice artist, on the following:
It's available free to members of Louise's Writing Library. To get your copy, simply join the library.
Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. For more self-publishing resources, visit my Self-publishers page. Or join the library to get monthly updates.
Chris Hamilton-Emery of The Cover Factor and Salt discusses what makes a great book cover ...
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #82
Managing the process of book cover design
So you’ve written, edited and prepared your book’s interior for your preferred distribution channels. Now you need the cover. And, as I know all too well, being able to write in no way qualifies one for being able to design. When we’re self-publishing, there are some parts of the process that are, for most of us, best bought in. When it comes to book jackets and digital covers, that means talking to a designer. Whether you decide to do it yourself or hire a designer will depend on your budget. Either way there are some design basics that are well worth bearing in mind to help you make your book wow itself. Great words compel your readers to finish your book ... A great cover compels them to start it. Chris Hamilton-Emery, design director of The Cover Factory and co-founder of the gorgeous independent publisher Salt (based here in mostly sunny Norfolk!) has been kind enough to share his expertise (and his fantastic sense of humour!). The advice below will help both the self-publisher and those looking for publishing contracts. Chris's core mantra? Avoid being dull. 
Design by committee
For authors with a publishing contract, it’s not uncommon for a team to be involved in briefing a designer – they may not be acting as a team, but there’s often one involved. ... A sales manager who has her eye on that cover that’s on display in Book Bonanza’s shop window. ... The marketing manager who keeps up with the new trends and the language around covers: ‘It needs some spacy calmness for the furniture to show up the title text.’ ... Perhaps the bookseller: ‘Put a snake on it in a herby sort of border.’ ... The managing director: “We don’t do serifs or colour at Gubbins & Potsdamer.” ... And then there’s the production manager, the print buyer, the design manager. Everyone has something to add to the sauce, not least an expectation of stellar sales. Then someone rings the author. “He says blue reminds him of his dead mother, and the goat is the wrong breed.” Which all goes to say that cover design has its contexts. The person that truly matters is, of course, the reader – yet a cover has many important audiences before we reach that goal. That’s because it’s the chief means by which people make their investments in the book in the supply chain long before the bound paper book block (or its digital sister) touches the shelves. A cover signals commitment from the publisher (even if that publisher is you, the author); it signals desire among booksellers; it signals prospects among the supply chain, and its critics and reviewers. Many will be spending their money before anyone has read a word. For those with publishing contracts, it’s entirely possible that the author will have no contractual say in the matter, though few publishers would be brave enough to go to press with a cover that an author despised. 
To boldly go?
Many covers are compromises and copies, and covers, like many parts of our modern lives, are influenced by fashion. A cover that breaks ranks and stands out has as much chance of failure as success and so many covers play it safe. Being bold can also mean being ignored. As one friend put it, ‘The cutting edge is also the bleeding edge.’ Some markets have their own design universes, like crime, or romance – and it will take a brave soul to depart from the conventions of the genre. Yet we all aspire to good cover design, and we all recognize that in the fiercely competitive environment of today’s global book trade, a cover can really help make a book work, by which we mean, distinguish itself. Whomever compiles the brief has no easy task; they will be serving the multiple masters listed above and trying to find a way forward to inspire a designer to deliver a pot of gold in the shape of a small rectangle. The brief Do provide a synopsis, but not necessarily the entire book List three powerful visual moments. List one or two key visual themes. If the book had a palette, of which colours would it be comprised? How would you like readers to react to it? Do not ask for your entire book to be illustrated on the cover ‘There must be a gold sky with twenty-six ravens, and a golf house, a small bus, traffic cones and a trifle, but no jelly. And on the trestle tables, bunting. And a seal. There are two main characters, one tall, the other taller, each has a mole. They are wearing jacquard ties. They must be shown in front of the thirty-seven villagers, all attempting to get into a train. The train is going to Doncaster.’ Hmm. Detail is the great enemy of good design. Yet so, too, is needless abstraction. ‘Can it be wavy green with splashy washy bits? Except blue.’ Inspiring a great design can frequently be found in seeking out the monolithic and iconic message a successful cover often presents, ‘If she had eyes, they would be stones.’ Leave plenty of room for the designer to imagine, to take risks, and above all to surprise you with their own art. Never ask a designer to work up your own ideas. If you have ideas, especially strong ones, express them as visual journeys. Don’t offer destinations. Ask questions Perhaps the best way to ask questions is to show things that you believe work for you – other covers that appeal, especially ones relevant to the text. Create a visual space for the designer to work in, and add your brief to provide context and challenges. Good questions expose the problem, good questions get to the central, even the reductive, theme of the book. ‘If there was ever a home like this, it would be a songless house on a wet hill with a red rat at its heart.’ So, again, ask for three visuals, perhaps some early sketches, to see where things are leading. Or be bold and say, I am prepared to be surprised. 
