Are you looking for literary representation? My guest Rachel Rowlands has some helpful advice on how to find an agent, what to submit and to whom, and dealing with rejection professionally.
Literary agents hold the golden ticket that will get you into the chocolate factory. If you want to get published traditionally, they’re essential.
Getting an agent is competitive, and it isn’t easy, but if you’re stubbornly passionate about your work and don’t give up, it can be done. I hope my journey and what I’ve learned along the way will inspire you and help you. Buckle up, because it’s a bumpy ride.
Before submitting
The process starts long before you even think about submitting to agents. Write. Abandon projects. Start new projects. Finish projects. Learn about the craft. This can take years. You may even develop a few grey hairs along the way. I’ll rewind a bit and give you an example: I’ve always written stories. I wrote my first ‘novel’ when I was 16. It was about angels of light and darkness and doors to other planets, and it was heavily inspired by Kingdom Hearts, a game I was obsessed with. But I had fun, I loved writing it, and it taught me how to plan and finish something. I wrote three other books before writing the one that led to me signing with an agent – at 27. You need time to develop as a writer, to hone your craft. Your first book most likely won’t be the one that gets you where you need to be. Your second might not either, and that’s okay. No one becomes an expert overnight. Here are some other things that you might want to do before you start hunting for that elusive agent, aside from writing books until your fingers nearly fall off:
Finding and submitting to an agent
Do your research No agent should charge you money – they work on commission. Any agent who wants you to pay upfront is a scammer and you should run far, far away. A great place to hunt for agent details if you’re in the UK is the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. QueryTracker is great, too; it lists agents from all over the world (although some UK-based agents are missing from the database). You can even use it to track your submissions and the replies you receive. Otherwise, I recommend doing your own tracking via, say, a spreadsheet. It doesn’t matter where in the world you’re based in terms of who you submit to – many agents work with foreign co-agents. So, for example, if you’re based in the UK it’s perfectly fine to query both UK and US agents. Follow submission guidelines Every agency has different guidelines – some want you to send a cover/query letter and three chapters. Others might just want an initial query letter. Treat these guidelines as law. Also, be professional in your letter (read Query Shark, a blog on writing query letters, like your life depends on it). Get someone to critique your query letter before it goes out. Don’t make it easy for someone to say no! Don’t send your book to everyone at once Submit to a small batch of agents first, somewhere between 5 and 10. If you get any feedback, rework your manuscript and then send out a new batch. Note, however, that this strategy can be problematic because you won’t always know why an agent rejects a book; it might be purely subjective. Still, you don’t want to exhaust all your options in one go! Try to keep it balanced. Don’t get keyboard-happy and send your book to 200 agents.
After submission
Be in it for the long haul and be prepared for rejection I submitted two manuscripts over the course of two years, racking up a couple of hundred rejections. It wasn’t easy. The first book I queried got standard, copy-and-paste rejections almost across the board (also known as ‘form rejections’), although two agents did ask to read it. One asked me to send it back after doing some revisions, sometimes called an R&R or a revise and resubmit (sadly it doesn’t mean rest and relaxation). I never heard from that agent again, even after several polite nudges. As for the second book I sent out, there was a flurry of interest. Suddenly, lots of people wanted to read my book. But then … the standard rejections started rolling in. I even had an agent ask to meet me when she was halfway through my book. Then she called and rejected me after she’d finished reading. A phone call from an agent is generally a sign that they want to work with you, so that was pretty crushing. Some days, I wanted to quit because it felt easier than carrying on. But in the wise words of J.K. Rowling, ‘It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously you might as well not have lived at all.’ I kept going. Another agent called me up. We talked revisions. I worked on them for six weeks and we bounced ideas back and forth. She really got my book and what I was trying to do, and she loved my edits. After two and a half years of submitting, five manuscripts, and many I’m-going-to-quit-writing-forever threats, I signed the contract. Don’t reply to rejections Really, don't, unless the agent personalized your rejection and mentioned your book/characters specifically. In that case, feel free to send them a quick thank-you note. Never send sassy or scathing replies like, ‘You don’t know what you’re missing out on’ or ‘Your loss, sucker’, even if that’s what you’re thinking. Vent in private. That’s what writer friends/cats/brick walls are for. If an agent sends you a rejection, but invites you to submit future work, do it! They haven’t slammed the door shut, they’ve left a gap for you – and it means they see potential. Keep their name and email address, and when you have a new project ready, send it to them and remind them who you are. All in all, remember that no project is ever wasted. You’ll learn something from every manuscript, and even if you don’t land an agent straight away, you’ll be making connections and putting your name out there. Treat your rejections as badges of honour because they mean that you’re still in the game, and one day you’ll get to the next level. Good luck! More resources
Rachel Rowlands is an independent editor and an author of young adult books. With her editor hat on, she works for a growing list of publisher and author clients on both fiction and trade non-fiction. She has a degree in English and Creative Writing and is represented by Thérèse Coen at Hardman & Swainson. She can be found at www.racheljrowlands.com and on Twitter: @racheljrowlands.
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
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If you’re not sure what a first-person narrative point of view is, or how to use it effectively in your fiction writing, this post is for you.
What is narrative point of view?
Point of view (POV) describes whose head we’re in when we read a book ... from whose perspective we discover what’s going on – and the smells, sounds, sights and emotions involved. There can be multiple viewpoints in a book, not all of which have to belong to a single character. And to complicate things, editors’ and authors’ opinions differ as to which approach works best, and what jars and why. POV can be tricky and my aim is to keep the guidance as straightforward as possible, not because I think you should only do it this way or that way, but because most people (myself included) handle complexity best when they start with the foundations and build up and outwards. Why should you bother nailing POV? Pro editors and experienced writers agree on one thing: it’s worth the beginner author’s time to understand POV so that they can make decisions about which to use, where, and why. Consider the following:
Point of view: What are the options?
There are multiple ways in which to narrate a novel. Some are more popular than others, and some easier to master. What you choose will shape not only the story you tell but also your readers’ understanding of it. The options are as follows:
First-person POV First-person narrative POVs are the most intimate, the most immediate, but they’re less flexible. The pronouns used are ‘I’ and ‘we’. The reader is privy to an individual character’s thoughts, emotions and experiences, all told through a distinctive voice. We can only see, hear, smell and feel what the character sees, hears, smells and feels. We are compelled to move through the story knowing only what they know, and at their pace. However, used throughout an entire novel, from on character only, it can be problematic for the following reasons:
Example: Not relying on ‘I’ In To Kill a Mockingbird (p. 5), Harper Lee keeps ‘I’ to a minimum and yet the prose oozes with first person. Note in particular how the voice is rich and distinct, rather than the more neutral tone we’d expect from third-person objective narration.
Because Lee doesn’t append ‘I’ plus a verb to much of the prose, we are given a shown narrative that we can experience rather than being told how the narrator experienced the world being described. Compare it with the ‘I’-heavy made-up example below and consider how the narrator’s told experience keeps the reader at a distance.
I placed my hand on the rusty handle and tugged, but the old oak door refused to give way to me. I heard a rustling sound behind me and turned my head. I spotted movement in the inky shadows and felt the skin on the back of my neck prickle with terror as I realized I wasn’t alone.
Let’s rewrite this with a less invasive first-person narration in which the reader can experience the action as it unfolds. The handle was rusty against my palms as I tugged but the old oak door refused to give. A rustling came from behind and I turned. A shape flitted in the inky shadows and the skin on the back of my neck prickled. I wasn’t alone. Example: Sustaining interest with other interpretations In The Word is Murder (p. 208), author Anthony Horowitz is one of the characters! The viewpoint is first person (his). The author is like a floating camera; we see the protagonist – the detective (Hawthorne) who solves the crime – through Horowitz’s eyes as he accompanies him to interviews with suspects and on visits to crime scenes. The author-character offers his own theories, even pursues his own lines of investigation, and interjects with stories about his life and career. This adds interest but, ultimately, it’s the detective who grounds the crime story, brings reliability to the narrative, and drives the novel forward; it’s through him that we access the procedural elements and the answer to whodunnit. Here’s an excerpt:
Recommendation First-person narratives introduce depth and explain motivations but can be difficult to sustain if not sufficiently interesting and there’s too much told narrative. Watch out for filter words if you think you’re over-telling. Consider whether your whole novel needs to be in first person. Perhaps limiting this approach to specific characters in dedicated chapters would be more effective. If you decide to stick with first person throughout, think about voice and how your viewpoint character (and therefore the reader) will discover the how, when and why of the story at an engaging pace. And, finally, if you’re basing your whole novel in the first person, be cautious about using the present tense throughout. The past might give you more flexibility, particularly if you’re writing action-heavy scenes where, in reality, the character wouldn’t have time to give much thought to the consequences and motivations of their behaviour. Cited sources and related reading
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Sentence length can affect tension. This post looks at how overwriting can mar the pace of a novel and frustrate a reader, and how less can sometimes be more.
Around eighty per cent of the books that end up in my editing studio are in the crime fiction genre.
One of the most common problems I encounter is overwriting. That’s not because the authors are poor writers. It’s because they’re nervous writers. It takes a lot of hard graft to put enough words on a page to make a book. Yet it takes an equal amount of courage to remove them ... or some of them. ‘What if the reader just doesn’t get it?’ ‘What if they’ve forgotten what I told them above?’ ‘What if I haven’t provided enough detail?’ ‘What if I just love both ways I’ve said that?’ These are the kinds of questions that result in anxious authors bulking up their prose. In a bid to help you trim the fat, I’m going to explore the following:
Trusting your reader The issue is sometimes one of trust – in the author’s own writing and in the reader’s ability to fill in the gaps. Some genres of fiction lend themselves well to more flowery prose that goes off at a tangent for a moment, a little narrative indulgence for the purpose of artistry or even titillation. Crime fiction, however, is all about the page turn. That doesn’t mean that the description isn’t rich, but there is an expectation of forward momentum. Avid readers of the genre love it for the thrill of the ride. Great characterization is key, of course. We want the protagonist to draw us in, the antagonist to pique our curiosity, and the supporting cast to deepen the picture, but ultimately we want to know whodunnit. And that means we want words that help us understand what’s happening, why, where, who’s doing it, whom it’s being done to, why it’s being done, and how it feels. And we only need to be told once. We might need a little clarifying nudge here and there but we’re capable of extracting a lot with less than you might think. Feisty fragments and snappy shorties If you’re trying to evoke tension in your reader, short sentences and fragments can be very effective. Look at the following examples and notice how the authors keep their narratives lean. Here’s an excerpt from Gone Bad by JB Turner:
Turner gives us just enough to set the scene – when, where, who and what – but no more. He trusts us to fill in the gaps.
He might have given a more detailed description of the forest – its sounds and smells. He might have delved deeper into Cain’s emotions, or helped us to picture the backpack by detailing the colour, make, number of pockets and zips, and where the ammo was being held. He could have told us, word for word, how Cain loaded the gun, how careful he was, which bullets he used. But he doesn’t. Turner leaves it to us to imagine the woods, to see in our mind’s eye the loading of the rifle, and to sense the cold hard determination of the shooter. And the backpack gets no more than a passing mention, because to do more would slow the pace and act as a distraction. And the result is just right – Goldilocks would approve. Now consider the choppy fragments in Jens Lapidus’s Life Deluxe:
Lapidus loves the colon more than any other author I’ve come across! It’s a hard piece of punctuation but it works because the characters we’re being introduced to lead hard lives. They’re always looking over their shoulders, thinking in short snaps, weighing up what’s in front of them ... and what might be behind.
Lapidus dares to trust us, dares not bore us. And because of, rather than despite, the short sentences and fragmented prose, reading the scene is an immersive experience for the reader. I recall a sense of taut fatigue as I read this book, like I was right there, ever watchful, on my guard. This author’s deliberate punctuation choices and choppy style mean the word count is reduced but the tension is heightened. He doesn’t pad his narrative with purple prose and stage direction. Like Turner, he trusts us to do the work. Damage by dilution Consider your own writing. Leave your draft alone for a few days. Then return to it and see what happens if you take a more reductive approach to a scene. It's all about balance at the end of the day. Not too much but not too little. Howard Mittelmark & Sandra Newman write:
I’m not suggesting you remove information the reader needs to know, but asking you whether there is material your reader doesn’t need to know, material that might bore them or hold them back.
Neither am I suggesting you avoid creating emotive scenes that are high on tension. Rather, might you build this tension with shorter, tighter sentences that demand your reader do some of the work? And I’m not suggesting you should limit every sentence in your book to five words – not at all. I’m suggesting that you might use this technique when you think it would work, when it would push your reader forward, when fewer words – the right words – would work as well or better than more, especially if you know you tend to overwrite. Letting go of what you love For some authors it’s not about trust, but about not wanting to let go. Perhaps you found two delicious ways to say the same thing and now you can’t bear to cut either. Or you constructed a stunning paragraph but it’s interrupting the conflict or the action. In The Magic of Fiction, veteran editor Beth Hill says:
Hill asks authors to grab ‘the liberty to cut words as freely as you added them’ and then to enrich what’s left.
