Blogoschema

Posted by Eric

Our friend Adam just released his latest book, Secret Lakes of Southern Vancouver Island, and we can’t say enough good things about it. Find out where all the best spots are for swimming, fishing, walking the dog, or having a quiet picnic. For Sarah and I it’s been a huge help in getting off the beaten path and discovering new places that are accessible from the city.

 

We highly recommend it for anyone living in or visiting the area. Not only is it is affordable, available on the net, and at reputable stores around town, but it was edited by yours truly. We’re allowed a little bias, right?

Get your copy today. We guarantee it will make your summer adventures that much better.

Posted by Eric

Sarah and I were in Powell’s City of Books in Portland the other day and came across The Espresso Book Machine. It’s a fancy contraption that will “transform your work into a paperback book complete with full color cover and black and white interior, indistinguishable from books produced by traditional publishers.”

This sounded awfully familiar, since that same line has been coming from self-publishing companies for a few years now. So what’s the difference? As well as boasting a catalog of over seven million titles (by Nobel and Pulitzer laureates no less), the machine will also produce your own book from a PDF. This eliminates the cost and time of hiring a self-publishing company, but  it also eliminates the extra sets of eyes that can catch errors and add their professional knowledge to the project.


So we want to know: Has anyone used this service? Is it worth it, or is it just a showy gimmick for the self-indulgent?  Leave a comment or send us a message to let us know what you think.

Posted by Sarah

In the book The Naked Author: a Guide to Self-publishing, writers Alison Baverstock and Margaret Aheme say it well: “Having your manuscript edited effectively is the most important part of getting a self-published book ready for publication… Neglect this basic component of a good manuscript, and your readers may not make it past the first paragraph, let alone the first page.”

It’s so true.

On our recent road trip down the northwest coast of the U.S., Eric and I picked up a copy of The Hunger Games for $2 at a secondhand bookstore to read aloud while traveling long stretches of interstate highway in the pouring rain. We hoped it would be entertaining fluff that’d help keep each other alert, and while we’re both surprised at how quickly the story gripped us, we couldn’t help but be distracted by typos, misused punctuation, and fragmented sentences that seemed to jump off the page at us in flashing neon letters. We’re editors, it’s true, so perhaps we’re more likely to be distracted by these kinds of mistakes than many readers, but I also know we’re not the only readers attuned to, and insistent upon, proper language use.

Mistakes like the ones we caught in The Hunger Games (two on the very first page of the book!) are so easy to fix. As a reader, I get irritated when I read a book that is peppered with mistakes when I consider all the editorial support that is available. What it says to me is that the writer and editorial team either thinks I won’t notice or I won’t care when a piece hasn’t been proofread. I did, and I do, and it genuinely takes away from my ability to get immersed in a story in the way that I love to do.

I’m a voracious and passionate reader and I believe that books can be incredibly powerful. Bookstores in other cities are to me what outlet stores, casinos, or theme parks are to other people. They are non-negotiable, must-see attractions.  Wandering the aisles of Powell’s City of Books in Portland, OR, a couple weeks ago, a two-city-block-long store (yes, heaven), I was struck as I often am in the presence of so many books at just how much we collectively love to share, and hear, stories. There are so many talented storytellers out there trying to make their tales stand out, and so many readers hungry for stories. I know I am. The mark of a great story to me is when nothing about the work itself distracts me from total immersion. Good editing, Baverstock says, makes the editor invisible and puts the writing, the story, in the spotlight. As both a reader and an editor, I wholeheartedly agree.

 

Posted by Eric

The self-publishing industry is growing remarkably quickly, but there are conflicting sources of information on just what to do to bring in those sales on your book. Here’s an excellent article about a survey of top-earners from the self-publishing world.

Don’t miss this gem: “Respondents who paid professionals for services like story-editing, copyediting and proofreading earned on average 13% more than those who didn’t.“  

I`ll even look past their neglect of the Oxford comma.

http://www.epublishabook.com/2012/05/30/self-publishing-statistics-who-are-the-top-earners/#axzz1wL84hOFD

Posted by Eric

In all of our editing, be it a freshman’s essay or an author’s latest manuscript, we find the most common issues center around the misuse of the comma. Here’s a great article to help explain when to use that tricky little devil — or when to leave it out:  http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/the-most-comma-mistakes/

Posted by Eric

The postmistress,
Her wicked, killing rage.

