The Frugal Editor: Do-It-Yourself Editing Secrets -- From Your Query Letters to Final Manuscript to the Marketing of Your New Bestseller, 3rd Edition

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

The Frugal Editor: Do-it-Yourself Editing Secrets From your query letter to final manuscript to the marketing of your book
Whether you are a new or experienced author, The Frugal Editor helps you present whistle-clean copy from a one-page cover letter to your entire manuscript that will convince those with the power to say "yea" or "nay" to your precious book.
The third edition of The Frugal Editor, is the winningest book in Carolyn's multi-award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of Books for writers with accolades from Reader Views Literary Award, Dan Poynter's Global Ebook Award, the coveted Irwin Award, and many others. This fully updated edition includes the new help you need from managing gender pronouns to maximizing the usefulness of front and back matter. Altogether, The Frugal Editor now provides 50% more information designed for the success of your title.
"Writers and editors have a true friend in Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Her word smarts, her publishing savvy, and her sincere commitment to authors and editors make The Frugal Editor a must-have resource." -- June Casagrande, author of The Best Punctuation Book, Period and Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies (Penguin) and syndicated grammar columnist
"Previous editions of The Frugal Editor were excellent. Nothing could be better... except this book which has an additional 50% new content. The publishing world changes quickly, and this text allows writers to keep up with the ever-changing world of editors, publicists, finicky agents, trends, cultural expectations, queries, and media kits... exploding grammar myths, and possible scams. Save yourself time and money by learning from the best, Howard-Johnson. -- Carolyn Wilhelm, BA, MA, MS and author of environmental content
"Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a godsend for writers everywhere. Her new book The Frugal Editor, is part reference guide, part do-it-yourself editing manual, part masterclass on the writing and publishing industry... and all with Carolyn's signature humor and encouraging energy! She is a master at simplifying overwhelming tasks into relevant, can-do information. This book is a must for every writer's bookshelf!" --Dallas Woodburn, book coach and best-selling author of Thanks, Cariss, for Ruining my Life
"I am using The Frugal Editor to polish my next book. I've used it for the first edit, the beta edit, and...I'm ready to snuff out excess words. Your tip about adding spaces with the search and replace tool is a timely add to my editing skills. It was easy to weed out abbreviations like AR for Arkansas one of my clients used with the (space)AR(space) feature." --Elizabeth Seckman, editor of Insecure Writers Group newsletter
"In the third edition of her The Frugal Editor, Carolyn Howard-Johnson helps authors obtain a finished product worthy of Simon and Shuster. The book guides readers through evolving changes in the English language that has no governing academy regulating it." --Helen Dunn Frame shares her secrets for Retiring in Costa Rica or Doctors, Dogs and Pura Vida and other books. "Whether you're writing your first book or tenth, The Frugal Editor is a must-read." --Tim Bete, director, Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop
"Carolyn Howard-Johnson's The Frugal Editor has been my go-to editing bible for many years. The new Third Edition is the best yet with all the clear, easy-to-follow advice on how to edit your work like a pro of the earlier editions and a whole new range of up-to-the-minute advice about such things as using gender pronouns correctly, well-researched insider info on how to avoid agents' and publishers' pet peeves, how to avoid scams, and lots more. This is a must for every author's editing arsenal." --Magdalena Ball, CompulsiveReader
From Modern History Press

• Language: English
• Publisher: Modern History Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781615996025

Book preview

Praise for The Frugal Editor

"Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a godsend for writers everywhere. Her new book, The Frugal Editor, is part reference guide, part do-it-yourself editing manual, part masterclass on the writing and publishing industry... and all with Carolyn’s signature humor and encouraging energy! She is a master at simplifying overwhelming tasks into relevant, can-do information. This book is a must for every writer’s bookshelf!"

~ Dallas Woodburn, book coach and best-selling author of Thanks, Cariss, for Ruining my Life

Absolutely essential for beginning writers and a necessary reminder for the more advanced. The mentor you’ve been looking for. This book won’t collect dust!

~ Christina Francine, Fijords Review

"I am using The Frugal Editor to polish my next book. I’ve used it for the first edit, the beta edit, and…I’m ready to snuff out excess words. Your tip about adding spaces with the search and replace tool is a timely add to my editing skills. It was easy to weed out abbreviations like AR for Arkansas one of my clients used with the (space)AR(space) feature."

