The Final Touch

Like me, my sis­ter, Shan­non Hyland-Tassava, is a writer. Actu­ally, she does more orig­i­nal writ­ing at the present, while I am pas­sion­ate about help­ing oth­ers’ writ­ing shine. I’ve writ­ten a few pieces here and there — the Fore­word in a forth­com­ing book, a few arti­cles for the web-zine 10,000 Cou­ples, and some of the monthly con­tent of a sub­scrip­tion pub­li­ca­tion for church newslet­ter cre­ators — but Shan­non now has two essays pub­lished in antholo­gies related to wom­an­hood and moth­er­hood. I invite you to check them out!

The first essay, “The Mommy Wars Killed Our Friend­ship…,” Read the rest of this entry »

I am so delighted to share with you the promo video for a soon-to-be-released book I’ve had the honor of edit­ing. Author Bathsheba Smithen is only in her mid-20s, but she has wis­dom beyond her years. Watch the video (Bathsheba is the first indi­vid­ual in it)… and then read the book’s Fore­word, below, which she also gave me the priv­i­lege of writing:

Editor’s Fore­word

“All is van­ity and a chas­ing after wind. … So I turned to con­sider wis­dom and mad­ness and folly…” (Eccle­si­astes 1:14 and oth­ers; 2:12, NRSV)

When Bathsheba Smithen first invited me to write this Fore­word, I replied with a laugh, “You want a pasty white girl from small-town Min­nesota to intro­duce a book by an African Amer­i­can from Wash­ing­ton, D.C.?!” Read the rest of this entry »

I’m get­ting really excited for June 27! That’s the day I’m attend­ing an all-day work­shop called “Edi­to­r­ial Boot Camp” in Min­neapo­lis, led by two women with years of pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ence in the copy­edit­ing field. Not only will they cover some aspects of proof­read­ing and copy­edit­ing, but they’ll also help par­tic­i­pants look at var­i­ous prac­tices for mak­ing the most of one’s own edi­to­r­ial busi­ness. I’ve been “learn­ing on the job” so far, as far as run­ning my own busi­ness goes, so I’m eager to gain some time-tested insights from Laura Poole and Car­olyn Has­sett, who have a com­bined 30+ years of editorial-business expe­ri­ence. I’ve already been get­ting to know Laura a bit via email and can sin­cerely rec­om­mend her, and this work­shop, to any of you who might have an interest.

Here is some info that comes directly from Laura and Carolyn:

Come to this unique, inten­sive pro­gram designed for those want­ing to break into the pub­lish­ing field as a copy edi­tor or proof­reader – and also for those who sim­ply want to boost their skills.

Sun­day, June 27, 2010 | 9am-6pm
Mall of Amer­ica (North Shore Room) | Min­neapo­lis, MN
Cost: $450/person (includes mate­ri­als)

Reg­is­tra­tion is now active, and we have room for 25 atten­dees; reg­is­ter now to reserve your space! (Scroll down the page a bit; their July work­shop is listed first, then the June 27 one.)

This will be a jam-packed full-day, hands-on train­ing. Here’s what we’ll cover (and more!):

• Overview of the Pub­lish­ing Process
  Style and Ref­er­ence Guides | MS Word Opti­miza­tion, Cus­tomiza­tion, Plug-ins, and Shortcuts

• Copy­edit­ing
  Spelling | Punc­tu­a­tion | Gram­mar | Style | Fact Check­ing | Queries | Author Voice
  Copy­righted Mate­r­ial | Style Sheets | Online Tools | Topic Specialties

• Proof­read­ing
  Stage of Proofs | Mark­ing | Mate­ri­als | Style and Spec Sheets | Steps | Tools | Spe­cialty Work | PDF Proofing

• Work Prac­tices
  Tips and Tricks | Time Man­age­ment | Com­mu­ni­ca­tion | Deal­ing with Problems

• Busi­ness Prac­tices
  Get­ting and Keep­ing Clients | Resumes | Sam­ple Edits | Rates and Billing | Follow-Up Options | Net­work­ing | Pro­fes­sion­al­ism | Deadlines

I had seen Laura’s infor­ma­tion on LinkedIn for a sim­i­lar work­shop she was host­ing in North Car­olina in March. I wrote and lamented that I couldn’t make it to some­thing that far away but to let me know if she was ever going to be in Min­nesota. Lo and behold!, a cou­ple months later, she emailed to say they would be in Min­neapo­lis! I know I have some Min­nesota friends who just might be inter­ested in this, so please do check it out if you are one of them!