Consider the compulsion factor
It’s also important to know the mechanics of a cover – once it’s passed through its committees and is en route to the bookstore, its role really comes into its own. Among the tens of thousands of books being put in front of readers, in stores or online, the cover’s job is simply to attract the browser, that momentous millisecond of compulsion that makes someone pick the book up, read the blurb and break open the spine. Or scroll down a page and click Look Inside. Think of it. You spot something, your eye stops its movement, you lean forward and pick up the book, you turn it over and read an endorsement, your eye flickers, you read down. Ah, it’s about the last water mill in a land of drought ... You open the book and a journey begins (one that starts at the till). Think back. The cover merely had to stop you moving on and its work was almost done – such a simple and perplexing thing. Would something more complicated have worked better? Something less fussy? Something less drab? The essentials ... Not everyone can afford a £3,000 cover budget; nor are they willing to have a six-month internal circulation list for everyone to argue over within a publishing house. You may be going it alone; you may be self-publishing. The problems are still the same – your cover must be distinctive, distinguishable, memorable, singular and arresting.
Free fonts can help in devising sketches. Test your ideas out with professionals. Don’t test them out with friends. Look at your cover in the context of your competitors. And give it time. If you’ve spent years writing your book, at least give a few months to considering the cover. Be aware of your own prejudices. Be aware of your own tastes. Pay attention to space and position, to colour and clarity. And if your book is to be printed, above all, remember the spine, for this is what most readers will see. Don’t mistake a poverty of design as the representation of authenticity. Don’t over elaborate, either. Look at your cover from twelve feet away; can you recognize it, read it? 
Working with the designer ...
Let’s roll back through these notes towards a design. If we’re using a designer, we want to enthuse and inspire, we want to ignite not instruct. We want to understand the context in relation to other covers. We want to be aware of those who will put our book in front of readers. We want the readers to pick it up or click on it. Whether we use a designer or produce something ourselves, we are all chasing something singular, clear and memorable. We are avoiding complexity. We are signifying the book more than illustrating its contents. Above all we are branding it. Remember that brands symbolise and represent complicated relationships and stories by simple means. Simple doesn’t mean dull. In fact, perhaps the best mantra is, don't be dull. The world needs its little moments of glamour.
Chris Hamilton-Emery is Design Director at The Cover Factory:
Web: www.thecoverfactory.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCoverFactory Twitter: @thecoverfactory Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/thecoverfactory/
Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. In my latest guest article for the BookMachine blog, I take a look at how publishing professionals, from the freelance editor to the mainstream publishing house, can stretch their marketing budgets by repurposing one in-depth piece of amazing content. The fabulous Gordon Graham, otherwise known as That White Paper Guy, was my inspiration, and I'd recommend you take a look at his guidance on ways to create brilliant resources to make your clients' lives easier. Click on the stretchy guy to read the article in full!  Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. How to make a living from self-publishing fiction This week's post is a cracker. Self-published author Jeff Carson has kindly agreed to discuss his writing journey. 
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #81
Jeff's a mystery and thriller writer from Colorado. Writing is his full-time job and he makes a living from his self-published series.
That's a dream for millions of independent authors; below, Jeff shares 11 tips on how he turned that dream into a reality. If you're at the start of your self-publishing adventure, this is definitely for you!
My name is Jeff Carson and I’m the author of a series starring David Wolf, a cop living in the fictional town of Rocky Points in the Colorado Rockies. Right now, I’ve written ten books in the series.
When I first started out writing, I remember being tormented at night by questions swimming in my head (and by mosquitos … at the time, we were in Italy for a year, and they were thick that summer, I tell you). Questions like: Can I really do this? Can I make a living at it? Is this just a waste of my time? What if everyone hates the books?
By finding a few people online who’d made a success of becoming a self-published author, I was able to get a lot of my questions answered and some inspiration that propelled me towards making a living as a fiction writer. I despise playing the guru, and I’m cringing a little as I write this, but I have accomplished the goals I laid out five years ago. So I have to say that I feel l’ve succeeded in the self-publishing realm. There are others, many others, who would scoff at my level of accomplishment, but this blog post isn’t for them. This is for those who are in the position I once was, in that sweat-soaked Italian bed. Here are 11 things that have helped me succeed as a self-published author. 1. I want to make a living doing this That’s been the over-arching goal from the beginning. I wanted my paycheck to come from writing. I wanted to make money twenty-four hours per day from people reading my books. I’ve met many people who approach writing as a therapeutic tool for their lives. That’s fine. But 100% of people who write get the therapeutic benefit. One only makes money from it if it’s a goal. You don't wake up with a horse one day by random accident. There’s a lot of intention and action that goes into suddenly having a hay-eating animal roaming around in the back yard. Same thing goes with earning a living from writing. 2. I wrote a book series I learned that if you want to make money from writing fiction, the odds of success go up dramatically by writing a series. Since my goal was to make money with this gig, naturally I wrote a series. Harlan Coben is the exception, not the norm. On this note, I learned the hard way to not leave books ending on a cliff-hanger. I'd done this with book one and received a lot of negative reviews. I’ve since fixed the novel so that all story goals are resolved and it ends completely. In my series, my characters grow and their lives change from each book to the next, but I try to make each book a stand-alone. This helps with marketing, too, since anyone can pick up one of the David Wolf novels at any point in the series and feel grounded and up to speed. 3. I over-estimated, or realistically estimated, the level of work it would take to achieve my goal (of making a living writing) I knew that one book in a series, the first book I’d ever written and published in my entire life, would make no money. Pessimistic? It’s not. First, I was learning how to write a story. Second, I wasn’t expecting to gain a wide audience with a single book taking up a single slot in the vast Amazon universe. I knew book one was the hook – the mouth of a funnel – that would lead to the rest of the books in the series. In fact, I knew I was probably going to offer the first book for free. I needed multiple books in multiple categories grabbing people’s attention, all of them leading readers to the other books sitting in other categories. The series would act as a big net. I figured that after three books I’d be making some ‘extra money’. I hoped that after five I’d be making enough money to quit all other work and concentrate on writing only. Then I doubled that number. Therefore, I created a goal of writing ten books; then I’d judge the venture one way or another. In reality, after five books I was able to write full-time and make a full-time living wage. Now that I’m on book eleven, my goals, expectations, and earnings have elevated. 