It’s tricky for some beginner writers, I know, but repetition and interruption mean there are redundant words in your writing. And to make your novel sparkle, you need to let go of them because they’re not adding something new, they’re not in the right place, or they’re in the way. Take courage. Try it with and without. You might be surprised.
Cited works and further reading
If you'd like to access more tips and resources for self-publishers, visit the Self-publishers page on my website. Try these in particular:
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Today, I discuss the negative impact that just one word can have on narrative tension: Suddenly.
I’m not suggesting writers eradicate it, but rather use it judiciously and with intention.
I edit a lot of crime fiction written by beginner and emerging authors. I’m an avid reader of the genre too. Reading a genre isn’t enough to make anyone an expert in it, but it does afford the editor plenty of opportunities to see it written well, and to experience it as a punter ... to ask: Why do I like that? What is it about that scene that works so well? What’s hooking me here?
There’s one word that great crime writers put on the page with care – suddenly. However, many new or developing writers struggle to leave it out. Two reasons for overuse stand out:
I’ve grabbed a handful of crime fiction from my own bookshelves, and taken examples from these books to show how suddenly-free writing can be more immediate and immersive. 1. Countering wordiness Some developing writers record every nod, every furrowed brow. All that mundane stuff happens in real life. And in the movies we get to see it played out onscreen. That doesn’t mean it all needs to go into a novel. Readers don’t behave like viewers. When I’m watching a film I expect to be spoon-fed to a degree – dialogue, facial expression, action, and a healthy dollop of incidental music to tell me who’s feeling what and why. The reason it works with film is because a chunk of that stuff happens simultaneously, and even I, impatient soul that I am, don’t get bored. When I’m reading a book, my brain works differently. I don’t want all that stage direction. Too much of it distracts me and that’s when I’m most likely to lose interest. When a new writer hasn’t learned the art of crafting the story so that there are just enough nudges to keep the narrative rich, but not so many that it becomes tedious, suddenly rears its head. Suddenly becomes an apology for overwriting – an exciting reward for sticking around. Only it doesn’t work. It’s just one more word on the page that the reader doesn’t need. Solution: Keep your crime writing lean Not every writer wants to strip their writing back to the bare bones but ask yourself whether you’ve introduced a sentence with Suddenly purely to reengage the reader. If so, tighten up the preceding narrative so that you don’t lose them in the first place. Less is sometimes more. Example Here’s a scene from Tell No Lies by Gregg Hurwitz, featuring the protagonist, Daniel Brasher (p. 393):
A less experienced writer might have been tempted to overwork the preceding description and the line conveying Daniel’s anxiety ... and that could have led to a Suddenly barging its way onto the starting blocks of the final sentence to drag the reader out of the protagonist’s head and back into the external action. It could have gone like this:
He was ushered through the door into a small, dank, grey windowless room with a stall terminating in a shield of ballistic glass that looked onto the mirror image of a facing stall. Only a steel table and two chairs furnished the room. A coaster-size speaking hole in the glass rendered jailhouse phones unnecessary.
He waited, counting the seconds, working to stay calm. Sweat dripped from his forehead, ran down his back and soaked his shirt. He massaged his temples to stave off the growing panic and raked a clammy hand through his damp hair. Just relax, he thought. You’re in control. Suddenly, a metallic boom announced the opening of an out-of-sight metal door ... Instead, Hurwitz has given us just enough to know that our protagonist is fretful. We hear the metallic boom in the same moment Daniel does. We imagine how it might make him jump. There are 58 words instead of 114. And the writing in the shorter, published example is tighter, the tension higher. The boom comes suddenly, but Hurwitz doesn’t tell us so. He doesn’t need to. 2. Redundancy – the verb’s already done the work Even those novice writers who’ve conquered their noisy narrative can still be tempted to nudge unnecessarily with suddenly. I see this most often in the following scene types:
Certainly, writers who use suddenly are doing so with good intention – to give the reader a now-nudge. However, in most cases it’s unnecessary to convey immediacy and adds nothing to the narrative. In the above examples, the immediacy is rendered perfectly with the verbs launched, dawned, lit up, exploded, trilled and slammed. By adding suddenly into the mix, the reader is pulled out of the story, as if the author has tapped them on the shoulder and whispered, ‘Hey, you, something big’s coming. Just so you know. Right then, as you were. Carry on reading.’ That’s an interruption – the opposite of what the writer intended. Now the reader’s no longer moving at the same pace as the character. They’re one step ahead rather than immersed in the moment. Solution: Test the sentence out loud Say it first with suddenly, then without. Ninety per cent of the time, the slimline version will work better. When that’s the case, hit the delete button.
Published suddenly-free examples Here are some published examples for comparison. None of the authors felt the need to nudge the reader into immediacy.
The Barclay example is particularly interesting. The narrative point of view in this chapter is that of the antagonist. From his perspective, the violence is almost mundane, which renders the scene all the more horrific for the reader. A now-nudge in this paragraph wouldn’t have been just superfluous; it would have countered the perversity of our tension being heightened through being forced to immerse ourselves in Cory’s psychosis. When suddenly works a treat Suddenly-free isn’t a rule. Don’t ban it from your novel! There are times when it works beautifully:
In this made-up example, the inclusion of suddenly subtly changes our perspective of Pip’s situation. There's a subtle immediacy to his discomfort has emerged only now, that in the seconds before he’d watched bu not felt threatened. And so it’s not that suddenly does or doesn’t work. Rather, it depends on the writer’s intention. Your turn ... how do you maintain tension with minimal interruption? Are there particular adverbs you use with caution? If you'd like to access more tips and resources for self-publishers, visit my resource centre. Try these in particular:
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Here's a treat for PerfectIt users ... a custom style sheet that includes the find-and-replace strings in my free ebook, Formatting in Word.
If Formatting in Word has made your life easier, you'll love what my colleague Andrea Kay of Yours Truleigh Editing has done. Yep, she's upped the efficiency game for all of us by creating a custom style sheet that can be imported into PerfectIt.
Thank you so much, Andrea! For those unfamiliar with either the software or the booklet, I've provided an overview of both, and the benefits of importing the style sheet. Below that are the installation instructions and the ready-to-download files for Formatting in Word.
What's PerfectIt?
For those readers who are not familiar with this software, PerfectIt is a sophisticated consistency checker that works with Microsoft Word. By customizing its built-in style sheets, or creating your own, you can define your preferences and let PerfectIt locate variations and possible errors. I recommend every professional editor add it to their toolbox. You can read my more detailed review of the product here: PerfectIt 3 – must-have software for the editorial freelancing pro. If you don't yet have PerfectIt, contact Intelligent Editing for pricing and download information.
Ebook: Formatting in Word
This free ebook helps editors and self-publishing authors tidy up Word documents. In addition to showing you how to use some simple macros, it includes search strings to help you locate and fix potential problems, including rogue spaces at the beginning and end of paragraphs, double line returns, tabbed paragraph indents, lower-case letters at the beginning of paragraphs, paragraphs that end with no punctuation, and more.
What's the style sheet?
Andrea Kay just saved PerfectIt users a ton of time by building an importable custom style sheet that features the key search strings from the ebook! That means you don't have to manually type the strings into your Word document one by one, then repeat the process each time you work on a new document. Instead, import the style sheet, run PerfectIt, and let the software locate the potential problems for you. All you have to do is decide whether to implement the suggested change in your document. How to import your style sheet Importing the style sheet is a doddle, I promise, Follow the instructions and screenshots below. If PerfectIt is already installed, the process will take no longer than 20 seconds. 1. First, email me to get the style sheet.
2. Once you've installed PerfectIt, open the Word document you want to check.
3. Launch PerfectIt. 4. Click on Manage Styles.
5. Click on the Import button.
6. Select the pft from your device and click OK.
7. Click OK in the Manage Styles window.
8. Select the your pft from the Current Style drop-down box.
9. To run PerfectIt on your current Word document using the custom style sheet, press Start.
If you're not a PerfectIt user ...
If you're not yet ready to invest in PerfectIt but still want access to the find-and-replace strings and other tools in the ebook, click on the image below.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Crime fiction falls into a range of subgenres. Knowing where your novel fits helps you understand what readers expect, which published writers you can learn from, and how you might stand out.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #91
If you'd prefer to watch a video, scroll down to the bottom of the article.
This article provides an overview of some of the established subgenres, though the list isn’t exhaustive.
There’s crossover certainly and, depending on the commentator, crime fiction gets chopped up into subgenres variously. I’ve elected not to focus on inverted-detective fiction, heists and capers, LGBTQ mysteries, feminist crime fiction, or romantic suspense, but these subgenres and more all have their place in the market. One thing’s for sure: ‘Crime fiction is never static and never appears to be running out of ideas,’ says Barbara Henderson. Two more reasons to know your subgenre If you’re going it alone, one of your publishing jobs will be to help your readers find your book. When you upload to Amazon, Smashwords or any other distribution platform, you’ll need to decide which BISAC headings to place your book under. And if you’re going down the traditional publishing route, identifying your subgenre(s) will help a literary agent understand which publishers have a best-fit list and where in a bookstore your novel will be shelved. If the fit isn’t obvious to you, it could be harder to convince your agent that your book’s marketable. Ultimately, though, it's the writing that needs to be top-notch, not strict conformity to one or another subgenre. These days, it's probably harder to find crime fiction that isn't fusion of subgenres!
Cosy crime fiction
If much of today’s crime fiction seems gritty, even gratuitously violent, and that’s not the way you want to write, fret not. Cosy crime is alive and kicking (though gently).
Publishers are rushing to bring “lost” golden-age authors such as Annie Haynes back into print, and to repackage the likes of Margery Allingham and Francis Durbridge. (Alison Flood)
What distinguishes the cosy? Murder yes, but leave out the gore, the pain, and depressing social commentary. Your protagonist might well be flawed but no more so than anyone else in the novel, and your readers will embrace your hero’s quirkiness with a skip in their step. That doesn’t mean the cosy isn’t tight on plot and well-paced action that drive the novel forward. Contemporary readers want fantastic mysteries with twists and turns that will keep them guessing. Cosies can be liberating for the playful crime writer who wants to explore the genre with non-traditional characters placed in non-traditional settings:
Classic detective – the Golden Age and beyond
RD Collins locates the start of the genre with Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue. It found its feet with Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and entered into a Golden Age in the 1920s with Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey, among others.
The Golden Age introduced ‘rules’ for the genre. Reba White Williams summarizes these as follows:
See also the quote further down from Otto Penzler about locked-room mysteries – no cheating with doubles and magic! Today’s authors must abide by the same rules, no matter whether their tales are set in Oxford with Morse, LA with Bosch, or Reykjavik with Erlendur.
Hardboiled crime fiction
Los Angeles had never been written about. California had been written about, a book called Ramona ... a lot of sentimental slop. But nobody in my time had tried to write about a Los Angeles background in any sort of realistic way.
That’s a quote from Raymond Chandler in conversation with Ian Fleming in 1958. Chandler’s response was to write crime fiction that was gritty, depressing, violent, cynical and seedy. Hardboiled crime writing, as it came to be known, pulls no punches. The protagonists aren’t invulnerable superheroes. And the environments within which they operate are those of contrast – urban decay and tourist hotspots, hope and corruption. If your crime writing falls into this category, don’t set an amateur protagonist sleuth alongside foolish law-enforcement officers who have neither brains nor access to detection resources. Hardboiled isn’t pretty but it’s rich in believability. Plots are fattened with complex characters, social commentary and, of course, murder. Says Matthew Lewin on the contemporary hardboiled crime fiction of James Lee Burke and James Ellroy:
There is a fury and desperation in this new writing that touches on the violence and depravity of our time as well as the grace and beauty of the best in human nature and the physical world.
Think Harry Bosch. Tim Walker refers to his creator Michael Connelly as ‘the modern Raymond Chandler’. ‘Connelly says he still sees it as a duty to acknowledge the social climate in his novels’. Think also Rebus; Ian Rankin, like Connelly, fuses hardboiled with police procedural masterfully. With hardboiled, even when the crime is solved, your readers won’t expect to close the book feeling that everyone will live happily ever after.
Historical crime fiction
Popular series feature CJ Sansom’s Shardlake, SJ Parris’s Giordano Bruno, Susanna Gregory’s Thomas Chaloner, and Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael.