If this work­shop isn’t some­thing specif­i­cally for you, I hope you’ll still be inter­ested to check back in here in late June to hear about what I expe­ri­enced and read my follow-up thoughts.

…I know some of you are because you’ve talked with me about it. Per­haps oth­ers are, too. The online arti­cle “How to Get an Agent’s Atten­tion,” by Chuck Sam­buchino of the Writer’s Digest com­mu­nity, caught my atten­tion for just that rea­son. I hope you will find it a help­ful resource.

A cou­ple of points that I really appre­ci­ate from Chuck’s post and from the agents interviewed:

• A query let­ter is essen­tially a cover let­ter to apply for a job; the resume is your man­u­script. Be as pro­fes­sional as you would in writ­ing up a job appli­ca­tion.
  
• A use­ful for­mula for a query let­ter is “The Hook, the Book, and the Cook.” To find out pre­cisely what this means, read the arti­cle!
• If an agent rejects your man­u­script, it doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily mean it’s “bad”; it just means it’s “not his/her type” — just like when you’re dat­ing. Don’t take it per­son­ally if some­one isn’t totally, absolutely in love with your book; just move on and “date” some­one else until you find that per­fect “long-term rela­tion­ship.” After all, you don’t actu­ally want some­one rep­re­sent­ing your work who isn’t com­pletely head-over-heels in love with it, do you? Didn’t think so.

Many more insights where these came from! Check it out!

Kim Staflund has writ­ten an arti­cle for Suite 101 which may be of inter­est to some of you. It is titled “Work­ing with a Copy Edi­tor to Pol­ish a Book.”

Ms. Staflund makes sev­eral points I greatly appre­ci­ate. One con­cerns the very nor­mal emo­tions a writer is bound to expe­ri­ence upon receiv­ing his or her work back from a copy­ed­i­tor. You’ve sent your “baby” off to a stranger (unless, by chance, you are for­tu­nate to know your copy­ed­i­tor per­son­ally or to have reached the point in your rela­tion­ship where you are more than acquain­tances), and that “baby” has been returned to you with a “hair­cut,” as it were! It’s nat­ural to feel a bit of resis­tance to sug­ges­tions made. Ms. Staflund offers help­ful advice for work­ing through such feel­ings to con­tinue to improve your manuscript.

Another point I am so grate­ful Ms. Staflund made is that, ulti­mately, in the self-publishing world, the final results — text, graph­ics, every­thing — are the respon­si­bil­ity of the author. I live in some dread (fairly slight, but present nonethe­less) that if an author’s book doesn’t sell well, he or she will try to sue me. I don’t know whether that’s ever hap­pened, but I’m relieved to see, in another writer/editor’s words, the same point I always try to express clearly to clients: that I will do the very best I know how for you, but in the end, you have the final call of whether to accept or reject my sug­ges­tions for change — and the final respon­si­bil­ity for the results. I, after all, am just one writer/editor — a good one, if I say so myself! — but just one human being with one opin­ion, no mat­ter how valid I may believe it to be. I’m trained in what I do, but I’m not per­fect. I do pledge, how­ever, to do my best as one part of the author’s “vil­lage” that, together, will raise the “child” — the pre­cious piece of writ­ing — to maturity.

It’s just what it says it is: “Your Essen­tial Syn­op­sis Check­list.” If you are to the stage in a writ­ing project where you want to start send­ing it off to prospec­tive pub­lish­ers, this will be a help­ful resource for you. It comes via “Writer’s Digest,” a highly respected name in the writing-and-publishing arena. Enjoy!