At the beginning, I felt that if I set my work expectations too low, I’d become discouraged, and fast. Because if after, say, four books I was still irrelevant and making nothing, then my hopes would be dashed.
Some people would call a ten-book ‘realistic expectation’ pessimistic, but in my mind it’s the reason I kept going when, after three books, I’d known months that wouldn’t have paid for a week’s worth of groceries. 4. I concentrate on what I want every day I’ve filled two college-ruled notebooks with lists of my goals. Every day (or most days) I open up a notebook, list the writing goals/life goals with specific deadlines, such as when I’ll finish the first draft and when I’ll publish, and then I get to work. I learned this technique by reading this Brian Tracy book on goal-setting: Goals! How to Get Everything You Want – Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible. That book definitely changed my life. I'd never even had goals before reading that book. Now I always set goals. Deadlines always get pushed back, which would be depressing if I let myself to think about it. But the system doesn’t allow for that. Each day is a new sheet, and a new list of goals with either the same deadlines or adjusted deadlines. Looking back on previous lists of goals is not permitted. 5. I read the bad reviews This is a biggie. I’ve heard some authors say, ‘I just ignore the bad reviews.’ I adopted that stance for quite a while, actually. But there’s always something to learn from a bad review. In fact, I think it’s dangerous and irresponsible if you ignore the one- and two-star shellacking some people take pride in giving out between hangover-induced trips to the bathroom, the sons of bitches. Some people get specific – ‘Nice try. A Sig Sauer P226 doesn’t have a safety! Amateur writer at best. I will not be reading another piece of filth by this author.’ So, fine. You skim past the amateur comment and go fix the book so that the special agent DOESN’T flick off the safety as she steps out of her SUV. I think my books are orders of magnitude better because of the bad reviews. I figure that if somebody came up to me on the street, pointed, laughed, and criticized my outfit, I’d shake my head and move on, not in the least worried about that person a few steps later. But if her criticism is, ‘Your fly’s down … oh, yeah, and your pants are on backwards. Idiot,’ well, then, I want to know that. 6. Screw it. I don’t need social media Early on, I adopted the stance that I needed to write my way into relevance as a writer, not tweet, post, or whatever my way into it. Once I adopted this mindset, a weight lifted off my back. I hated it for some reason. I couldn’t get a grasp on social media, so I just let go of it. My investigation leading up to my decision showed a correlation between how much an author published books and how successful they were, between how many positive reviews a book had and how successful it was. I could check an author’s success by looking at the rankings of their books on Amazon and other market places. There was no correlation, however, between how present people were on social media and their book rankings. In fact, more often than not, I saw that people who were successful had all but abandoned their social media accounts. In contrast, there were people all over Twitter and Facebook, with hundreds of thousands of friends/followers, and books lost in obscurity. Clearly there are exceptions, and some people have great success with social media, but my reasoning was: you write your way into being a writer. I rarely post on Facebook, and when I do, it’s usually a link to my new books – classic poor social media behavior. Screw it. I don’t care. 
7. I am accessible
I respond to every communication sent to me. I think this is huge as a writer, or as a person in general. Nothing irks me more than somebody simply not responding to something. The most surprising thing about writing, and that I sometimes get all teary-eyed about, is the amount of love people will send your way after they’ve read your novel. People will click on the email address (which I put in the back of the book) and contact me, telling me how much they like my book. For me to not say thanks is plain psycho. Plus, it’s just good business. People who like you are more likely to share the news about your work. 8. I have a newsletter email list This is one of those things I heard people preaching – you have to have an email list of readers – but never did anything about. It took me four freaking books to finally put my email list in place. But I finally did, and that’s when I was finally able to write full time. It only took two days to write and publish a short story, which I give away on my blog as a thank-you if somebody signs up for the new-release newsletter. Now, when I have a new release, I launch the book to thousands of people, versus dropping it into a field of crickets. 9. I write in sprints first, edit later This is one of those huge game-changers for me. I was getting upset sitting in front of the computer every day but only coming out with one or two thousand words. Now, I write in sprints, which means I write in thirty-minute blocks, take a five-minute break, and then do it again. Using the backspace button is not allowed (a rule I break all the time … my OCD won’t allow David Wolf’s name to be Wols for more than a few seconds). It took me six or so books to employ the sprint tactic, and now I’ll never write any other way. 10. I have a self-editing PLAN After tapping out a real crappy draft of a terrible book, then going back through a few times, editing, ironing out inconsistencies, tightening up descriptions of dead bodies, etc., I have in the past simply read and re-read the book, then tweaked until I felt it was ‘as good as I can get it’. I’m ashamed to say, it’s only been recently that I’ve implemented a self-editing plan. The plan is something like …
11. I hire an editor who does it for a living, for a rate that allows her to do it for a living After seven books, going through three editors, and becoming frustrated with the service I was getting, I realized that I needed to hire an editor who was an editor and only an editor, and who charged a rate that clearly allowed her to feel properly compensated. The alternative is hiring somebody who does the work on the side for cheap. They’re pressed for time. They’re secretly (I imagine, because I would be) pissed off about being underpaid for a job that deserves more money. The equation adds up to a poor editing job on the finished product … suspicious stretches of pages – five, ten at a time – without a single mark on them. The saying goes, ‘You get what you pay for,’ and it can get tricky when paying for editing services. For years, I tried to get away with paying less. And I definitely got less. ... In today’s publishing environment, I know that, for me, every bit of advice helps. I hope at least one of the tips above helps you on your journey to becoming a successful self-published writer. 
