First Word

We work with new and emerging authors, and we find authors often have perceptions that are inaccurate or sometimes even misguided. So what are some of those ideas? Professional services are valuable and will cost . If you understand that writing, editing and graphic design are professional services, it will help you place value on what we provide. Professional services are provided with people with higher education, knowledge and most importantly experience. You can't compare our services to walking into a retail outlet or Kinko's and getting behind-the-counter assistance. Each book is handled and worked on for hours and hours. As you know a professional like a nurse, doctor or lawyer doesn't make minimum wage -- and neither does a publisher's staff. If you want your book done right, you hire professionals. Mistakes galore, money spent, and upset . So many authors come to us with their books loaded with mistakes and complain. Inexperience and three editors later, an...

The perfect picture and view from the historical site lakeside.   Style, usage and grammar mistakes galore. Where did I see these mistakes? In a casual email? On a text? On a sign somewhere? No, not exactly. I saw these mistakes "littering" the historical signage sprinkled along a trail in Tahoe City to celebrate the town's 150th anniversary. At the end of the tour, I noticed that the local rotary club got credit for the signs. At that point I realized the "road to messed-up signs is paved in good community intentions but weak grammarians." Now to the average eye the mistakes wouldn't necessarily leap off the signs, but to the well-trained eye the errors flew off those plaques. Misused commas in strange places, no hyphenation on words that should have been hyphenated -- those two mistakes were the most common. I can only imagine how many corrections a professional editor would have left behind on that copy had one only had his or her hands on it. I imagi...

Are you a writer in the greater Sacramento area? I run a monthly writers' group titled Writers Who Mean Business . I wanted to blog about the group today. We have a meeting tonight that starts at 7pm at the Raley's on San Juan. I like to educate writers not just about craft, which is truly only 50 percent of the effort. The other 50 percent is the business side. Many writers are artists. They don't understand or "want" to understand that to publish a book requires a concerted business effort that involves public relations and marketing. The inner artist in them gets a little befuddled and offended to focus on business. The reality is that publishing is a business, period. It is a fun business, and I'm passionate about it; but it requires a business head. I started my writers' group to promote the business aspects of writing and help writers navigate the publishing world, which is diverse. If you would like to attend a meeting, it's free. All writers ar...

Want to know what is the hardest job in publishing? It's what on the surface looks like the easiest -- the final proof. Ask any author who has gone through the process to get a completely cleaned-up book. The overall editing (big picture editing to ensure the copy flows and the story makes sense) is small compared to the even smaller -- copy editing every last word in the book.  A fantastic copy editor not only must know grammar, usage and style backwards and forwards, but also he or she must have an amazing attention to fine details. Why is this so delicate and arduous a task? I try to distill it down to what is like math: imagine having to ensure 75,000 words are all absolutely correct. Just think of it like a jar of 75,000 jelly beans all spilled on the floor. Now I'm going to tell you to sort through each jelly bean one at a time and look for the ones with the blemishes. Are you wrapping your head around this incredible task?  Why does it matter? Because many cri...

New authors are often shocked when they discover that the final proofing process is often the hardest part of the publishing experience. You have to keep in mind that you sometimes have between 50,000 and 100,000 words and phrases -- and these words all have to be correct. Let's break that down: that's 100,000 words spelled right and grammatically correct. Oh! And don't forget the right style needs to be applied. Are you suddenly cringing? Copy editors are often the lowest paid editor on the rung. A truly gifted copy editor is priceless. A thorough copy editor not only knows her grammar rules backwards and forwards, she also knows something super critical. She knows when she doesn't know -- and she looks it up. I've now worked with several authors who have come up for air after the final proofing process to admit it was harder than writing the actual book. So, next time you spot a minor error in a book, give the poor copy editor a break before you decide to pull ou...