~ Unsolicited praise from Elizabeth Seckman, editor of Insecure Writers Group newsletter

"Writers and editors have a true friend in Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Her word smarts, publishing savvy, and sincere commitment to authors and editors make The Frugal Editor a must-have resource."

~ June Casagrande, author of Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies and syndicated grammar columnist

"In the third edition of her The Frugal Editor, Carolyn Howard-Johnson helps authors obtain a finished product worthy of Simon and Shuster. The book guides readers through evolving changes in the English language that has no governing academy regulating it."

~ Helen Dunn Frame shares her secrets for Retiring in Costa Rica or Doctors, Dogs and Pura Vida and other books.

"Whether you’re writing your first book or tenth, The Frugal Editor is a must-read."

~ Tim Bete, director, Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop

"Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s The Frugal Editor has been my go-to editing bible for many years. The new Third Edition is the best yet with all the clear, easy-to-follow advice on how to edit your work like a pro of the earlier editions and a whole new range of up-to-the-minute advice about such things as using gender pronouns correctly, well-researched insider info on how to avoid agents’ and publishers’ pet peeves, how to avoid scams, and lots more. This is a must for every author’s editing arsenal."

~ Magdalena Ball, is a poet and runs the CompulsiveReader.com

In this invaluable (and yes, accessible and engaging, too!) resource, Carolyn Howard-Johnson masterfully elevates editing into the critical component of writing that it is. Don’t turn in anything until you turn to this book.

~ Peter Bowerman, author of The Well-Fed Writer series

"Use basic computer and editing tricks from The Frugal Editor, to prevent headaches, to save time—and even money. It’s well worth your effort to learn them."

~ Barbara McNichol, Barbara McNichol Editorial

…An important new section deals with using your friends, family, or writing circle as readers [beta readers]. Your book is your baby, but it may have content or pace that make it a loser when other people read it. Once you’re sure you have a good product and have done all the recommended editing yourself, it’s time to think about a professional editor. The book does an excellent job of showing what a professional can do for your manuscript. ~ Nancy Famolari, author of the Montbleu Mysteries available from Amazon.com.

…Submit like a pro with Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s clear, step-by-step, self-editing approach for putting your Best Book Forward.

~ Gregory A. Kompes, conference coordinator of The Las Vegas Writer’s Conference

My favorite self-editing book…

~ Deborah Lynn Stanley, author of Practical Steps to Digital Research

My new copy is already filled with colorful stick-’em notes!

~ Carol Smallwood, poet

The Frugal Editor: Do-It-Yourself Editing Secrets – From Your Query Letters to Final Manuscript to the Marketing of Your New Bestseller. 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007, 2014, 2023 by Carolyn Howard-Johnson.

All Rights Reserved.

Author photograph by Uriah Carr.

Cover Design by Doug West.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system (except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the internet) without permission in writing from the publisher.

Trademarks, including Coca-Cola, and myriad other names of products, journals, and other printed matter used in this work are not authorized by, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. No association with the corporations or names is implied or intended unless so noted.

Several links throughout this book are a part of Amazon Affiliates’ program that offers a small commission for each direct purchase.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Howard-Johnson, Carolyn, author.

Title: The Frugal Editor : do-it-yourself editing secrets : from your query letters to final manuscript to the marketing of your new bestseller / by Carolyn Howard-Johnson.

Description: Third edition. |Ann Arbor, MI: Modern History Press, [2021]. Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: A survey of many helpful self-editing techniques including manuscript preparation, query letters, grammar, syntax, and tricks for getting the most help from your word processing software—Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021035252 (print) | LCCN 2021035253 (e-book) | ISBN 9781615996018 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781615996001 (paperback) | ISBN 9781615996025 (kindle edition) | ISBN 9781615996025 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Editing.

Classification: LCC PN162 .H67 2021 (print) | LCC PN162 (e-book) | DDC 808.02/7—dc23.

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021035252.

LC e-book record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021035253.

Distributed by Ingram (USA/CAN/AU), Betram’s Books (UK/EU).