The genre is as interesting for its criminal investigations as for the lessons in social history afforded to the reader. And because the reader needs to understand the historical setting, these novels are often long. Sansom’s Dark Fire comes in at a whopping 600-plus pages. I have the hardback version and I’m sure I bulked up my biceps just carrying the book from Waterstones to the car park. If historical fiction floats your writing boat, be prepared to put in the research. Many of your readers will know their history so you’ll need to dig deep. It’s no accident that the protagonists in these novels are curious renegade monks, lawyers, scholars and the like. The criminal justice system as it exists in our era bears little resemblance to that in these bygone days. Consider the following:
Some historical fiction is cosier and shorter. Consider David Dickinson’s Lord Powerscourt and Emily Brightwell’s Mrs Jeffries. These Victorian mysteries offer plenty of intrigue and good old-fashioned murder, but we’re spared the grisly details. Don’t be surprised to see this lighter crime fiction splashed with a dose of humour as the authors cast their gaze over the social-economic and gender disparities typical of the era. Still, if the Regency or Victorian cosy is your bag, you’ll still need to gen up on period details.
Legal and medical crime fiction
Courtrooms, labs and hospitals make for great crime fiction, and ‘lawyers and doctors make effective protagonists since they seem to exist on a plane far above the rest of us. Although popular, these tales are usually penned by actual lawyers and doctors due to the demands of the information presented,’ writes Stephen D. Rogers.
Here are some examples:
That old trope of writing what you know comes into play here and it’s a good reminder that using your own specialist knowledge to bring authenticity to your crime writing makes good sense. And if you’re not a former cop, doc or lawyer but you have friends who are, be sure to pick their brains. In particular, research the role of your legal or medical protagonist and ensure that the powers of investigation you assign to them are appropriate for their location. Even if you’re pushing the boundaries of existing science, to give your reader the best experience the foundations will need to be solid.
Locked-room crime fiction
The crime scene is that of a moving train, a secluded and heavily guarded house, an aeroplane, a single-track road with only one way in and one way out ... less whodunnit, more howdunnit.
A locked-room novelist is the illusionist of crime writing, the creator of ‘impossible’ fiction. And yet not so impossible as it turns out, as our brilliant protagonist gradually reveals all. Take care though. No cheating is allowed with locked-room crime. Says Otto Penzler:
The solutions to none of these locked room murders and thefts have supernatural elements and there is no cheating about hidden panels, long-lost twins, waking from dreams or hallucinations. No, they are deduced by detectives, who explain all to the incredulous characters and the baffled reader.
Well-known examples include:
The artistry of the locked-room mystery lies in the author’s ability to deliver a reveal that doesn’t rely on a device that doesn’t exist in real life, that doesn’t require information to be deliberately withheld from the reader, and isn’t so obvious as to be deducible at the beginning of the story. I recommend The Locked-room Mysteries, Penzler’s superb anthology for aspiring locked-room crime writers who want to see masters at work. It's huge – over 930 pages – and heavy, but literally worth its weight.
Police procedural
If you’re writing a police procedural, your in-depth research will need to be top-notch. The angle you take will be determined by your protagonist’s skills. Examples include:
Procedurals are notable for their thoroughly researched and authentic rendering of detection, evidence-gathering, forensics, autopsies, and interrogation procedures in order to solve the novel’s crime(s). Wowser tools and tech don’t come at the cost of strong characterization though. Rhyme is paralyzed following an on-scene accident. Cooper is recovering from the breakdown of her marriage. Rebus has a history of trauma dating from his former military career. Wallander has diabetes, and his daughter attempted suicide in her teenage years. These in-depth backstories provide complexity and conflict – a kind of layering that fattens the plot without complicating it. I find Cooper a little whiny, Rebus grumpy, Scarpetta arrogant, Wallander depressing. That doesn’t stop me falling in love with them though. In fact, flawed characters can balance the sterility of the procedural details. And you, the writer, might find a protagonist with foibles more enjoyable to write. Mankell did:
It’s quite true that I don’t particularly like [Wallander]. But then I think most writers would say it’s more interesting to write about a person you don’t like. I’m quite sure Shakespeare enjoyed writing Iago much more than he did writing Othello. [...] It’s much better to have something between you and your main character that grates.
Spy thriller
When it comes to spy stories, your protagonist is a spook, the nation’s safety the hook. It’s a race against time – against a larger-than-life antagonist – in order to save, well, everyone. The plots are usually complex and the action high-octane.
‘When you’re writing spy fiction you have one overriding goal: to keep the reader turning the pages,’ says Graeme Shimmin. Here’s some great advice from Kathrine Roid: Don’t wing it when it comes to plot:
A spy novel needs to be thought out beforehand, even more so than novels of most genres. Unlike, say, a quest fantasy, where plot points can be shuffled or cut out or added without too much trouble, everything needs to be compactly connected to the main plot. (Unplotted) whims simply do not have a place.
If you’re wandering into spy-fi territory, you’ll have a little more freedom to play with gadgetry. If you’re keeping it real, do the research. Know your guns and your gear so that your protagonist doesn’t end up more tactifool than tactical. But old on a mo. Your spy crime fiction doesn’t have to be a sprint like Robert Ludlum’s or Clive Cussler’s. Mick Herron is one of my favourite writers. The pace might be a little gentler but the brooding narrative is utterly believable. His Jackson Lamb series features the ‘slow horses’ – MI5 agents who’ve messed up and been put out to graze in the backwoods of inactive service. Herron’s crime isn’t spy-fi – there are no wacky gadgets to get Lamb’s crew out of a fix. The characters are vulnerable, disgruntled, and bored ... until there’s a crime and Lamb suspects the spooks. It’s a fine example of character-driven writing with attention to detail on Service procedural and detection legwork.
Private eye and amateur sleuth
The private-eye tradition crosses subgenres: from cosy to hardboiled to classic thriller.
Telling your story through a point-of-view character who works outside law enforcement has its advantages: your protagonist can behave and move in ways that a detective can’t, at least not without risking their job. On the other hand, your sleuth won’t have access to the wealth of contemporary resources available to the police. And take care not to make your amateur’s successes depend on witless professionals. Certainly, every organization/service has its fools and bad apples, and crime fiction is the perfect tool with which to explore police and state corruption, but contemporary readers are unlikely to engage with a novel whose chief investigator is an oaf.
Transgressor/noir
If this is your bag, you’ll go where others fear to tread. Whodunnit is still in the mix, but whydunnit is close behind.
It shares the grit of hardboiled but is distinctive for its focus on the narratives of the transgressor (Eoin McNamee: Resurrection Man), the victim (Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), or both (Lippman: I’d Know You Anywhere). The authors who do this subgenre best seem almost to be able to channel their characters’ psychosocial conflict, and dig deep into the predator–prey relationship. And even when the detective is the protagonist, they’re less superhero than anti-hero, troubled by demons, working despite – rather than within – an establishment as troubled as them (James Ellroy: LA Confidential; Antonin Varenne: Bed of Nails). Says Penzler in ‘Noir fiction is about losers, not private eyes’:
There are no heroic figures in noir fiction. [...] The noir story with a happy ending has never been written, nor can it be. The lost and corrupt souls who populate these tales were doomed before we met them because of their hollow hearts and depraved sensibilities.
Regional variants – e.g. Tartan, Scandinavian, Emerald – that represent the landscape, culture, idiom, and social and political identity of their settings have emerged to international acclaim.
A quick note on subgenre fusion
Your book might well fall into what Agnieszka Sienkiewicz-Charlish calls genre syncretism: ‘the hard-boiled detective story, the police procedural, Gothic fiction and the psycho-social novel’. She offers Rankin’s Rebus novels as an example.
Consider also China Miéville's The City & The City. In this novel, two locations occupy the same physical space. At heart, it's a police procedural, but there's a speculative/fantasy take on the hardboiled tradition: the shiny surfaces of one city butt up against a grubbier alternate, yet residents of each are legally bound to 'unsee' each other. As such, Mieville incorporates a subtle commentary on state authoritarianism, surveillance and corruption into a murder investigation. Genre syncretism can help your work stand out, but take care to recognize the conventions of each so that the core subgenre elements are all done well. No reader will thank you for promising a fusion of hardboiled and police procedural if both are half-baked. Good writing trumps everything. I hope you find this useful and wish you sleuthing success on your crime-writing journey! And there's that video I promised for those of you who'd prefer to watch or listen.
Further reading
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Here's the fourth part of my audio-book creation series. In this article, professional voice artist Ray Greenley discusses distribution options, the importance of having your manuscript edited prior to narration, and briefing your voice artist or producer. Here's Ray ...
Distribution decisions
So you’ve listened to your auditions, you’ve researched your potential producer and think they’re the one for your book, and you’ve come to an agreement on payment terms. There are a few other bits you’ll need to work out before you can offer the producer a contract. One is whether you want to distribute exclusively through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for a higher share of the royalties from sales (royalties are 40% of sale price), or non-exclusively, which means you can set up distribution yourself through other platforms, but you’ll get a smaller share of royalties from sales through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes (royalties are 25% of sale price). Note that if you want to do a Royalty Share or Hybrid contract on ACX, you MUST do exclusive distribution. There’s some other information you’ll need to work out with the producer:
Different producers work at different paces; and many will have other books already waiting to be recorded. They might be able to start on your book right away and have it done in a week or two, or they might be scheduling out months in advance. Talk to your producer and let them know if you have any schedule in mind, but be ready to be flexible. Once you have those dates, you can offer the contract, and when it’s accepted you’re almost ready to go! There’s just one more thing you need to do, and that’s provide the producer with your final, ready-to-record manuscript.
Editing your manuscript
Now, I promise this isn’t just me sucking up to my gracious host, but please, for the love of all that’s good and holy, make sure your manuscript is edited and proofed by someone who knows what they’re doing. It makes the project many times more difficult when we have to struggle through bad grammar, missing punctuation, and poor formatting. In some cases (as happened with me early on), we can’t do it and the contract has to be canceled. If you find a producer who you like working with and does good work for you, then you’ll want to build that relationship into something ongoing. Handing them a manuscript that they can barely get through isn’t going to help. And while those grammar errors may seem innocuous enough on the page to your eyes, they’re VERY hard to hide in audio. Now, we producers know enough to not expect perfection. We can handle a reasonable number of errors in a manuscript. But in the end, it’s best for you, for us, and for your readers to get your manuscript properly edited, so please do it before sending the manuscript to us.
Briefing your producer
From here on out, it sort of depends on you and the producer. One thing that’s often very handy for a producer is to get some additional information about the characters in the story, including:
Also, if your book has words that your producer might have a hard time finding pronunciations for (particularly with made-up names in science fiction or fantasy books), having a key is really helpful. It’s really important to get this sort of information as early as possible while the producer is preparing to narrate the book, but before they’ve actually hit ‘record’. None of that stuff is vital; if you picked your producer well, they’ll be ready to handle all of that on their own. But having some guidance can definitely help. In the final article, we'll look at evaluating the first 15 minutes and production approval. Until then ... Resources
Contact Ray Greenley Website | Facebook | Twitter
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
If you're thinking about self-publishing a book, there 's something you need to know about prepping your prose before you go public: Proofreading is the last thing you need.
Begin on the starting blocks
When I say proofreading is the last thing you need, I mean it literally. Proofreading is the final stage in the editorial process prior to publication. The self-publisher who moves straight from writing to proofreading is trying to win the race by starting on the finish line. And unless you’re an extraordinary self-editor, you’ll be disappointed because it’s likely your book won’t be ready for market. Retain control but mimic the mainstream The beauty of self-publishing is the control you have over the process – you get to write the book you want on your terms. This means:
Still, the mainstream publishing industry knows a thing or two about producing books, and so they should – they’ve been doing it for long enough. And in their production world, proofreading comes last. This isn’t because it’s less important than the previous stages of editing, or easier, or quicker, but because it’s the final quality-control check to pick up what the interior designer, copy-editor, line editor and even a developmental editor missed – anything from an inconsistent character’s name to a misplaced apostrophe, a missing page number to a misspelled word, a rogue paragraph indent to an incorrectly formatted reference. This staged approach to editorial production, carried out by fresh, specialist sets of eyes, increases the likelihood that when the book hits the shelves – even the digital ones – most of the errors will have been fixed. If you mimic the mainstream publishing industry when you self-publish, you reach for the same bar. The different stages of editing When it comes to the different stages of editing, things are complicated by the fact that there are no universally applied terms used within the publishing industry or by the thousands of independent editors and proofreaders. However, what the industry doesn't disagree on is the order. Here's a framework to help you visualize the process: 1. SHAPING
This is the big-picture work that focuses on stuff like structure, plot, pace, narrative point of view and characterization. Terminology varies but look out for the following: developmental editing, content editing, substantive editing, story editing or structural editing.
2. SMOOTHING
This is sentence-level work that focuses on flow, form, readability and engagement. You might hear it called line editing or stylistic editing.
3. CORRECTING
This is sentence-level work that focuses on correct and consistent spelling, grammar, punctuation and layout. It might include fact-checking, too. It’s usually referred to as copyediting.