Where to find Jeff and his books
For instant access to more self-publishing and indie-author resources, visit my Self-publishers page. Or join the library to get monthly updates.
Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
If you’re at the beginning stages of your writing career, you’ll still be navigating your way through the world of publishing. And you probably have a ton of questions. One of those will likely be: What kind of editor do I need to help me get my book ready? The natural follow-up to that is: How do I find that person?
I offered guidance on what kind of editor to hire and when in ‘The different levels of editing. Proofreading and beyond’. Today, I’m focusing on how you should source that person.
So as not to muddy the waters, I’m assuming you’ve already decided what kind of help you want: developmental, copy/line editing or final prepublication proofreading. If you’re still not sure, I’ve included a PDF that summarizes the different levels of editing at the bottom of this article. Now let’s look at how to find the right person. My recommendations fall into two categories:
Search (1): Professional associations
Your national editorial society is a great place to start, for four reasons:
The UK’s professional editorial association is the Society for Editors and Proofreaders and there’s a global list here: Professional societies and associations. A limitation of national professional editorial societies is that they’re national. There’s absolutely no reason why you should source editorial help from someone in your own backyard. Many editorial pros work with clients from all over the world. Search (2): The internet The internet is the biggest and most amazing directory on the planet so it’s a brilliant place to search. Your perfect-fit editorial pro is out there, just waiting for you to touch base. There’s a problem, though: the internet is the biggest and most amazing directory on the planet so it’s a terrible place to search. Your perfect-fit editorial pro is buried, waiting for you to dig her out. Go too broad with your keywords and you might miss her. Go too narrow and … yep, you might miss her. Of course, you might find her, too. As Google sometimes prompts us: are you feeling lucky? And there’s something else to bear in mind – and I say this as someone with page-one Google rankings for the term ‘proofreader’, so it’s not a case of sour grapes – being high up in Google doesn’t mean the proofreader or editor is necessarily the best fit for you; it means they’re an effective marketer. And, conversely, just because someone’s website is ranked highly for niche long-tail keyword searches doesn’t mean that another person who didn’t pepper their website with those particular terms isn’t worth considering, too. That means you need to do a lot of Google legwork to find the best fit and to get a really good batch of potential people to work with. I’m not saying don’t use the internet. Its global nature is an appealing feature, one that the national editorial societies can’t compete with. I’m saying recognize its limitations. It’s amazing but it’s crowded, so you’ll need to invest some time to make it work for you. And that’s why I’ve given professional associations the number-one slot in this list of search options. Search (3): Your network If you’ve developed a solid network of fellow writers, that could be a super resource from which to get recommendations. Bear in mind, however, that the best fit for your writer pal is not necessarily the best fit for you. It’s a small resource given the size of the decision. You might be writing in a different genre, or you might need help with a different level of editing. Some professional editors specialize in one or two levels (e.g. proofreading and copyediting; or developmental editing and manuscript evaluation). Others offer all of the levels but still feel most comfortable in one or two. So tap your network for advice, but back it up with other searches. Search (4): Social media Social media platforms can be useful. They’re global but they have their limitations:
Here's a summary of the tools you might use to search for an editor or proofreader: 
Now let’s take a look at how you might refine your initial searches.
You’ve found 37 developmental editors or copyeditors or proofreaders … whatever you need. All of them look great – they all have experience; can spell properly; are well educated and professional; and have a keen eye for detail and the appropriate training and qualifications. How are you going to narrow that down to something manageable? Refine (1): Genre experience One way is to look at their portfolios, which tell you whether they’re used to working with books in your genre.
Refine (2): Best versus best fit – samples Best versus best fit is worth considering when it comes to choosing third-party editorial help. At proofreading stage, you need precision; it’s all about quality control. At the earlier stages of editing (e.g. copy/line) emotional engagement will come into play. It’s therefore a good idea to ask for a sample (either free or paid for). A sample will allow you to see who ‘gets’ your writing. Sentence-level tweaking is subjective to a degree (when it comes to suggesting minor recasts, for example) and it may be that five editors all spot the same typos and grammar errors but handle the wordiness rather differently. It’s not about right or wrong, but rather about responsiveness. Refine (3): Endorsements A third narrowing-down technique is to look at what other writers say about a proofreader or editor. Take a look at their testimonials. Have other writers been prepared to publicly endorse the editorial pro? Have mainstream publishers stuck their necks out and praised the work? Testimonials aren’t a foolproof way of determining excellence; like portfolios, they give you a glimpse of what the editors have done, whom they’ve worked with and the impressions they’ve made. They’re just one way of evaluating what’s on offer. So that’s it – a potted guide to finding a proofreader, copyeditor or developmental editor. I wish you luck with your search and with your writing journey! Here’s the information on the different levels of editing I promised. Just click on the image to download. 