Modern History Press

5145 Pontiac Trail, Ann Arbor, MI 48105

[e-mail], www.ModernHistoryPress.com

Tollfree 888-761-6268, FAX [phone]

In Memory of…

University press editor extraordinaire Trudy McMurrin, who edited the second edition of this book and introduced me to the intricacies of book production and many peccadilloes of the publishing industry.

Dedicated to…

This, the third edition of The Frugal Editor, comes to you with the gentle reminder that the internet world has made editors of everyone—from writers of every ilk to most anyone in the business community. In this quickly changing environment, most of us are more responsible than ever for the success of our own projects—from beginning to end. This book is dedicated to the hard workers of the world who spend a good deal of their working hours before a computer screen writing and, yes, editing.

Contents

The Frugal Editor’s Extras

Why The Frugal Editor Belongs In This HowToDoItFrugally Series

Introduction: Gremlins, Horses, Writers, and You

Have You Ever Met a Gremlin?

Why You—Yes, You Who Aced English—Need This Book

Leading a Horse to Water and Other All-Wet Ideas About Editing

The Patient Path to Perfection—and Acceptance

Section One: The Preliminaries

Chapter 1: Misunderstanding Editing

Chapter 2: Organizing Only Feels Like Procrastination

Your Real Old-Fashioned Desk Environment

Getting Your Computer Ready for Editing Projects

Revisiting Familiar Computer Aids

Why Does the Frugal Editor Love Word?

Chapter 3: Best Book Forward Or Great Editing Is Great Branding

Section Two: Editing for Your Pre-Publish and Everafter Related Documents

Chapter 4: Editing Your Pre-publish Documents Or Letting The Hard Copies Fly

Chapter 5: Covers and Queries Mean Dangerous Corners Ahead

Chapter 6: Your Cut-and-Paste Errors Are the Way to a Gremlin’s Heart

Chapter 7: Let’s Peek into the Minds And Inboxes of Literary Agents

Chapter 8: Let’s Make Everyone Agree

Section Three: Let Your Computer Do What It Does Best

Chapter 9: Use Word’s Tools; Don’t Trust Them

Find Function: Word’s Uncritical, Undiscerning, Thorough Editing Tool

Using Find Function to Spot the Dots

Tracker: Word’s Editing Miracle

Your Untrustworthy Spelling and Grammar Check

Your Word Processor’s Dictionaries: Making Them Personal

Computers Have Their Own Shortcuts

To Let or Not to Let a Word Processor Lay Out Your Manuscript

Section Four: Editing for Stronger Writing

Chapter 10: Hunting Down Your Dreaded Adverbs

Your Starter List of Words That Might Be Adverbs

Chapter 11: Wipe Out Your Ineffective Passives

Chapter 12: Death to Participles, Gerunds, and Other Ugly Ings

Dangling Participles Often Come with Tattletale Ings

Gerund Ings Can Keep You From Laughing All the Way to the Bank

Participle Ings Are Not a Gerund’s Twin

Was-Ing and Were-Ing

Chapter 13: Getting Rid of Dialogue Migraines

Amateurish Dialogue Tags Can Be Big Headaches

Dialogue Punctuation Headaches

Section Five: Veggies vs. Fructose Found in the Media

Chapter 14: Viruses Aren’t the Only Communicable Disease Contracted from the Net

Getting Cute with Caps

Quotation Marks for the Too-Dumb Reader?

Question Marks and Exclamation Points Running Amok

Ampersands: Pretty Is As Pretty Does

Ellipsis Dots Gone Wild

Chapter 15: The Black Plague Of Style-Choice Viruses

Chapter 16: Pretty Little Apostrophes

Simplifying Possessives So The Gremlin Can’t Fool with You

Your Simplified Screenshot for Possessive Apostrophes

Other Frightening Apostrophes

Chapter 17: Punctuation Even Word Processors Don’t Love

Myriad Uses for Hyphens

Chapter 18: Punctuation for Poets And Other Writers Who Love Words

What About Those Adjectives We Love So Much?