4. VERIFYING
This is the quality-control stage that picks up anything missed beforehand. This is where proofreading comes into play. If working on designed page proofs, the proofreader will also be checking that the layout matches the brief.
Be realistic: artistry versus wizardry Some new writers think that hiring a round of proofreading will be enough to make their book ready for market. It comes as a shock, not least to the wallet, when they realize what mimicking the mainstream publishing industry will entail. However, I promise you this – a proofreader will not be able to fix 14,000 spelling, punctuation and grammar errors, strengthen the narrative arc, and omit all the wordiness – all in one pass – and hand the file back to the writer with a guarantee of perfection attached to the invoice.
8 tips for self-publishers on a budget Here are some ideas that will help you make the tough decisions. Click on the image to save and download your own copy of the infographic. Last but not least … the proofreader One pass is not enough. Proofreading is an essential part of the self-publishing process, but it’s only one part. Staged editing isn’t cheap – ask any mainstream press – but it’s the surest way to professional self-publishing that turns discerning readers into fans. And fans won’t just buy this book; they’ll buy every book you’ll ever write. Related reading
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
If you think there's no place for macros in fiction editing, think again. My friend Paul Beverley has collated a core group of macros that will have any fiction line editor, copyeditor or proofreader drooling! Self-publishing authors will love them too!
I don't use all of these (every editor has their preferences) but some of them are staples and save me oodles of time!
Some of the macros apply when you’re looking at the whole text of a novel, while others are selective ... for use while you’re editing line by line. Bear in mind that they're designed to be used with MS Word files.
Macros that work with the whole text These macros are ideal near the beginning of the edit, when you’ve put together the whole book in one single file, and you want to look for inconsistencies. ProperNounAlyse searches the novel for any words that look like proper nouns; it counts their frequency, and then tries to locate, by using a variety of tests, and pairs of names that might possibly be alternative spellings or misspellings, e.g. Jayne/Jane, Beverley/Beverly, Neiman/Nieman, Grosman/Grosmann etc.
FullNameAlyse is similar to ProperNounAlyse, but it searches for multi-part names, Fred Smith, Burt Fry, etc.
ChronologyChecker is aimed at tracing the chronology of a novel. It extracts, into a separate file, all the paragraphs containing appropriate chronology-type words: Monday, Wednesday, Fri, Sat, April, June, 1958, 2017, etc. This file is then more easily searchable to look at the significance of the text for the chronology. WordsPhrasesInContext tracks the occurrence of specific names through a novel. You give it a list of names/words/phrases, and it searches for any paragraphs in the novel that contain them. It creates a separate file of those paragraphs, with the searched element highlighted in your choice of colour. CatchPhrase searches your novel for over-used phrases and counts how many times each phrase occurs.
Macros for when editing line by line
FullPoint/Comma/Semicolon/Colon/Dash/QuestionMark/ExclamationMark These macros change he said, you know ... into he said. You know ... or he said: you know ... or he said – you know ... and so on. FullPointInDialogue and CommaInDialogue These two macros change “Blah, blah.” He said. into “Blah, blah,” he said. and vice versa.
ProperToPronoun
This macro looks along the line to find the next proper noun, deletes it and types ‘she’. But if you then type Ctrl-Z, it changes it back to ‘he’. MultiSwitch You give this macro a list of changes that you might want to implement: Jane Jayne Beverley Beverly that which which that When you click in a word, and run the macro, it finds your alternate and replaces it. It also works with phrases and can also provide a menu of alternates: he said he opined he shouted he voiced she said she opined she shouted she voiced
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Here's how to convert a Word document into EPUB or MOBI file format. This option certainly won't be for everyone, but if it suits you, you can master it in seconds ... and for free.
Many authors create their books directly in Microsoft Word because of its excellent suite of onboard styling tools and its compatibility with a range of plug-ins and add-ins (including macros). Pro editors love it for the same reasons.
Once the writing, drafting, editing, and final revisions are complete, it’s time to publish. Is a Word file good enough for epublication? How about a DIY conversion to EPUB or MOBI? It depends on several factors:
Editorial assessment and freebies Perhaps you want to send a review copy to a reader who has a Kindle. Or maybe you want to offer free ebooks for family members and friends. The devices your readers own will determine the required file format. Having your own EPUBs and MOBIs will give you flexibility beyond Word and PDF. And if you're sending your book file for editorial assessment, your developmental editor might prefer to upload your book to their e-reader. They'll makes notes in the file in preparation for their final report or critique. Doing the conversion yourself gives you the freedom to distribute your book without having to jump through the distributors’ hoops. Your budget How about if you’re making your book available for sale? Should you hire a pro formatter for your ebook interior? Yes, definitely, if you have the budget for it, because a pro formatter will do a pro job. The same applies to commissioning various rounds of professional editing. But let’s be honest – not every indie author has deep pockets, and some of you will have to make choices about where to invest your budget. It might be that a DIY conversion will suffice, and in that case Calibre could be your friend. What is Calibre? Calibre is free open-source ebook-management software. With it you can convert a Word file to an EPUB or a MOBI. Go to https://calibre-ebook.com to download and install the software. There are versions for Windows and Mac. Your sales and distribution platform Smashwords If you want to publish via Smashwords, Word is the preferred format. Here's founder Mark Coker:
"We recommend the Microsoft Word path as the best option for most fiction and narrative non-fiction authors because it’s the easiest method to produce high-quality ebooks that are readable on any e-reading device. It will also generate your ebook in multiple ebook formats at the Smashwords store, making your book readable on any e-reading device. By using Microsoft Word, it’s also easy to modify your book at any time."
Make sure you follow the Smashwords guidelines on preparing your Word file, otherwise your published book will be a mess! Furthermore, you’ll risk not qualifying for inclusion in Smashwords’ premium catalogue, which gets your book in front of some big online retailers including:
If your interior is complex, Smashwords will accept EPUB files but they should be professionally designed. There’s further guidance in the Smashwords Style Guide. Kindle Direct Publishing/Amazon If you’re self-publishing via KDP, Amazon will create a MOBI for you from your word file. The same principles apply: as long as you follow the formatting instructions to the tee, and your book interior is straightforward, Word will suffice. Here’s where to access KDP’s Simplified eBook Formatting Guide. If your interior is more sophisticated, I’d advise you to hire a pro. Neither a Word file nor the DIY Calibre conversion offered in this article will do the job to a high enough standard. Direct sales If you’re selling direct from your own author platform, you can offer a PDF. But that’s not what every customer wants. PDFs look fabulous on tablets but awful on e-readers. If your customer wants something different, and you want to maximize sales opportunities, you’ll need another option. Calibre could be the solution. The complexity of your interior design If you have a primarily text-based Word file that will tolerate a simple heading structure for titles, part titles and chapters – as is often the case for fiction and narrative non-fiction – this quick-conversion method could work well for you. If your interior design is more complex, I strongly recommend you commission a professional formatter (some editors also have formatting skills) to do the job on your behalf. In my test, which involved a non-fiction Word file with multiple heading levels, a contents list, boxes, images and other design features, the conversion results for EPUB and MOBI were far from perfect, though I did find solutions when I was prepared to compromise. Here’s how I messed up ... so you don’t have to.
If you still think your Word document fits the bill, here's how to create your EPUB or MOBI file. How to do the quick conversion Open your Word document and save it as an rtf (Rich Text Format) using the Save As function (select Rich Text Format from the drop-down menu). Close the file and head over to Calibre. Click on the Add books icon and select your rtf.
The file will upload to Calibre. Make sure your book file is highlighted, then click on the Convert books icon.
Now you can select and edit the metadata:
Click OK. In the bottom-right-hand corner you’ll see the Jobs icon whirring.
When the conversion is complete, click on the new file format to check that all is well.
This will open the E-book viewer, and it’s one of Calibre’s top features because you can see at a glance what your reader will be looking at.
If you’re happy with your interior, save your converted file to your computer. It’s ready for upload and distribution.
Summing up
If you have a straightforward interior that’s text-based, this quickie Calibre conversion is absolutely worth experimenting with. And it’s free, so even if things don’t go to plan you won’t have lost any money – you’ll just have learned the basics of a new tool that you might be able to take advantage of another time. Poor formatting will earn you nothing but frustrated customers and bad reviews, so:
If your interior is complex, don't even think about using the method outlined here. Work with a pro. Professional eformatting isn’t a service I offer but I’m more than happy to put you in touch with colleagues who can help. Drop me a line via my contact page or comment here on the blog.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
So should you include a podcast transcript? And if you do, should you edit it? Here’s my take.
Writers don’t just listen to podcasts; they create them as part of their author-platform mix. Not all podcasters include transcripts (though I think they’re a good idea) and not all transcripts are created equally.
Some are rough and raw, some are smoothed, and some are edited to within an inch of their life so that they read more like blog posts. What is a podcast transcript and why should you have one? A podcast transcript is a written version of your audio file. Many people glance at a transcript before they listen to a podcast because they want to know what the key discussion points are. Skim reading allows us to digest large chunks of written content quickly. We get to pick and choose what to ignore and what to focus on. Skimming isn’t about deep comprehension but about getting a feel for what’s on offer. People are busy. Podcasts are great because the audience can consume the content while doing other things. That’s great if the listening takes place on the school run or the dog walk. However, that won’t be the choice for all your book-buying audience. Some will want to engage with your podcast, and only your podcast. Those listeners need to know whether you’re worth their time. We can’t skim a podcast (or a vlog) but we can skim a transcript. The transcript is therefore more than a written record. It’s also the key that unlocks the audio engagement door. Given that it’s a representation of what’s said in the podcast, should you edit it? A better question is, what are the consequences if you don’t? Here are four. 1. Eyes before ears – visible content counts If your listener is already fan, a sloppy transcript is unlikely to put them off because they probably won’t even read it – they’re there for you and your audio. But if they’re new, and deciding whether to commit to listening, the written word might well determine whether they leap on board or jump ship. If the first thing someone comes across on the podcast landing page looks and reads like a dog’s dinner, what does that say about the likely quality of the audio content? In reality, the audio content might well be outstanding, but the podcaster isn’t judged on that until the audience has decided to hit Play. It’s the visible content on the page that counts.
2. But it’s all about the audio, isn’t it?
Imagine you’re doing a presentation to a roomful of your author peers. You build your presentation around the problems you’re trying to solve for your audience, create a great slide deck, and rehearse like billy-o so that you’re on top form. On the day of the speaking engagement you turn up ahead of time so that you can check that all your equipment and supporting materials are fit for purpose. Before you go on stage you do some breathing exercises to relax your throat – you want your voice to be clear and engaging for your listeners. You look the part. You sound the part. And you’re a writer in a roomful of writers. That’s all that matters, right? After all, it’s a face-to-face speaking engagement. The problem is, you haven’t brushed your teeth for three weeks and your breath honks. If you were one of those presenters that likes to be front and centre, the first row would be in trouble. But you’re a walker. You like to engage with your audience – a little bit of up close and personal. It’s not the first row that's in trouble. The whole room is at the mercy of your Wookie mouth. Shame, because no one’s interested in your stunning insights, your top tips for how to overcome writer’s block, fact check, or edit the first draft, never mind that what you tell them could make their lives a hundred times easier. All anyone’s thinking is Stay back. A sloppy podcast transcript is like bad breath. It focuses your potential audience’s attention on the wrong thing and risks putting them off before the audio fun’s even begun.
3. Standing out
Podcasts are increasingly popular tools used by business owners, marketers, writers and hobbyists to communicate with their clients, fans and friends. And a lot of podcast transcriptions are sloppy. All the effort, and the budget, goes into creating great audio. In ‘How to build a web presence that outsmarts, outperforms and outlasts the search engines’ (Summit on Content Marketing 2017), Stoney deGeyter talks at some length about being excellent in everything we do so that we’re not battling with search-engine algorithms and rankings. He advises focusing on extraordinary engagement that makes our audience/customer journey as easy as possible. Good advice indeed. So why not stand out and create a top-notch podcast transcription?
That way you give people nothing to complain about and everything to rave about. Word of mouth is more likely to kick in. And with it, audience growth, engagement, advocacy and book sales. Certainly, some people won’t care if your transcript is a mess. It’s not them you have to worry about though. It’s about those who do care, those who judge you negatively because they think you don’t give a damn. Which leads us to the biggie. 4. Wordy people need to do wordy well You’re a writer. Given that your podcast is part of your author platform, the last thing you want to do is give anyone the impression that your writing is poor, even if you’re using audio as an engagement tool. If a famous chef was promoting her new recipe book in my local Waterstones and the canapes made me want to hurl, certainly I’m not going to buy her book. But, much worse, I’m not going to book a table at her restaurant. The biggest problem for the author with a sloppy transcript is not that no one will listen to the podcast but that no one will buy her books.
How much should you edit?