For more self-publishing resources, visit the library on my Self-publishers page. Or join the library to get monthly updates.
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. How do mainstream publishers produce books? And should you mimic them? Help for self-publishers15/5/2017
A lot of my self-publishing clients tell me they don’t understand what happens in the mainstream publishing industry’s editorial process. So when I advise them that – if they have the budget – they should do their best to mimic it, they’re in the dark.
How do mainstream publishers produce books?
Today’s post aims to switch on the lights by offering you an overview of the editorial production chain. It should give you a sense of why books take so long to get to market and what some of the costs are (to the publisher and even to the author!). Every press’s editorial production chain is slightly different but the broad principles apply. A note on scheduling … and marketing In the mainstream publishing industry, books are commissioned and scheduled for publication often up to a year and a half in advance, sometimes longer! That time frame isn’t down to the publisher being busy with other stuff; rather, it’s about giving the relevant team members the necessary time to take the book through a rigorous editing process and carry out a staged prepublication marketing campaign. TOP TIP: When self-publishing, instead of promoting your book at the eleventh hour, plan and implement your marketing campaign well ahead of launch. That way, you can create a fan base and generate excitement about your novel before it goes to market, even pulling in some pre-order sales.
3. Design #1 When the key members have agreed that the correction stage is complete, the raw-text files are handed over to a typesetter (if the book is to be printed). This is where the first proofs are created. The typesetter formats the book so that the layout conforms to the agreed house style and is designed so that maximum use of the page space is made. Printing is very expensive so minimizing wasted white space is a key factor in the process. The typesetter needs to balance costs against aesthetics.
This is the FIRST PROOF stage. The first proofs are essentially a first draft of what the finished product will look like when it’s picked off the shelves in a bookshop. The completed first proofs are delivered back to the production manager.
KEY MEMBERS: Author, production manager, typesetter 4. Proofreading The production manager sends the first proofs (perhaps a chunk of paper but increasingly a PDF) to the author and the proofreader (usually a freelancer). Both will check them carefully. The proofreader may be asked to proofread blind or against the original raw-text files worked on by the copyeditor (the latter is much slower). The proofreader’s job is not to make extensive changes, but rather to draw attention to any final spelling, punctuation, grammar, consistency or logic problems missed at earlier rounds of editing or introduced during the typesetting stage. Every change the proofreader makes or suggests needs to be handled carefully in case it has a knock-on effect on the design, the page count and, consequently, the printing costs. It’s demanding work that requires experience and judgement about when to change and when to leave well enough alone. Some publishers even pass some of these costs back to the author – eek!
This is the QUALITY CONTROL or CHECKING stage. The proofreader does not amend the raw text but annotates the paper or digital pages, often using proof-correction markup language (a kind of shorthand that looks like hieroglyphics to the untrained eye!).
KEY MEMBERS: Author, production manager, proofreader, typesetter 5. Final revision: Design #2 Now the proofreader’s corrected file and the author’s version go back to the production manager, who has to collate all the final amendments and instruct the typesetter to make the necessary corrections. The typesetter creates a revised file and returns it to the production manager for sign-off.
This the SECOND PROOF stage. We’re nearly there!
KEY MEMBERS: Author, production manager, typesetter 6. File creation and distribution (print, digital or both) The final countdown! The production manager works with the typesetter and printer to create the final print book that will be delivered to the relevant distribution channels. In the case of e-books, the production manager will commission a digital formatter to create e-Pub files that are compatible with the market’s major e-readers and other digital devices.
This is the PUBLISHING stage. The book is delivered to market!
KEY MEMBERS: Production manager, digital formatter, typesetter, printer The elusive publishing deal and the editorial process As you can see, there are a lot of stages and a lot of people involved. And that’s why it takes so long and why it’s so expensive to publish. It also explains, in part, why writers can find it so hard to get a mainstream publishing deal; if the book bombs, there’s no return on all that investment. For publishers, novels that need a lot of work, or that don’t fit neatly into an obvious and currently popular genre, are difficult to sell (the high-street bookshops don’t know where to place them to grab readers’ attention). Should you mimic the mainstream publishing industry's editorial process? Mimicry will bring you quality – there’s no doubt about that. It’ll also require a major investment in time and money. We all have to make difficult choices about what we do to make the things we create the best they can be. But there are limitations. I’m passionate about the independent author’s right to write, and I know that your pockets aren’t bottomless. I hope this has shed some light on the mainstream publishing process! Until next time …
If you’re new to writing and self-publishing, I have a tip for you – one that will save you a major headache as you work through the initial writing and later redrafting stages of your novel ...