Chapter 19: About Stuff That Shouldn’t Trouble Us But Does

Blaming the Net, the Media, and Even Linguistics

Word Trippers, Synonyms, and Other Painful Grammatical Considerations

Tuning into Wordiness and Their Cousins

The Dreaded Clause Introducers

Dangerous Political Curves Ahead

Section Six: Final Housecleaning

Chapter 20: Getting Ready for Your Closeup

Chapter 21: Getting Ultra-Fresh Input From Beta Readers

Chapter 22: Let’s Talk About What’s to Come

Section Seven: The Big Money Decisions

Chapter 23: Are You Convinced You Need an Editor—or Don’t?

Getting the Best Leads

What to Ask Prospective Editors

Chapter 24: Getting Clear on Choosing a Publisher

How to Avoid Publishing Shams and Scams

Chapter 25: Some Last-Minute Writing Editing Basics You May Not Yet Have Considered

Some Authors Are More About Covers Than Editing

Some Elements of Formatting May Include Your Best Sales Tools

Check Up on Your Formatter

Chapter 26: Putting Your Work into the World

When Mail Is Your First Foot in the Door

When E-Mail is Preferred

When Your Contact Uses Submittable or Other Submission Services

Chapter 27: The Galley Edit: Where You Come to Believe In Gremlins

Tricks to Foil the Galley Gremlins

Appendices

Appendix One: Editing-at-a-Glance

Appendix Two: Recommended Reading and Resources

Editing

Grammar and Style

Writing Craft

Custom Dictionaries

Publishing, Promotion, and Marketing

Typesetting and Formatting

Having Fun

Directories: Marketplaces for Your Work

Appendix Three: My Generous Literary Agents

Appendix Four: Sample Cover Letters

Sample Cover Letter to Introduce a Media Kit

Sample Cover Letter for Submissions to Journals, Contests

Sample Cover Letter If You Notice a Preference for Literary Discussion

Appendix Five: Sample Query Letters

Sample Query Letter for Film Consideration—Fiction

Sample Query Letter for a Publisher—Nonfiction

Sample Query Letter for an Agent—Fiction

Appendix Six: Formatting Made Easy For Kindle E-books

At Your Service Bureau!

Smashwords Is Not the Name of a Punk Band

Let Calibre Do the Driving

Appendix Seven: Other Frugal Resources for Writers

About the Author

Bibliography

Sharing Influences and Inspiration with Readers

The Writing Life

The Writing Craft

Publishing Career-Influencers

Attributing Zen for As-Needed Career Building

Free Press

Teaching, Speaking, Tutoring and Other Magical Benefits of Being a Writer

Acknowledgements

Index

The Frugal Editor’s Extras

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #1: On the Importance of One Unedited Word

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #2: Your Best Manual Edit. Feel Virtuous. Save a Tree!

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #3: Speaking of Titles—Yours, Mine, and Others

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #4: Telling Insider Secrets

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #5: Sometimes Success Hinges on Agreement

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #6: Code Words Served Batman: They Can Serve You Too

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #7: Editing Your Adverbs Is Like Mining Metaphor Gold

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #8: Easy Test to Keep Passives from Inducing a Snooze

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #9: Helping Verbs That Don’t Help

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #10: Stephen King on Making Dialogue Punctuation Logical

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #11: Making Your Ellipses Pretty and Smart

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #12: Don’t Think of Possessives as Apostrophes

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #13: Shapeshifting Hyphen Rules

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #14: Quick Test for Hyphenating Adjectives

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #15: The Nourishing Part of the Web

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #16: No Such Thing as a Final Edit

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #17: The Real Story Behind Instant (and Free) Fame

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #18: How to Think of Editing Fees

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #19: Why My The More You Know Motto Works for All Publishing Models

The Frugal Editor’s Extra #20: Preventing a Galley Heart Attack

Why The Frugal Editor Belongs In This HowToDoItFrugally Series

• I know that no matter how I scold or give authors guidelines for hiring the editor best suited to their specific title, many authors will not do so because they, too, are frugal, or because they are so confident of their own skills they deem such a service unnecessary (a danger sign, by the way).

• I know that the more authors know about editing, the better partner they will be for the editors they hire or the ones assigned to them by their publishers and the more secure they’ll be about accepting or rejecting suggested edits.

• I know some authors are unable to discern the difference between an editor and a typohunter, and are likely to hire underqualified help. This book helps authors avoid this kind of a disaster with the section on best ways to find a great editor—one suited to their specific needs.