It’s your choice but bear in mind that the goal is to encourage the listener to engage with the audio and buy your books. The podcasting author has to strike a comfortable balance between rigorous word-for-word accuracy and readability. Here are some guidelines:
Ideas for you to steal Even if you don’t include a transcript, consider the following:
If you decide to hire someone to create and edit your transcript for you, take a look at this article from my copywriter pal Gudrun Lauret: Why Not to Use Cheap Transcription Services. And here's a cautionary note that Tim Lewis posted on my Facebook page: 'Honestly, transcripts are a right PIA but you are right: they are well worth doing. Something for amateur podcasters to be careful with is that many automated transcription services such as Trint (and the free services) really struggle with anything that isn’t a standard US or UK accent, and if they don’t get to pretty high accuracy you will spend longer fixing it than the length of the interview. I use rev.com which is human-based (but more expensive). Even that’s not perfect though.' Here are some examples of what others are doing: Tim Lewis, Begin Self-Publishing Podcast Tim’s transcripts are gently smoothed to aid readability, indicate who’s speaking, and include a brief content summary. He increases visual engagement by introducing eye-catching quotes from the show. Here’s an example from the episode I did with him on fiction editing.
Julie Anne Eason, The Successful Author Podcast
Julie Anne doesn’t include transcripts but she does provide detailed overviews of each episode’s content, additional related resources, eye-catching quotes from the show, and a bullet list of key themes.
Wesley Chu, Piper J. Drake, Mary Robinette Kowal, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells, Writing Excuses
The hosts have an index of smoothed transcripts available in a separate menu. They offer a summary of the show, a pick-of-the-week related resource and a writing prompt (mini homework!), and subject tags so listeners can access related content (a really neat and useful addition that’s common on blogs and works very well in this setting too).
I'll be digging deeper into author podcasting in a forthcoming blog. I hope you'll join me for that!
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Many independent authors want to see a sample of an editor or proofreader's work prior to signing a contract for editorial services. This post discusses sample edits, why they're useful, and what they cost.
Sample edits give the author the opportunity to compare the work of several different professionals and to assess the editing or proofreading against the price being quoted.
The editor needs to be sensitive to the author’s style, the characters’ voices and the mood of the scene such that the soul of the writing remains intact. Samples help the author to compare editors’ technical competence and their emotional responsiveness to the text. In this case, the question is not so much 'Who’s the best?' but 'Who’s the best fit?' What’s in it for the editor or proofreader? Samples are beneficial for the editorial pro, too. Here are some of my reasons for doing sample edits: Tangled terminology Definitions of the different levels of editing vary widely from client to client and editor to editor. What X calls proofreading, Y would call copyediting. What Y calls copyediting might be called line editing by Z. And where definitions differ, so do expectations. Working on a sample enables me to assess what’s required – regardless of the word(s) being used to describe that service. Time: How long does it take? Doing a sample edit shows me how long it takes to work through, say, a thousand words. That means I can estimate how many hours the project will take to complete and whether/when there’s an appropriate slot in my schedule. A 100K-word novel that needs copyediting for spelling, punctuation and grammar errors and inconsistencies, and only a little tweaking for clarity may take 35 hours (one to two weeks in my schedule); a novel of the same length that requires a deeper line edit may take 100 hours (four to six working weeks in my schedule). Appropriate pricing Once I know roughly how long the project will take to complete, I can price it accordingly. Am I a good fit? I usually find that the process of immersing myself in the author’s words comes easily. In the case of a deeper line-editing sample, the work will certainly be time-consuming but I can feel my way through – mimicking the author so that my edits (or suggested recasts) improve and complement the original writing rather than rubbing up against it. This isn’t always the case, though. Sometimes I’m just not a good fit – it’s not obvious how I can put the ooh! into the writing. It’s not that the amendments I’m making are technically incorrect but rather that I’m not able to find that emotional responsiveness that the client needs. When that happens, it’s time to thank the author for the opportunity to do the sample and provide a quotation, but recommend they work with someone else. Why I charge a fee for samples I usually charge a set fee of £50 for a sample of 1,000 words. Some of my colleagues offer free sample edits, so why do I charge? My professional time has a cost to it Every minute that I spend doing free editorial work is a minute I could be spending on paid-for work for clients or maintaining my business’s visibility (which is what leads clients to me in the first place). Scheduling problems Because I’m visible, I have little spare time in my schedule to fit in additional work, and certainly not free work. It’s not as off-putting as you might think I was curious as to whether potential clients would object to my charging for samples. In fact, since I introduced the policy last year, most enquirers have reacted to my fee positively – ‘Of course, not a problem’ is the standard response. This allows me to treat sampling like any other job I’m commissioned for. Filtering There have been cases, though they’re rare, where a client has asked 20 or 30 editors from my professional editorial society for a sample edit, and the chapters offered are all different. It appears that the enquirer is looking for a backdoor to a free complete book edit, farming out bits and pieces here and there. Charging for samples enables me to filter out the cheats. The benefits of the gratis option Charging for sample edits may not be the best course of action for all editorial freelancers. While I’ve encountered little objection to date, there are some perfectly legitimate clients who expect a small sample to be edited for free on the understanding that an hour or two of gratis work is acceptable given the reasonable odds of securing the full project. Here are some reasons why you might decide that free sample edits are the best option: New entrant/low visibility If you’re a new entrant to the field and are still building your discoverability, you might well decide that you want to take every opportunity possible to secure paying work. And if that means doing a few small freebies here and there, that’s a price you’re willing to pay. In this case, you’d be justified in regarding free samples as part of your marketing strategy. I think this is a valid argument. In my start-up phase, I didn’t charge for samples for this very reason. Scheduling If you’re still building your business, you may have space in your schedule that more experienced and visible colleagues don’t have. In that case, the opportunity cost of doing a free sample will not be as high. Continued professional development (CPD) You could view the opportunity to do free samples as a way of developing your experience. You can apply what you’ve learned in training to live test cases. By tracking whether these sample edits convert into commissions, you’ll be able to glean whether what you’re doing is appealing (or not) to potential clients. If you’re a new entrant to the field, sampling can be an invaluable teaching tool that gently introduces you to texts that need very different levels of attention. The safe space When I started up my business, the one thing that worried me was the element of surprise. What if the proofread I’d been commissioned for turned out to be a complete nightmare? What if in only reading the text, rather than actually working on it, I’d vastly underestimated the speed at which I could work and therefore undercharged? Doing samples is a great way for the new starter to get a good sense of what they’re taking on, but in a safe space with no obligations. And because no money’s changed hands, there’s no chance of complaint because of misunderstandings over what’s on offer (from either the editor or the client). It's not worth charging Our international editing community is diverse, and we do a lot of different things for many different client types. Sometimes charging is more effort than it's worth. Here's Erin Brenner: 'I do free samples of up to 1,000 words. This allows me to show my value and ease any concerns about the edit. However, I work for corporate clients with ongoing work and multiple stakeholders. Charging for a sample edit would also mean getting the accounting department involved, which is more effort than its worth for both sides.' Make your own choice I charge for sample edits (most of the time); others offer freebies. Some of my colleagues don’t offer sample edits at all, free or paid-for. There’s no right or wrong choice. How you decide to handle the issue should be based on what’s right for you, not on what others are doing. Consider your availability, your stage of editorial business ownership, whether free sampling could be a marketing or CPD tool, and how comfortable you are with the possibility that some legitimate clients could be discouraged by charges. Think about doing a test over the course of a year – commit four months each to offering free samples, paid-for samples and no samples, and track your conversions. The results may surprise you! Here's something to help you decide whether free, fee or test is the best approach to handling sample edits. Hope you find it useful! And if you want a flavour of what other editors are doing, take a look at the lively discussions on LinkedIn and Facebook that emerged when I posted links to this article.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
Here are 5 ways to use audio to promote your book and create engagement with your readers.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #88
‘Listening is active. At its most basic level, it’s about focus, paying attention.’ Simon Sinek
Does sound still engage? It does – audiences still absolutely love sound because they can do something else at the same time. Food for the time-hungry!
I’ve deliberately not included audio books or podcasting. They’re both valuable ways of delivering your book and the story of your publishing journey, but need scaled-up levels of expertise, planning, equipment, time and money. I’ve also excluded options that involve video – we’ll look at them in other dedicated resources (e.g. video book trailers, and online video launches). Today is all about sound! 1. Narrate your own sample chapter Narrating a chapter of your book is a lovely way to offer your fans the personal touch – for no other reason than they get to hear your voice. It’s a phonic version of Amazon’s ‘Look Inside’! And it’s a totally different kettle of fish from a full audio book … In Audio Book Production: A Primer for Indie Authors from an Audio-Book Producer, Ray Greenley, a professional voice narrator, explains how easy it isn’t to create a high-quality audio book yourself – one that’s fit for market and done to the highest standards. The equipment, the noise dampening, the time, the fluency, the editing – the author who takes on all of that has a will of iron and more than just a talent for writing. Narrating is, after all, a very different skill to writing. With a sample chapter, though, you don’t need to worry about any of that. It’s a taster, a way for your audience to enter the world you’ve created via the sound of your voice. And because you – the author – are providing all the emphasis and tone of voice, listeners know they’re experiencing the world you created exactly the way you intended it. They’ll even forgive you if you stammer, or mispronounce a word, or stumble halfway through a sentence and have to go back to the beginning. They’ll forgive you if the dog barks, or a siren wails, or your office chair squeaks … because you’re engaging with them, speaking to them. Don’t get me wrong, it has to be listenable. If it’s such poor quality that the sirens, dogs, and stumbles are so frequent that the sample is painful to engage with, you’ll do yourself no favours. But a little blip here and there is fine. Audio samples, like written ones, are gifts from you to your reader. They’re charming, and generous, and your fans will love the fact that you’ve taken the time to record one for them. I asked my own marketing coaches and some of my colleagues what they use to upload audio to their websites. SoundCloud got an overwhelming thumbs-up. There’s a free option, too. A YouTube video with a thumbnail picture would be another option. If you’re uploading natively to your website this could slow down load times so, instead, embed a link and host the content on your YouTube channel. In case your audience clicks through to YouTube, make sure you include all the relevant book-buy links under the video on your channel. Be sure to include captions for those who choose to engage with the sound muted (it happens … a lot!). You don’t need an expensive mic either. I have a Blue Snowball, which works brilliantly, looks charming, and came in at under fifty quid. I chose it because I wanted something decent that would allow me to create video without being encumbered with a headset. However, if you’re just doing audio, you can probably get away with a headset/mic system for under £25. Try different options and see what gives the best results.
2. Giveaways – usable audio content
For non-fiction, you could take the audio sample to the next level. Give away an audio version of one chapter of valuable, usable content – something your listener can actually solve a problem with. This is a powerful offering and goes well beyond the plot taster of a novel. For example, imagine you’ve self-published a marketing book for small businesses. One of the chapters is dedicated to Pay Per Click (PPC). The chapter outlines the principles behind PPC advertising, and offers guidance on which businesses would or wouldn’t benefit from this strategy, and why. You create an audio version of this chapter – and because it’s something that your target audience can listen to and use to make informed decisions about an aspect of their digital promotion strategy, they’re compelled to buy the written version and extract all your words of wisdom! In this case, you’ve repurposed valuable business content but in a deeply personalized way.
3. Host a live sound event
Readers love live author events. The Norwich branch of Waterstones has hosted a stack of live author readings. I’ve been to see Garth Nix, Jonathon Pinnock, and Alison Moore. With an audio-only version, you’re recreating the feel of a radio author event because the audience gets to talk to you afterwards and ask questions. Ideally, you’ll want the stream to be recorded so that it’s available as archive content afterwards. Daniel J Lewis, in ‘New live streaming options for podcasters’, says, ‘Maybe you want all the interaction and accountability of live-streaming, but you don't have the technology or bravery for video. That's when an audio-only live stream can be a great choice. It also makes a good option for those with lower bandwidth.’ So what are the options? Mixlr and Spreaker are Lewis’s recommendations for those looking for lower-cost solutions. Another option is using the audio-only option of Facebook Live. This has slightly less flexibility in that all the engagement with your listeners will take place in the comments below. Still, this could have some advantages in that you have a record of what people are asking, and if you don’t have time to handle all the questions, you can join in the written discussion later. Live audio streaming is public and, obviously, live. You don’t get to edit if things go wrong … which is great because it adds emotion and excitement to the event, but requires a little courage. Make sure you have some friends in on the gig who have your back if you’re new to this type of engagement. One of the best things about reader-facing author events is that fans can get a signed copy of the book. In the digital world, this is tricky. How about this as an alternative? Get some promo postcards printed; the front will feature your book’s cover. At the end of the show, invite people to email you with their postal addresses if they’d like to receive a signed postcard with a personal message or dedication. You could team this up with an invitation to join your mailing list so that they don’t miss out on future events.