Create your own style sheet! Honestly, you won't regret it. Building a style sheet is like holding hands ... but with yourself. It'll help you keep track of what’s going on in your novel – who’s who, what’s where, and when X, Y and Z happens. At the same time, you'll be able to record your preferences for the micro elements of your book ... things like spelling, punctuation, the rules about the way your fictional world works, and how you treat the various elements of the text (from paragraphs and headings to narrative, speech and thoughts). Want a template to help you get going? No problem – there’s one at the end of this article. It’s in Word so you can add, delete or tweak to your heart’s content. Ready-to-go downloadable handholding! To help you out, I've added some of my own recommendations (based on industry-recognized conventions) and offered choice where appropriate. What’s included in a style sheet? You can include anything you want but a solid, usable style sheet that'll really help you keep an eye on what's going on will include at least the following:
Some writers like to have everything in one place; others prefer to have several documents, each of which records different types of decisions, and toggle from one to another. It’s your choice – whatever helps you work most productively. So, for example, you might create different sheets for the following:
Additional uses A style sheet really comes into its own if you're writing a series. Not only will you have a reminder of the places, people and events in the previous book(s), you'll also be able to prevent accidental inconsistency or repetition. I've proofread series for both indie writers and mainstream publishers. The authors hadn't kept a written record of what had gone before, and different copyeditors had been used for each book.
Copyeditors and proofreaders can spot these problems when they occur within a single book, but if they weren't hired for the previous novel(s), they'll be ignorant of inconsistency or repetition across the series. Your style sheet will enable them to flag up potential errors. In other words, a style sheet won’t just help you. It’ll help those who assist you, too. And the more we know about what you want, the better the service we can provide for you. Rules versus preferences Your decision is final at the end of the day. And while I and my colleagues can give you advice based on industry-recognized style manuals such as The Chicago Manual of Style or Oxford’s New Hart’s Rules, those resources are not the law (though they are excellent!). Rather, they’re reference points that help writers and editors bring clarity, consistency and readability to text; they’re usually based on preference and convention, not rules (despite the title of the Oxford guide mentioned above!). If you're not sure which particular element of style will suit your book best, talk to an editor.
The thing to keep in mind is this: inconsistent styling will distract the reader and move them away from what they should be engaged with – your story. If you have any questions about issues of style, drop me a line in the comments. Even if I don’t know the answer off the top of my head, I’ll know where to find it and advise you accordingly. Here’s your style-sheet template as promised. Simply click on the image below to download it. I hope you find it useful. Until next time ... 
If you're unsure about why proofreading, copyediting, line editing and structural editing are different, and how you might allocate your self-publishing budget, here's some guidance ...
Polishing your text and building fans
Readers who've enjoyed your book are more likely to leave positive reviews and come back for more. Readers who've been frustrated with aspects of your book are more likely to leave negative reviews and reject further opportunities to engage. One way of thinking about these groups of readers is in terms of zones. The happy readers are in the green zone, the grumpy ones in the red. Thinking in terms of these zones can help writers to decide which editorial services to commission, when and why. Readers have different expectations and levels of knowledge. If there are problems with the text, some won't realize. Or they will realize but won’t care. Others will care very much and be frustrated by the lack of polish. 
Copyright Louise Harnby | Proofreader 2017
It's about putting your readers front of mind because they're your fans, the people who'll rave about you and tell everyone to buy your book. Fans hang out in the green zone.
Let’s assume for simplicity that the readership is split evenly between those who don’t know or care that there are problems in the book and those who do know and care. Who’d want to alienate 50% of their readership? If you’re self-publishing, you’ll want to stay out of the red zone. That means getting your book in the best shape you can before you publish. Mimicking the mainstream publishing industry What you need to do to stay out of the red zone will depend on whether you’re a mature, developing or emerging writer and the degree to which you've mastered your self-editing skills.
These are the stages, broadly speaking, that the mainstream publishing industry takes its books through to keep its authors in the green zone. In reality, the production process varies from press to press, but it gives you an idea of the traditional approach. It’s not just publishing-house processes that vary. The terminology that independent editors use to define their levels of service provision differs widely too. For example, my pre-publication proofreading service is called Proofreading Standard. My copyediting service falls under the rubric of Proofreading Plus (and I include line editing when required). It’s therefore advisable to discuss what you want and what the editor can offer before the editing starts. The table below gives you a broad idea of the different stages (S1, S2 etc.) of professional editing and what they include. As you can see, I’ve allowed for a fair degree of overlap.
Artistry versus wizardry
Gandalf isn’t an editor or a proofreader; he’s a wizard! If he did my job, he’d be able to carry out all of the editorial stages above and find every single niggle, error and inconsistency in just one pass. That’s because he has magical powers – unlike publishers and independent editors! 
In the real world, though, you’ll have a budget, and some of you will have to make difficult decisions about which services to commission and which to omit (or how you're going to save up for everything your book needs).
It’s not for me to tell you here where to invest your budget – universally applicable advice is impossible given the number of factors to consider. What I can tell you is that I've never been able to undertake a final proofread for a book that hasn’t been copyedited first. Proofreading is the stage where 90% of the sentence- and word-level problems (and 100% of the big-picture work) should have been fixed – it’s a final level of quality control. Furthermore, I've never finished a copyedit and told the author, 'That's it. It's perfect!' In a nutshell, good to go is unlikely to be where you’re at if you hire an editorial professional for just one pass. Good enough will have to suffice. I'm not being grouchy, just honest about what's possible. I'm a genuine advocate of the independent author's right to write and publish. I think it's brilliant that anyone can put their storytelling out there. My young daughter was publishing her own stories on WattPad before she was celebrating a birthday with double digits! How marvellous is that? As long as you understand what's achievable, that's fine with me! Guidance on making the tough decisions
That's it for this week. I hope you've found the advice here useful. Enjoy the green zone! 