• I know that a great full-service editor who has experience editing the genre of the book being edited—even an expensive editor—can be a bargain. When great editors explain the changes they suggest, authors should calculate that knowledge as a value-added benefit into their editing expenses. Learn more about hiring editors in Chapter Twenty-Three.

• I know that knowing a lot about editing is good medicine for writers’ careers, for the writing of books, and for writing marketing material necessary to sell those books.

Introduction: Gremlins, Horses, Writers, and You

Have You Ever Met a Gremlin?

You may recall the gremlin you had nightmares about when you were a kid, the one who hid under your bed and cleverly disappeared when your parents peeked under to search for him. He hasn’t reappeared in decades. If he is the chap who showed up in fairy tales so we wouldn’t get bored, we authors might welcome him as inspiration for a short story. But no. The gremlin that plagues anyone wearing the hat of an editor is the dirty, lowdown creep who makes passive construction reappear in your manuscript after you’ve edited it twice, maybe three times. And he has enough relatives to plague every writer in existence. You won’t be able to see gremlins, might not know where they come from, but you’ll know they have been at work when your book appears in print. Telltale signs will crop up in typos, grammar errors, and ugly formatting problems. So I worry about them a lot.

You should, too.

I can’t tell you how to eliminate these gremlins. After all, there are homicide laws. I can tell you how to make their job harder. You recognize they exist and then purge any inclination you might have toward assassination and let someone else bring them to justice—or learn to do it yourself. Regardless of how often we tell ourselves gremlins are only imaginary, know they are more real than many of the myths that get passed around about editors, publishers, and even punctuation.

We writers believe the stories because it’s convenient to think that magical personages hired by publishers make books come off the press in immaculate form. Perfect. Pristine. That can happen. But I’ve come upon an occasional typo in books that are published by revered names in our industry, and gremlins have been known to leave their tracks in my own copy even after years of learning a few tricks of my own. You can trust my hard-won experience when I tell you to do the best you can to eradicate the gremlins’ work on your own, to partner with editing professionals when possible, and to trust no one. If these troublemakers get one up on Random House and Farrar, Straus & Giroux, we less notable publishers and authors are easy touches.

So, how to do what seems to elude the best and brightest of word warriors? That’s what I’m here for—to pass along antidotes for what I see most frequently in the critique groups I facilitate, the classes I teach, the writers’ conference workshops I love to give.

Some of this information seems basic, but you need to know the gremlins’ motto: When authors and editors are looking for the big stuff, I’ll diddle with the puny mistakes they’re not likely to see. Gremlins are devious. They partner with your AutoCorrect feature and have no qualms going after the word trippers you’ve known since grade school. They know your weak moments, your tired moments.

The Frugal Editor offers a little extra information—some you’ll refer to time and again—set aside in this book. They are preceded by a gray box and listed in the Contents of this book. My publisher, Modern History Press, also goes to great pains to do a more detailed index than you may be accustomed to. In this index, each entry becomes a keyword or a suggestion of a topic you might search for depending on your individual needs.

The most important part of the editing process is getting over the idea that readers won’t notice or care, or that someone else does or doesn’t do this editing stuff for you. Editing matters big. It matters in places you never suspected it would. When you submit queries to agents. When you submit proposals to publishers. When your publisher submits a galley for you to examine and authorize. When it turns out that you know something your editor doesn’t, you’ll have confidence enough to ask why, or to reject their suggestions. Authors who are also Frugal Editors know lots of tricks to keep gremlins at bay.

Why You—Yes, You Who Aced English—Need This Book

Just as I was finalizing the second edition of this book, Poets & Writers published Peter Selfin’s Confessions of a Cranky Lit-Mag Editor. It was a mini-rant on how authors influence editors negatively with minor (and not-so-minor) errors. He told of one author who informed him in her cover letter that she had published three stories in The New Yorker and then blunders into her essay with the dangling modifier, ‘Growing up, there were two types of food in my family’. He said it reads like very sloppy editing. And, yes, he rejected the piece.

By the way, one of my beta readers with a master’s degree could not identify the error that so annoyed Editor Selfin. If you can’t, you will be able to by the time you’ve finished the section in this book that covers dangling participles. If you can’t wait, use your e-reader search function or index to find dangling participles now.