4. Broadcast an interview
This requires more effort but it’s worth it because it allows you to talk about the journey of your book and your journey as a writer. You’ll need an interviewer and a script. It’s tempting for the inexperienced sound eventer to think that a script will detract from the flow and authenticity of the broadcast. It won’t. A script ensures everything stays on track, that the questions and answers are remembered, that neither of you ramble off on a tangent or fall off a pregnantly paused cliff. You could do a swap with a fellow author, perhaps someone from your writing group – you interview them and they return the favour. That way you both get to promote your books and share your thoughts on the challenges and joys of writing and self-publishing. Again, SoundCloud is a good option here (or YouTube).
5. Audio sign-up requests
In ‘9 ways to use audio’, digital marketer Steve Cartwright asks: ‘When your target audience clicks to get more information for your products and services, do you think it would make a difference if you were actually talking to them with your voice to explain what you have to offer?’ Most of you are probably already building your mailing list. Perhaps you include links at the end of your written books, blog articles and website book pages that encourage people to sign up to your newsletter. This is the perfect place to test whether you can increase your sign-rates by using your voice to ask your readers to join the party. If you’re not building a mailing list, consider these wise words of experience from full-time, self-published crime writer Jeff Carson: ‘I have a newsletter email list. This is one of those things I heard people preaching 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.’ How about doing the same thing, but asking people to join that newsletter with your voice? Other things to consider with audio
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. FIND OUT MORE > Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader > Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn > Learn: Books and courses > Discover: Resources for authors and editors How to write children's books: what the experts say A member of my writing library asked if I’d created a resource hub on writing books for children. I hadn’t, so I did!
Some of the articles and books I’ve listed were published prior to the digital transformations that have taken place in the mainstream- and self-publishing industries, so the technical guidance may be a little out of date. However, the underlying principles behind the craft of writing are just as relevant today as they were a decade ago, which merits their inclusion.
If I’ve missed out something that you think is core reading for children’s book writers, let me know and I’ll add it. The PDF includes links to the following:
Children's Books: Resources on Writing for Young People is available for immediate download. Click on the image below.
Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn. If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Sharon is a self-published author who’s improving her self-editing skills with professional editorial training. However, she’s worried that her chosen course isn’t worth the money she’s paying.
Says Sharon:
Dear Louise, I am a self published author. I am trying to improve my skills on proof reading and copy editing. I am doing a course for [training provider redacted]. Can you give me any advice, are courses a waste of time and money. What do you advise me to do please help, many thanks Sharon
Hi, Sharon! Thanks for your question. I’m more than happy to guide you. My view is that there are several issues to consider:
After I’ve discussed these issues, I’ll offer you my recommendation on how best to proceed. Pro courses: what they do I believe that professional editors and proofreaders should undertake professional training to ensure that they’re fit for purpose ... just as an engineer, a plumber, a teacher or a doctor does. And while the course you mention isn’t one that I’ve done, the provider is recognized and respected by many UK editors and proofreaders and publishers. Let’s have a quick look at some of the key modules:
Here’s a brief summary of the differences between copyediting and proofreading as defined by the UK publishing industry. The two skills are different (though the terminology does tend to blur outside the mainstream). Says the Society for Editors and Proofreaders: Copy-editing is to ensure that whatever appears in public is accurate, easy to follow, fit for purpose and free of error, omission, inconsistency and repetition. This process picks up embarrassing mistakes, ambiguities and anomalies, alerts the client to possible legal problems and analyses the document structure for the typesetter/designer.
Assumed prior knowledge
The most important thing to recognize is that professional proofreading and editing training providers assume a level of proficiency in regard to the student’s existing sentence-level language skills. The courses are not designed to teach people standard spelling, grammar and punctuation (SPaG). Rather, they’re designed to help those who already have a solid grasp of SPaG to mark up, or directly amend, written materials in a manner that respects professional publishing conventions and the client’s brief and style. And while your course does include a module to help students assess whether their language skills are up to scratch, comprehensive grammar and punctuation training is not its focus. Your needs and the course’s intention: Is the fit good? There’s nothing wrong with your course’s syllabus. For someone who wishes to build an editorial business, and has an existing appreciation of conventional SPaG, the training is right on track. For that person, the course is not a waste of time or money. It’s a wise investment that will ensure they’re fit for purpose when they begin copyediting and proofreading for clients. However, I don’t think that course is the right fit for you. It’s teaching you skills that are not, for the most part, relevant to your immediate requirements. Instead, I think you should focus on strengthening your grammar and punctuation. See more below in ‘My recommendation’.
The limits of self-editing for pro self-publishers
A word of caution! I’m a professional copyeditor and proofreader. I blog regularly and know as well as anyone that self-editing has its limitations. Most of us, no matter how strong our language skills, cannot self-edit our own work as effectively as we’d edit another’s. That’s because we’re too close to our own writing; we see what we want to see on the page rather than what’s actually there. Carrying out several checks at intervals can help eradicate most errors but perfection is unlikely. It’s for that reason that I pay a colleague to proofread my blog posts before I publish them (with the exception of these Q&As, which I publish quickly because a reader’s asked for help and I don’t wish to keep them waiting). And even if my pro editor doesn’t find any literal errors, it’s unusual for them not to offer several improvements to the sentence flow for the purposes of clarity and engagement. And so once you’ve developed your SPaG skills, you’ll be able to remove many of the errors in your books, but not all of them. And it’s likely that a professional line or copyeditor will be able to help you smooth the text in a way that improves the flow of your narrative and dialogue. I realize that budget is an issue for some self-publishing authors. Nevertheless, I recommend commissioning professional editorial services if the author can afford it. Professional editors hire pros; so should pro authors if they want to mimic the standards that traditionally published authors strive for. Not doing so will mean that errors, inconsistencies and structural problems might still be evident to the paying reader. At the end of the post, I’ve included links to some resources that discuss the different levels of editing and the order of play, in case you (or other readers) need some additional guidance.
My recommendation
I commend you for seeking to develop your editing skills, Sharon. Self-editing is vital; the more you can do, the more money you’ll save when it comes to investing in professional editing! However, I think you’d be far better off investing in training that’s dedicated to teaching English-language grammar and punctuation standards. Start by searching online for grammar courses run by your local college or university. Before you enrol, speak to the course supervisor and explain what your problems are. That way you can ensure that the course is a good fit. Developing these skills will really help to drive your sentence-level editing forward. If your budget allows for it, consider seeking the assistance of a developmental or story editor before you start worrying about the detail. A manuscript evaluation or critique will help you deal with any big-picture issues before you spend time on the nitty-gritty. Sentence-level editing (by you or a pro) without prior structural assessment can be rather like trying to build a house on boggy ground – even if the walls look pretty at the outset, it won’t be long before cracks appear! Now it may be that you’re already attending to story craft. In which case, my apologies. Still, the advice will serve other indie authors who are wondering about the order of play. I hope my response helps you decide on where to go next. Thanks again for your question. Feel free to drop me a line in the comments if you want to follow up on anything I’ve mentioned. Resources
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, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Most of the writers who ask for my help have elected to self-publish. Our conversations don’t leave me feeling conflicted. The writer has a problem and we focus on whether I can solve it, when they want me to do this, and what it will cost.
But every few months or so, the discussion becomes complicated and my initial response is novel-length. Why? Because my writer wants me to copyedit or proofread prior to agent submission.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #87
It’s high time I put my thoughts and findings down in one place. If you’re a writer or an editor (especially a beginner) who’s feeling flummoxed, here’s some direction.
Editing prior to submission: First principles Here are four things that writers and editors should be mindful of at the outset:
What problems do editors solve?
An editor, broadly speaking, is someone who helps prepare written material for publication. However, that prep doesn’t happen in one hit. Think of it like a Sunday roast – if you start cooking the carrots at the same time as the meat, you’ll end up with a tender joint and a pile of orange mush … or sweet veg and something that belongs in a field not on your plate. The editorial process is not so different – there are lots of things to do but the order and timing of each stage is critical. If you’re a writer and you’re considering hiring an editor prior to submission, think first about what’s worrying you and what might scupper your submission:
All of the following are types of editor but their intentions (and the outcomes) are different:
Some editors offer all of these services, some only one or two. Those who offer multiple stages might do a couple at the same time (e.g. line editing and copyediting) but I know of none who offer all four simultaneously.
Let’s revisit our list of seven problems and match them with an editor:
Bear in mind that editors customize their services – what one person includes in a copyedit might be restricted to another’s line edit. Don’t be afraid to ask for specifics so that you have a mutual understanding of what’s included. ‘But I don’t know what my problems are.’ It’s all very well for experienced agents and editors to say you need X but not Y, but that doesn’t necessarily help the author.
Fair enough, but what if we’re not talking about a few typos? What if we’re talking about a novel that has a wonderful plot, is beautifully paced and features enthralling characters but, line by line, the narrative is overwritten and so fraught with grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes that it’s frustrating and unpleasant to read? All the good stuff is buried beneath the blunders. On the flip side, let’s imagine that a writer decides to make sure the book’s in tip-top condition at sentence level but the characters are one shade of grey and the plot’s plopped. In both cases, there’s just too much for an agent to do. And that’s why the yes/no approach to the question of whether a writer should seek professional editorial help prior to submission is problematic. Agent Steve Laube sums up the issue nicely: Our agency consistently sees proposals that are okay, but simply not written at a level that is needed to break into the market. Agents are not freelance editors so there is only so much we are willing to do to fix a project. I have said it this way, ‘If I get something that is 90% ready, I can take it the rest of the way. But if it is only 80% ready I will kick it back to the writer with a rejection. We are looking for the best of the best.' (‘Should You Hire a Freelance Editor?‘)
Finding out whether you’re ready – the order of play
So how do you find out whether you’re 90% there? I had intended to visit my Sunday Roast metaphor but Jane Friedman says it so much better: [N]ever hire a copyeditor until you’re confident your book doesn’t require a higher level of editing first. That would be like painting the walls of your house right before tearing them down. (‘Should You Hire a Professional Editor?’)
I couldn’t agree more. Recall the types of editors I listed above in ‘What problems do editors solve?’. I deliberately staged them because there’s a hierarchy. The hierarchy isn’t based on importance but on logic.
There’s no point in having a line editor and copyeditor tighten up your narrative if the point of view is a catastrophe; nor is it worth spending hundreds of pounds to ensure that your dialogue is punctuated according to industry standards if the characters giving voice to those words are under-developed. With that in mind, start with the big picture – a manuscript evaluation, critique or a mini developmental edit. This kind of work involves a specialist editor reviewing your book and identifying strengths and weaknesses. It’s not a full-on fix but it will show you how to move forward so that you can improve the book before you submit. As editor Sophie Playle points out: Agents and publishers are most interested in a great story that’s told well (it’s all about that ‘unique voice’) and that they can take an educated gamble on selling. The writing can be polished at a later stage, but story, voice and market potential are the key things here. (‘Where is Your Budget for Book Editing Best Spent?‘)
Sarah Davies of Greenhouse Literary concurs:
An editor who can help you structure your story, develop characterization and voice, and iron out major problems could be a good idea, if you see yourself as an apprentice learning your writing craft. […] A line editor, who’s all about punctuation and small-scale phrasing, probably isn’t worth it. At the point of submission, agents and editors are looking more at the story as a whole. (‘Should You Hire an Editor Before Querying? Agents Weigh In!‘)
If you’re an experienced writer, that might be enough. If the evaluation identifies major problems, you might decide to invest in a full developmental edit, but at least your decision will be informed.
Editor and writing coach Lisa Poisso offers three additional reasons to hire an editor prior to submission:
The right mindset to working with an editor
Literary agent Rachelle Gardner has the following advice on mindset: Using a freelance editor can be a great idea – if you use it as a learning experience. You need to do most of the work yourself. I think it’s wasted money if you’re counting on someone to fix your manuscript for you. The point is to get an experienced set of eyes on it to help you identify problems and figure out how to fix them. (‘Should I Hire a Freelance Editor?’)
Gardner’s referring to big-picture work here – developmental editing. She nails two important points:
And here’s Nicola Morgan (Write to be Published, p. 179): [I]f you are thinking of getting a professional editor to perfect your work before submitting it, you are treading a tricky line.
Gardner and Morgan remind us that if you hire an editor for book one, submit and get a publishing contract, you’ll need to do it for your next book, and the one after, and so on. Over time, you’ll become less dependent on an editor as your novel craft grows, but it won’t happen in one book.
So, let’s take a quick breather and summarize:
Finding the right editor – what to tell and what to ask
Talk to more than one editor so you can get a feel for what’s on offer and whether they’re a good fit. An editor will need to know the following:
This information will help the editor work out whether their services are appropriate for you.
Answers to these questions will help you to work out whether their service offering matches your goals.