For more self-publishing resources, visit the library on my Self-publishers page. Or join the library to get monthly updates.
Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
Can you proofread your own book? Here's my advice on what can be done, and how you can do it.
Truly, nothing beats a second pair of eyes on a piece of text, short or long. I know this all too well because I’m a professional proofreader and copyeditor, but I also write – books (yup, I've self-published four times), guides, booklets and blog posts.
And I miss stuff – not because I have a problem with grammar, punctuation or spelling, but because I’m too close to the text. I see my own writing in terms of the ideas I want to convey rather than the text in front of my eyes. That’s why I hire fellow proofreaders and editors to help make my written materials the best they can be. I don't expect those people to guarantee perfection but I do expect to them to ramp up the quality (and they've never failed me). Here’s another thing I know – the better shape the file's in, the better the price. Editors and proofreaders are professionals and, though we love what we do, we have bills and mortgages too. So, very broadly speaking, the more intervention needed, the higher the fee. There are things every writer can do to tidy up a piece of text by themselves, though. I’ve compiled them in one handy resource: The Author’s Proofreading Companion. The steps in this toolkit won’t replace a rigorous professional developmental edit, line edit/copyedit and final prepublication proofread, but they will help rid your file of some of the nasties! Here’s what the Companion shows you how to do:
Just click on the image below to get your FREE copy! 
Hope it helps! And come back soon for more handy tips and advice designed especially for beginner writers.
Developmental editing, line editing, copyediting, proofreading ... what on earth is the difference and what's best for you when self-publishing?
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #79
A potted guide to the different levels of editing ...
If you’re a beginner writer and you’re planning to self-publish, you’ll be thinking about getting your book fit for market. Some of you might not realize that there are different levels of editing. And even if you do, you might be fuzzy about what distinguishes each service or what it’s usually called. No shame in that, believe me – even among professional publishers and independent editors the terminology differs. Consensus be damned! The irony that this lack of clarity and consistency exists in a profession that prides itself on, well, clarity and consistency isn’t lost on me or my colleagues! In an effort to untangle the issue, I’m offering you a potted guide to the different levels of editing – what each one deals with, what you might expect it to be called, and the questions to ask when you’re sourcing editorial help. At the bottom of the article is a PDF that you can download to your preferred device and refer to whenever you want. The basics Think of the editorial process like a play with several acts: writing, drafting, sourcing feedback from beta readers, self-editing, developmental editing or manuscript evaluation, line editing, copyediting, proofreading, publishing. The elements in bold are what we’re focusing on today. In a nutshell Basically, there are two levels of work going on – the macro and the micro.
What terms should you use when sourcing editorial help? There’s a question! My advice is that you explain what you want rather than worrying too much about what it’s called. This is because different editors define their services in different ways. Here are some examples:
Sorting out what you need
So, that’s it for now. I hope you’ve found this discussion of the different levels of editing useful. If there are particular questions that you want clarification on, drop me a line and I’ll do my best to answer them. As promised, here’s your potted guide! Just click on the image to download it to your device. 
For more self-publishing resources, visit the library on my Self-publishers page. Or join the library to get monthly updates.
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
I’ve worked with many independent authors. Some are experienced, some are developing, and some are absolute beginners. If you're in the early stages of your self-publishing journey, you'll probably welcome any help you can get.
In this article I'll summarize the problems I most often come across in beginner writing, especially in novels, so that you can raise your game and lift your writing to the next level more quickly.
Also, paying attention to these issues at draft stage will reduce your third-party editing costs further down the line. Don't forget to claim your free copy of my Guidelines for New Authors booklet, which includes this article and a wealth of additional information for beginner writers. You can find the link at the bottom of this post! 1. Rushing to publish rather than hushing to polish Some new authors are so desperate to publish that they omit the drafting stage. Hush time means putting the book aside for a while and revisiting and self-editing with fresh eyes. If you don’t go through the drafting stage, you’re less likely to spot problems with plot, pace, readability and repetition. And that means your book will not be ready for the later stages of editing like copy-editing and proofreading. Editor and writing coach Lisa Poisso has some excellent advice on managing the drafting process strategically: How to revise the early drafts of your novel. 2. Overwriting Too much detail Some beginner writers don’t trust their readers to fill in the gaps. This results in writing that gives too much detail. The narrative becomes laboured, boring even. There are some excellent examples in Christina Delay’s 5 Steps to Avoid Overwriting (Jami Gold blog); it’s what Gold calls ‘giving too much stage direction’: Imagine if an author described a character traveling from a store to their home by listing every single action: ‘She inserted the key into the ignition. Turned the key. Waited for the engine to engage. Slipped the engine into reverse. Expertly maneuvered the car out of its parking spot …’ Gold recommends getting straight to the point – unless, of course, something important happens in the detail that’s key to moving the story forward. If it’s just detail that mimics the mundanity of real life, strip it out. Repetition Watch out for repetition, especially ‘wow’ words. If Jo thunders down the hallway, her face like thunder, you have a problem. If the reader is told that Mike is ‘in agony’ and ‘agonized’ several times in one paragraph, trim the fat (and think of some synonyms!). High-intensity scenes of fear, danger, desire or confusion are those most prone to repetition and over-explanation in beginner writing, usually because the author is worried that the reader might not understand what the character’s experiencing. Gold calls these ‘emotionally overwrought passages of purple prose’. When drafting, consider creating a list that features key moments of disclosure and emotion/response. By mapping these moments, you can see whether the descriptions lie in close proximity to each other, and whether you’ve already provided enough detail earlier in the book. Then you can cut accordingly. Less is more. Telling twice Telling twice is another consequence of not trusting the reader to fill in the gaps.