Discipline and punish the innocent.
They shall inherit the Earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have some title poetry to submit? Send it to us and we’ll post the best ones here.

Posted by Eric

Well we’re back from our road-trip to San Francisco. What a place! We have lots of stories and photos (including this one!) to share, but in the mean time check out this great list of twelve mistakes that writers often make, courtesy of Lynnette Labelle’s blog. Can you think of others to add to the list? Let us know!

In our editing, we see many of these over and over again. Dealing with these issues early will mean you get more bang for your buck when your manuscript goes to the editor. Check them out!

http://lynnettelabelle.com/blog/the-editors-dozen-common-mistakes-writers-make/

Posted by Eric

I think I may have finally hit my saturation point with Dawkins. I was blown away by The Selfish Gene, humbled by Unweaving the Rainbow, and mobilized by The God Delusion, but something about The Greatest Show on Earth felt a bit like a scratched record. Perhaps that’s the point of it it, though. You can almost hear his exasperation as he sat down to write it: “All right, fine. Let’s go through this one. more. time. for anyone who still doesn’t get it.”

 
Dawkins can never be faulted for a lack of research, clarity, or precision, but the tone of the writing made me cringe. For a book that aims to lay out the evidence for evolution, it’s remarkably snide to those who seek that evidence, who would presumably be the target audience. Instead it preaches to the choir (har har), giving ammunition for atheists to use in campfire arguments with doubting creationists. Instead of taking those on the fence of the issue under his wing to explain the elegant simplicity of evolution, Dawkins cuts up those who still believe in opposing ideas. If I was looking for answers and explanations, I wouldn’t want to be berated because of my ignorance.

 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m completely behind Dawkins in both the science of the matter and his exasperation with creationists, but a book aiming to put to rest any argument against evolution will only be dismissed if its plan of attack is to wound the pride of its opponents.

 

 

More positively though, the book is an amazing resource for readers looking to solidify their understanding of evolution and why the arguments against it don’t hold water. A barrage of examples are well explained and are often fascinating (don’t miss the discussion of the Lenski experiments beginning on page 117). If you’ve ever struggled to articulate a piece of evolutionary theory that you’re not crystal clear on, this book is for you.

Posted by Sarah

My day job is in the social services, and it is a complex world to work in.  The clients I serve are incredibly resourceful and resilient in the face of enormous barriers, but it can be disheartening, frustrating work nonetheless. There are rarely simple answers to the problems we work together to solve.

That’s one of the reasons why, settling in to my plush red armchair in the sun-filled room of my home office, I always look forward to diving in to the latest manuscript I’ve been sent. Each one seems to contain nothing but solvable problems, one after the other. A misplaced comma here, a bit of inconsistency there – these things are easy to fix, and I get great satisfaction from doing so. It’s incredibly rewarding to support people to communicate in the best way they can.

As a social worker, I get to be present in some monumental moments in people’s lives. I get to witness people making enormous strides forward, exemplifying dedication and commitment. As a freelance editor of mostly book-length works, I’m one of the first readers of a writer’s project, and that’s a very exciting position to be in. I’m always astounded by the amount of work that writers have invested in capturing stories on a page. I like to imagine the process that went into the writing; I wonder how the writer came up with this particular plot twist or that particular turn of phrase. While not every work resonates for me as a reader, I have a great deal of respect for the dedication involved in the work I get to edit, and take pride in playing my part in making it shine.

 The tasks involved in both of my jobs are vastly different, but they also share more in common than I ever imagined would be possible. Whether it’s working with a service user who’s making changes in her life that take enormous strength and perseverance, or assisting a writer to express her vision with clarity and focus, my clients always know what’s best for themselves. It’s my job in both “worlds” to make sure their vision for their life story, in whatever format, comes through loud and clear.

 

Posted by Eric

Signs of life,
in the realm of hungry ghosts.
Through black spruce,
a far rockaway of the heart.
The greatest show on Earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post your title poetry or send it to us directly. We’ll post the best ones here!