Through the editor’s lens – mindful pre-submission support
Should editors work with writers submitting to agents even though a publisher will likely take a book through the editing process? It depends. If you’re a specialist developmental editor who understands story craft and what makes a book attractive to agents and publishers, then yes, absolutely. You can be part of that learning process that Gardner and Morgan discuss, someone who helps the writer put their best foot forward in a competitive market. What about if you’re a sentence-level specialist like me? I think we need to tread mindfully.
I don’t take a yes/no approach to this. Sometimes I accept the work and sometimes I advise the author to take another path. Here are four short case studies featuring writers who asked me for copyediting prior to submission: Case study A The sample was beautifully written (to my copyeditor’s eye) – engaging from the get-go. I could see clearly how I’d amend the minor spelling, grammar and punctuation errors but they in no way impeded the book’s readability. I would have loved to copyedit that book but I cautioned the author to hold off, do some research into her chosen agents’ requirements and consider a critique first. She took my advice. Case study B The sample was gorgeous – moved me to tears, in fact. However, English was the author’s second language and the book was severely impaired at sentence level. I was able to identify how I’d smooth and correct the narrative but advised her on the order of play and recommended higher-level editing first. She insisted that the structural work was complete, that she’d gone as far as she wished, and that she’d self-publish if she was unsuccessful in securing representation. I did a sample edit, we agreed terms and I spent a blissful month line editing and copyediting for her. Case study C The sample was problematic – I couldn’t get under the skin of the thing. The writing seemed flat, like a textbook rather than a work of fiction. The spelling, grammar and punctuation needed a little work though the errors didn’t impede readability. I could have copyedited that book but it wouldn’t have made any difference – even though I’m not a developmental specialist, I knew the book wasn’t agent-ready. I gently advised the author of my concerns and suggested some structural-level options (and colleagues who could assist him). Despite my advice, he expressed a preference to go ahead with copyediting. I declined, wished him well and walked away. Case study D The sample was strong – the author had worked intensively with an agent to knock the book into shape. He was looking for a once-over to check for howlers, sloppy punctuation, gaping plot holes and a general tidy-up. His agent had recommended he commission a copyeditor to give him the best chance of securing a publishing contract. I didn’t hesitate to quote. But I'm an indie author. Why is agent submission relevant? Even self-publishers can benefit from agent submission. The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) partners with Toby Mundy Associates (TMA) agency to sell translation and other subsidiary rights for self-published authors. Says Mundy: An agent can help develop new markets, maybe in English-language territories where self-publishing isn’t delivering good results or in translation. They can help with career planning and development. And they can help develop hybrid models, combining indie and traditional publishing. As Orna Ross, ALLi Director has said elsewhere, “Being a successful indie author means doing whatever is best for your book(s), within the bounds of what’s possible at a particular time. Sometimes that’s self-publishing, sometimes trade-publishing, often a mix of both.”
Even if you're self-publishing, the right agent will be able to help you with specialist support.
Summing up There’s no right or wrong when it comes to an editor and an author working together prior to submission. What’s crucial is that the decisions made are informed – based on an understanding of the different levels of editing and the order of play. That applies to authors and editors. Authors need to focus on the big picture first, then follow up with sentence-level work if the problems are severe enough to frustrate an agent or a publisher. Editors need to be transparent about their specialist skills and mindful of the author’s preferences, but also be prepared to walk if they believe that their input would be without purpose.
Think you might like to revisit this advice? Visit the Books and Videos page in my resource library to download this free booklet.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. FIND OUT MORE > Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader > Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn > Learn: Books and courses > Discover: Resources for authors and editors
In this series, I’ll show you several ways to use a chatbot to engage with your readers, expand your fan base and put a smile on people’s faces! Today, the focus is on building a bot campaign to market a book on Facebook.
Bots are still a massively underused tool so incorporating them into your book-promotion strategy now will help you to stand out.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #86
What’s a chatbot?
In short, a chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversation. I built my own chatbot in August 2017. Yes, it's a computer program but it's helping me digitally with my business so I wanted it to have a face and a name that I could work into my chatbot marketing campaigns. I called it Lulu and asked my friend, illustrator Rachel Holmes, to create the design. I think she did a great job of putting the art into artificial intelligence ... this is what Lulu looks like! Cute, isn’t she?
Here are a few things you should know about the chatbot tools I’ll show you:
Building your bot My preferred bot-building platform is ManyChat. It’s straightforward to navigate and I appreciate being able to run four simultaneous live campaigns free of charge. There are restrictions with the free version – for example, you can’t automatically transfer subscribers to your mailing list – but you can still do a huge amount without spending a bean. In this article I’m focusing on how to use the Facebook comments growth tool for book marketing. To follow my lead you'll need to have set up your own ManyChat account and linked it to your Facebook Page. The ManyChat Facebook comments campaign Where to find it: Growth tools > New growth tool > Other growth tools > Facebook comments. Potential goals: Pre-launch promotion, fan-base engagement, mailing-list growth, sample-chapter delivery, conversation, landing-page link, and bookstore pre-order. Here’s an image of the fake book I've knocked up for demonstration purposes. In my sample promotion campaign, I’m offering fans the opportunity to enter a free draw. The winner will have their name assigned to a key supporting character.
Let's see how we can use a chatbot and a Facebook Page to deliver this campaign and achieve the goals outlined above.
The strategy Here's how it works. Facebook wants to keep people on Facebook – the longer people stick around, the more likely they are to click on paid ads. And if advertisers generate leads with their ads, they’re likely to buy more. That means more money for Facebook. Facebook also wants to provide a good user experience because that will encourage more people use the platform. Users who are having a good time will feel informed, engaged, entertained and helped. Facebook's algorithm identifies content that ticks those boxes and prioritizes it. Key indicators are likes, shares, comments and time spent engaging with a post (e.g. when watching a video). The more engagement you create on a Page post, the more Facebook will reward you for your neighbourly behaviour by pushing your content beyond your existing community (friends, followers and likers). Comments are the powerhouse behind this campaign tool. A great way to generate a comment is to offer something in return. I've given away free ebooklets and checklists that help writers with self-editing, and fellow editors and proofreaders with professional development. If you promote your book on Facebook by posting a nice piccy and a link to your website where there’s, say, a free sample chapter, you’re pushing people off Facebook. But if you offer that same sample right there on Facebook, you’re keeping your visitors on Facebook’s land. And so you’ll be rewarded with increased audience reach. ManyChat’s Facebook comments growth tool allows you to do exactly this: a trigger word in the comments tells your bot to deliver your freebie to the commenter via Facebook Messenger. Your fan doesn't have to leave the platform to get the goodies. The offer – ideas for you to steal Your offer must be strong enough to compel someone to comment. Here are some ideas for you to try:
The build There are two core elements to the build – the onboard ManyChat tool and the Facebook post. 1. ManyChat I recommend starting with ManyChat. Here's how to create a campaign:
2. Facebook Page
Now go to your Facebook Page. Create a new post that tells your audience about your promotion and the trigger word they need to write in the comments to get the offer. Including a picture or native video is also a great way to draw attention to your post. Here's a mock-up design of my sample campaign.
Goal achievement The mock-up I’ve created here is just the tip of the iceberg. You can be far more adventurous if you wish – it all depends on where you want to direct your visitors, the kind of conversation you want to have, and how many levels you add to the messaging sequence. Here are two more ideas:
Here are some additional tactics to consider:
Summary ManyChat’s Facebook comments growth tool is a fun, friendly and effective way to build Page awareness, increase organic reach beyond your existing Facebook community, and generate excitement about your book. In future articles in this series, I’ll walk you through how to use a chatbot to build your mailing list, help people navigate their way around your website, and take action on a landing page. I’ll also delve deeper into how you might use these tools creatively to build your fanbase and get people talking about your books. Until then, it’s goodbye from me and Lulu! P.S. From 1–24 December, Lulu and I will be having a little festive fun on my own Facebook Page. Do drop in to see what’s going on!
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 visit Louise’s Writing Library to access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
An editor or book coach can teach you new ideas and techniques, and help you begin the journey of mastering novel craft right from the get-go ... if you're prepared to embrace a growth mindset. My guest this week is Lisa Poisso, a professional editor and writing coach who specializes in helping authors fix the big-picture problems.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #86
I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m not very good. Will you fix my book? If this sounds like the way you tiptoed into your first professional edit, you’re due for a new mindset. An edit is a creative opportunity begging to burst open and drench you with new ideas and techniques.
There’s no better time to reach for growth than when you’re first starting out. You’ll hear a lot of publishing types claim that debut authors need to put in their dues. Write, they tell you, and fail. Write more, and fail again. That’s the apprenticeship process – or so they say. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Hiring an editor or writing coach can be a smart way to accelerate your learning curve. It’s all about the way you and your editor approach your edit. Are you feeding your writing with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset?
The growth mindset
If you’re a first-time author, your debut novel isn’t likely to hit it big. You know that. Editors know that. So you might tell yourself that there’s no sense in paying for a professional edit until readers start buying your books and ‘it really matters'. The problem is this: if your book isn’t very good and nobody wants to buy it, when will it really matter? Enter a new mindset about developing your craft. The fixed mindset, a term developed by Stanford University professor Carol Dweck, keeps your feet stuck to the same two dusty patches of dirt you’ve been standing on for years. With a fixed mindset, you accept that you possess finite abilities capped at a specific level. Editing is about propping up your shortcomings and repairing your inevitable mistakes. But editors can help you achieve so much more. Your editor can show you how to structure a compelling story, beef up the elements that drive your plot, solidify your language, and polish your writing voice. You’ll make strides it might have taken years to struggle through on your own. But that won’t happen unless you decide that developing your craft is worth the time, money, and effort. It won’t happen until you agree that you’re ready to grow.
Your first edit
A first novel is a learning experience. Authors call them ‘practice novels’ or ‘trunk novels'. They write their hearts out and then lock the results deep inside a file cabinet or trunk. The results aren’t all that different from the canvases artists create to experiment with and practise new techniques. They’re not meant for public consumption. Good on you for finishing your first manuscript. A complete novel is a tremendous achievement – but it’s unlikely that this first effort will become a bestseller. So start writing the next one. If you really want to make a go of this writing thing, you’ll need more than one good idea in a lifetime, right? Whip up the next concept and get it simmering. Meanwhile, seek feedback on the first manuscript from a writing partner or critique group. Give yourself the space to learn as you go rather than pinning all your hopes and ambitions on a single beginner’s effort. And then when you’ve finally written something your test readers and critique partners are giving you good feedback about, consider a professional edit.
The learning curve
You could keep plugging away for years, feeding book after book to your writer’s trunk. You might gain some confidence and make some incremental progress. But without professional feedback, you might not be able to figure out which parts of your story work and which don’t. You might not be able to spot what passages show a distinctive authorial voice and what parts are still mushy. At some point, it’s time for professional eyes. Send your manuscript to a few editors for a professional assessment. You’re not hiring anyone yet; you’re not paying for a critique or evaluation. All you want is that initial handshake. Every editor performs some sort of brief survey of new projects to help them decide if the project and type of work required falls within their wheelhouse. Ask the editor to flip through, take a peek at a few spots, and see if your work is ready for editing. What strengths and weaknesses do they spot? What kind of editing do they recommend? Would they take you on as a client or do they have other recommendations? If the results are encouraging, use the feedback you’ve gathered to help you choose a compatible editor. It’s time for some editing.
A learning experience
Even a routine, production-oriented edit is a learning experience. But when you hire an editor who enjoys working with authors bent on growth and improvement, an edit becomes something else altogether: an intense, one-on-one workshop in storytelling and writing. I like to compare your motivations for an edit to the motivations you create for the characters in your story. Your characters’ external, conscious motivations wrap around their secret, unconscious motivations – and the same goes for you. Polishing your manuscript for publication might be your conscious motivation, but with a growth mindset, you’ll come to realize that the real value of an edit lies in the substantial leaps you can make toward mastering your craft. Professional editing is no guarantee that your novel will be publishable in the end. But if you’ve chosen a qualified professional, you can count on acquiring invaluable insights into your writing technique. You can count on a growth experience.
What’s your writing worth to you?
I’m constantly astounded by the number of new writers who don’t believe that writing is worth the level of commitment any serious hobbyist would give their hobby. A recreational cyclist can easily drop thousands every year on bicycles, riding gear, event and travel fees, club and periodical subscriptions, and more. A collector of anything? The expenditures are obvious. But when it comes to writing, people somehow feel guilty about spending money on classes or craft books or editing to help them develop their passion. Just think how conflicted they must feel if they’re also harbouring hopes of getting published. Somehow, they have to go from beginner to professional with no help – and at no cost. Is a professional edit still worth it even if your book never gets any bites from an agent or sells more than 50 copies on Amazon? If using your manuscript to spring to a new level of skill ignites your creative jets, you’re ready to invest in yourself. You’re ready to turn a growth mindset into growth. It’s that simple. See you on the other side of the edit.