3. Logic flop Logic flop happens when writers try to avoid conjunctions (probably because they’ve been told that conjunctions are boring and shouldn’t be overused). This can lead to grammatical hiccups that disfigure the writing and trip up the reader.
The second, edited version introduces a conjunction that brings logic and clarity to the sentence. Conjunctions are a perfectly natural way to join connecting action clauses that happen one after the other, and don’t need to be avoided simply on principle. Don't be afraid to embrace them! 4. Reluctance to use contractions The use of contractions isn’t always appropriate, particularly when the writer wants to introduce formality (e.g. in a historical setting or in academic non-fiction) or emphasis. However, in contemporary novel writing, the narrative can feel laboured if contractions are excluded, especially in dialogue. In real life, people don’t say things like ‘we are going’ and ‘I would have liked to’ so it’s often better to offer the contracted form. If in doubt, say the words out loud. If the likes of ‘we’re going’ and ‘I would’ve liked to’ sound more natural in the context of your book, then use contractions. Readers won’t notice if you do, but they might stumble if you don’t. 5. Overuse of exclamation marks Take care not to overuse exclamation marks. Too many can be distracting and overwhelm the text. Exclamation marks can detract from the gravity of a statement, making it sound upbeat when a different mood was intended – tension, fear, anger, danger. If you’ve used the right words to convey the mood, the exclamation mark will often be superfluous. If you do decide that an exclamation mark is necessary, don’t use more than one. Compare the following:
6. Speech tagging problems – sighing, smiling, laughing Arlene Prunkl’s ‘Dialogue in fiction’ series is my recommendation for independent authors who want free, detailed guidance on managing fiction dialogue effectively. Part III addresses speech tags (among other things), though the whole series is well worth reading. Beginner authors can be reluctant to overuse he said/she said constructions, even though they’re the most discreet way of tagging. Prunkl says, ‘Your job, as a newer writer, is to show emotion through the dialogue words themselves, not through the tags.’ She therefore recommends avoiding tags such as ‘hissed’, ‘sighed, ‘laughed’, etc. – not because they’re not good words but because they’re not words that describe the action of speaking. To hiss is to make a sharp sibilant sound; to sigh is to emit a deep, audible breath that expresses relief or sadness; to laugh is to express amusement through spontaneous sounds and movements of the face; to say is to utter words – and that’s why ‘said’ is an effective speech tag. Take a look at these examples; the bold versions are clean, effective examples of dialogue tags that won’t trip up the reader.
7. Formatting too early Focus on making your book look beautiful after the bulk of the editing has been done. Fancy fonts and heavily designed text are difficult to work with at editing stage. Furthermore, the layout might have to be reworked if there are major additions or deletions to the text during structural editing and copy-editing. Word’s styles palette is sufficient prior to the design stage. You (or your copy-editor) can introduce consistency to the different elements of the book (chapter titles, headings, quoted matter, main text, captions etc.) in a way that’s clear and simple. 8. Unrealistic expectations of what’s possible in one pass Some beginner writers think that one pass – a ‘final proofread’ carried out by a third-party professional – is enough to guarantee absolute perfection. It’s not. The mainstream publishing industry doesn’t believe it’s possible, and nor should the independent author. If you hire a professional to proofread or copy-edit your Word file, and that file has not been through previous rounds of extensive and meticulous editorial revision, there will likely be thousands of amendments – spelling, grammar, syntax and punctuation errors and inconsistencies; layout problems with regard to spacing and paragraph indentation; inconsistency with regard to character names and traits, and across word forms. Don’t expect your editor or proofreader to say, ‘I’ve made 8,000 revisions to your document, compiled 67 queries, spotted four problems with character-history consistency, noticed two character-surname changes, offered 200 suggestions for alternative wording, and I guarantee that, in spite of this, I have not missed one single literal or contextual error.’ Get as many fresh eyes on your work as you can afford. If budget’s an issue, that’s fine, but make sure your expectations reflect this. Good luck with the self-editing process! And as promised, here's your freebie! It includes lots of useful guidance and links for newbie writers. I hope you find it useful. Click on the picture to get your copy. 
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I'm an Advanced Professional Member of the UK's national editorial society.
 All text on this blog, The Proofreader's Parlour, and on the other pages of this website (unless indicated otherwise) is in copyright © 2011–17 Louise Harnby. Please do not copy or reproduce any of the content, in whole or part, in any form, unless you ask first.
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 Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi). I abide by its Code of Standards in regard to my status as an independent writer.
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Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP). I'm a signatory to its code of practice as a professional editor.
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Featured in The Book Designer's Carnival of the Indies: Joel Friedlander's collection of 'outstanding articles recently posted to blogs'.
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Winner of the Judith Butcher Award 2017 in respect of 'highly visible contributions to the SfEP and its membership'.
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