Lisa Poisso works with traditionally publishing and self-published authors to show them how to lift their stories to their full potential. She specializes in editing and coaching for commercial fiction, particularly upmarket and women’s fiction, action-adventure, and thrillers. She’s also a seasoned editor of fantasy, science fiction, and all flavors of speculative fiction.
Lisa has been a publication editor, journalist, managing editor, content writer, and communications consultant for more than 25 years. She holds degrees in journalism and fine arts and remains a working writer. She’s a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association and a charter member of the Association of Independent Publishing Professionals. Her studio staff includes her industrious editorial assistants – two greyhounds and a staghound. #45mphcouchpotatoes #adoptdontshop LisaPoisso.com | Twitter: @LisaPoisso | Facebook | Pinterest
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 visit Louise’s Writing Library to access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Should you edit or proofread pornography? What if it’s erotica? Is there even a difference?
Does sexually explicit written material deserve to be edited? What is it exactly, and what is it not? And if you want to edit it, how do you make yourself visible to its authors?
Perhaps you have strict criteria for the types or subgenres of pornography or erotica that you’ll edit. In that case, how can you communicate these to potential clients?
Here’s my take. And it is only my take. Some of my colleagues won’t touch the stuff with a bargepole. And those of us who will? Well, we all have our individual boundaries. What is pornography? And what is it not? If only there were a universally accepted definition of pornography. There isn’t, alas. What you consider porn may not be what I consider porn. Or one of us might think a written work is more erotic than pornographic. Others might not even bother making a distinction. And that’s the first thing any editor needs to recognize. The term ‘pornography’ is loaded with subjectivism and preconceptions, many of them heteronormative, so what you’re expecting and what actually ends up in your editing studio could be two very different things. ‘Pornography is notoriously difficult to define, and overburdened with assumptions concerning – at the very least – gender, sexuality, power, globalization, desire, affect, and labour,’ say Rebecca Sullivan and Alan McKee. Oxford offers the following broad definition: ‘Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement.’ And broad it is. Too broad, in my opinion, because it doesn’t exclude materials with descriptions or displays of non-consenting performers and minors, which are illegal. What we can say is that definitions are contested – in society, in the courts, and in academic literature. That makes it difficult for the editor who’s asked, ‘Do you copyedit pornography?’ because even if you think you don’t, others might think you do because they have different opinions on what constitutes porn. So what do we do? I think custom guidelines are the answer, particularly if you decide to publicize the fact that you’re happy to edit sexually explicit material. Before we discuss these, let’s consider erotica.
Is there a difference between pornography and erotica?
If there is a difference, it’s unlikely that the lines of distinction so clearly drawn in your own head will be shared by everyone else you consult on the matter. Echoing Sullivan and McKee, Leon F Seltzer notes the degree to which ‘the criteria used for distinguishing between the erotic and pornographic [are] … steeped in personal moral, aesthetic, and religious values’. And he goes on to say that the erotic ‘doesn’t appeal exclusively to our senses or carnal appetites. It also engages our aesthetic sense.’ Tracy Cooper-Posey’s distinction draws specifically on novel-craft: erotica isn’t ‘only about sex, unlike its gutter-cousin, pornography. At its purest, the new erotic novel is a brilliantly-written story with super-nova sex that compliments the caliber of the writing, and is fundamental to the plot and characters. In other words, if you remove the sex, the story can’t be told.’ And so it may be that if you, the editor, decide a manuscript’s sexually explicit content contains enough celebration of the human form and is written to a high enough standard, or has a good enough plot, then it’s erotica. If not, it’s porn. It seems to me that getting bogged down in the definitions will get us nowhere fast. The terminology is as tangled as that used to describe editorial services (well, maybe not that bad!). If the author’s struggling to write well, but is trying to create erotica, who am I to say it’s porn? And if it’s just sex that aims for nothing but titillation, but it’s written beautifully, artfully, does that mean it’s no longer porn? If your decision is down to the art-versus-smut argument, one thing’s for sure: you’re going to need to see a sample. And if you want to work on only certain types of material, you’ll do well to create some guidelines.
Creating guidelines to keep you comfortable
Guidelines don’t just help you and the writer decide whether you’re a good fit. They’re also a great way of demonstrating your engagement with the subject and your willingness to have a conversation with a nervous or embarrassed author. What should you include? There’s no one way of going about this; include whatever’s important to you and what you want the author to know. Here are just a few ideas:
Are pornography and erotica worth editing?
‘Even filth needs editing,’ said my colleague Louise Bolotin when she wrote about the issue on my blog back in 2012, and I agree. The porn and erotica writers for whom I’ve worked are as committed to their writing as any crime fiction, thriller or literary fiction author. A client recently told me, ‘I love my writing and with your help I hope it can lead to something else. If we don’t dream, then we don’t create. I’m proud of my stories but this is a whole new world for me, and like anybody who writes, there’s insecurity.’ What was I dealing with? Not plot, no. Seltzer’s and Cooper-Posey’s definitions chimed here. But my client needed a lot of help with punctuation to make the narrative readable. He’d omitted all speech marks, so the dialogue was invisible. There were repetition and syntax problems. But the writing was strong – imaginative, funny, clever, sexy – and in this book at least, I think he had a great turn of phrase (almost poetic at times). The pace was good, the language potent, and the sex appropriately disgraceful. All in all, I think he did an excellent job! Even so, prior to editing, the book wasn’t publishable because it didn’t conform to recognizable standards of spelling, punctuation and grammar. The reader would have struggled to enjoy the story because they’d have been pulled out of it with every missing full point and speech mark. And that’s my job (and yours) – to help the author help the reader. So, yes, I think pornography and erotica are absolutely worthy of being edited.
A word on the market
We know there’s a market for pornography and erotica. There are readers with an appetite for these genres, and writers ready to feed it. Those writers need editors to make those stories as good as they can be. If you’re comfortable working on adult material, then you’d do well to make this clear because there seems to be a dearth of professional editors advertising the fact. Here are some numbers generated by searching the UK’s Society for Editors and Proofreaders’ Directory of Editorial Services and the Editors Canada Online Directory of Editors using the following key words:
In both countries, you’ll have the least competition in these directories if you’re prepared to edit porn and erotica (unless your author hyphenates science-fiction!).
Being visible – getting work
If pornography and erotica are genres you want to edit or proofread, approach the issue as you would any other subject specialism. The political science professor will be drawn to editors and proofreaders who make it explicit that they welcome this type of work, have experience of editing the subject matter, and provide resources and guidance that demonstrates that expertise. Pornography and erotica authors are no different. And so:
Anxiety – yours and the author’s
Some editors are keen to take on the work but anxious that it might reflect badly on them. Does being public about your willingness to edit pornography and erotica damage your reputation? I don’t believe so. Pornography and erotica are recognized genres. As long as we present our willingness to edit them with the same professionalism as we’d approach politics or philosophy, science fiction or romance, I see no problem. I and several of my editor friends are open about the fact that we work on adult material and none of us has suffered problems acquiring work. I think that’s down to the fact that we’re all committed to marketing our editorial businesses, and focusing on the value we can bring to the table. That’s what clients concentrate on, not the things that are of no interest to them. The thriller writer cares that I work on thrillers, not that I also copyedit erotica and historical fiction. Editors aren’t the only Nervous Nellies. Some of the writers who’ve contacted me about editing porn and erotica are anxious too. The emails usually start with something on the lines of ‘I feel a little embarrassed about this but …’ or ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking but …’ Again, guidelines and resources can help to reassure an author before they send the email. Summing up If you’re happy to edit porn and erotica, go for it. If you aren't, that's fine too. As independent business owners we can choose what material we want to work on and what we don’t. Wanting to edit a particular genre isn’t enough. Make sure your willingness to edit porn and erotica is visible – on your website and in the editorial directories you advertise in. If you don’t say it, you won’t be heard. Further reading
Watch a video instead ...
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
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.
Fancy a watch a video instead? Here is it.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
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
To read the 26-page primer in full now, visit the book's page: Audio-Book Production.
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 visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
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 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 visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
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 visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.
Are you fed up with your 404 page? Worried that your clients are too? Broken links are broken conversations. Here’s a wee idea I came up with to fix the disappointment and get you and your visitors talking again … using a chatbot.
What is a 404 page?
A 404 page is where your visitor ends up if they’ve clicked on a link to your website and one of the following has occurred:
Google’s recommendations for a high-quality 404 page
404 frustrations
When you hit a 404 page on a website, you feel frustrated. You’ve gone to that site for a reason – you’re trying to solve a problem, or learn something new, perhaps even buy a service or product. And if the page you’re searching for has been moved, or if the link you’ve clicked is incorrect, you end up in a place you don’t want to be. It’s a dead end. If the website’s owner has been thoughtful, there’ll be a search box or menu to help you, perhaps a list of links that might be useful. Still, you’re the one who has to do the work to get back on the right path because, usually, there isn’t is a way of talking to the owner, a way of saying, ‘I wanted X but I’m stuck. Can you help?’ And since you’re already in a grumpy mood, you’re more likely to disengage and leave the site. After all, someone else is probably solving your problem, and maybe if you head back to Google Search, you’ll find a fix rather than a 404.
A beautiful bot! Introducing Lulu …
I’m a fiction copyeditor and proofreader and I love marketing my business! I regularly publish free booklets, PDFs, checklists and templates for fellow editors and proofreaders, and self-publishing authors. I share news about that content via social media and on my blog. A few weeks ago, I set up a free account with ManyChat. I created Lulu, my Messenger bot. She’s my digital assistant and she’s great – most of the time! We’ve had a few glitches … some digital napping on the job … but in the main she’s successfully helped me deliver my resources to my Facebook network. Instantly. I learned how to build Lulu from my two favourite pro content marketers Andrew and Pete. August was their ‘Build Your Bot Month’ and four in-depth tutorials taught me everything I needed to know to get going. If you want a taster, hop over to YouTube and watch ‘Get Started Using Messenger Bots in Your Marketing with Andrew and Pete’. All well and good. But was there other ways I could use Lulu to help me engage with my community of editors and authors meaningfully? Recently, I was looking for something online. It took a while to find what I wanted, but find it I did. Or nearly. The link looked good but landing was a disappointment – a 404. The site was busy and I had no clue where to start. So I did what a lot of people do online. I gave up and went somewhere more interesting instead. That’s not what I want people doing on my site. I want my authors and colleagues to feel that I’m there for them, ready to help, ready to engage. Could Lulu help?
The ManyChat webpage widget
I decided to get Lulu on the case of my 404 page. I have a lot of content on my website, and even more external links to that content. I’ve been blogging regularly since 2011, and I’ve changed things around on my site more times than I care to mention. And while I do my best to set up 301 redirects when I make changes, there’s no doubt that there are external broken links about which I can do little. ManyChat has a bunch of growth tools including two embeddable widgets. One is an opt-in box that can be placed anywhere on a website. I’ve used this widget to provide a more interactive experience for my 404 arrivals, one that enables them to make choices with the click of a button, but ultimately to say, ‘Louise, I wanted X but I’m stuck. Can you help?’ Because they’re contacting me via Messenger, they can get in touch instantly. Which means I can help them quickly. And the quicker I help, the less likely they are to get the hump and go somewhere more interesting instead. What’s great about this widget is the customization element. You can choose colours, images and messages that reflect your clients’ needs and your solutions. It matters not whether you're an editor like me, or an author, or another type of business owner ... the widget will work for anyone with a website.
Case study: the visitor journey on my 404 page
Now that I’ve set up Lulu, the visitor who lands on my 404 page can take a journey, one that involves the ability to interact directly with me quickly. Here’s what it looks like ... This is what the visitor sees when they land:
Clicking on the button takes them to a new page:
Now the conversation beings in Messenger. First, Lulu introduces herself and asks the visitor to provide some information that will determine how the interaction proceeds:
In this example, the visitor has selected ‘Author’. This generates a new set of choices, including the option to have a conversation with me:
If the visitor chooses to ask for a quote or get some free resources, they’re taken directly to the relevant pages on my website. If they wish to talk to me, Lulu acknowledges the request with a message:
In the Messages section of my Facebook page I receive a notification that someone wishes to chat. Lulu steps aside and the real conversation with me can begin:
Summing up
The ManyChat widget allows us to work with Google’s recommendations: apologetic, friendly language that acknowledges the problem; colours, language and images that are on-brand; clickable links to key pages and core content; and the ability to report the problem directly via an instant conversation. Landing on a 404 page is a negative experience for the visitor. A chatbot turns that negative experience into an opportunity, one that offers a series of calls to action. By including a discussion in the mix, we can offer one-to-one engagement. And it’s fun! We’re putting a smile back on a frustrated client’s face, and that can only be a good thing! Have you used a chatbot for your own 404 page, or as a way of engaging with your clients and colleagues? Let me know in the comments!
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
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 visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly. |
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