The lesson for all of us is that attention to detail and craft counts, and that even experienced writers can flub an opportunity if they don’t pay attention to that last great step toward publishing, a good edit. If Selfin’s submitting author had recently refreshed her understanding of participles by reading this book, she would not have dangled hers in either an unimportant query letter or the first sentence of her story.

Perfection is not possible. Even Editor Selfin admits he overlooks a mistake or two if the writer’s voice captures his interest. With better editing, we can guard against humiliation and in the process increase our chances of publication.

Leading a Horse to Water and Other All-Wet Ideas About Editing

In my first how-to book for writers, The Frugal Book Promoter, I talk about branding. When I wrote it, I wanted to convince authors that sales, marketing, and promotion are not shameful words, a word I see modifying promotion nearly daily. We participate in marketing disciplines like branding every day when we brush our teeth and choose proper clothing for whatever occasions loom on that day’s calendar, and I have never heard shameful applied to those kinds of activities.

This edition of The Frugal Editor is an easier sell than The Frugal Book Promoter because the fear of typos creeping into a writer’s copy has always contributed to authors’ nightmares or at least to writer’s block.

Where my job becomes difficult is in convincing writers that they need an editor—a real editor, an editor with credentials—before they begin to submit, and, yes, that process is part of their writing and their promotion. Because I am also frugal, I recognize that my tendency to avoid spending money for something that will probably be done by someone else (or that I’m just as good at) might well exist in other writers.

Because I hang out with writers of all kinds from journalists to poets, I am also aware that authors fear the sharp pencil point of an editor. They believe an editor will tinker with their voice, try to make their work into something other than what it is, or will change it beyond recognition. I want to assure these writers that a good editor won’t do that. A good editor helps you find your voice, remain true to it, and still move the manuscript from a rough rock to a polished gemstone.

Note: Many writers mistake some things—like wordiness and clichés—for voice. A good editor might help the author find a more resonant voice without relying on questionable structure and grammar or at least help the author determine when questionable choices are working well.

It is no fun to encounter unexpected flaws in one’s book. However, making choices that go against publishing industry traditions (or outright mistakes!) in query letters, cover letters, and book proposals can be more deadly than those in a manuscript. You and the quality of your book idea will be judged on these first contacts with agents, publishers, editors, and producers as surely as you would be judged at a board meeting if you left rats’ nests in your hair that morning. It’s these seemingly inconsequential documents that authors often edit on their own because of time or budget considerations. In this book, I approach the editing process of every document as if it were a manuscript. It is easier to edit the much shorter documents (query letters, cover letters, media kits, and proposals) that you send to people who have the power to accept or reject your work. The processes used are approximately the same. But beware! Our industry has arcane expectations for all those introductory letters and documents no English teacher dreamed of telling you about. That’s my job.

Many mistakenly use the word editing synonymously with finding typos. I worry that The Frugal Editor might contribute to that notion because it does not address essential elements of the writing craft like character development, setting, or structure. Those are topics for other books and there are lots of them. Reworking these aspects of writing constitutes revision. Sometimes a very good editor may not have the experience to spot the needs for revision in your genre. That’s why the chapter in this book on how to hire the right editor for your needs is so important. It’s why I talk about peer review and beta readers in one of the last chapters. It’s also why I included resources for you on topics like this in the Appendix of this book. And why I find writers’ conferences and respected writers’ programs essential for learning lots of things we don’t know we don’t know.

The Patient Path to Perfection—and Acceptance

You probably already knew that gremlins—very clever guys bent on chaos—are at work during the entire publishing process. You fight them with every ounce of writing craft and publishing knowledge that exists in your body. If, however, a typo or grammatical error slips through the careful net you cast for them, please don’t lose any sleep. It will happen somewhere along every writer’s career path.

I want you to learn from this book just as I learned from writing it, but I’d also like you to enjoy the editing challenge, the process itself. Pretend the task before you is a puzzle. It’s work. It’s detail-oriented work. Still, it can be a lot of fun.

So bear with me. Humor goes a long way. Patience, too! Make the guidelines in this book part of your working habits. You’ll love having lots of weapons to keep gremlins under control.

Section One:

The Preliminaries

[My former computer instructor] says, ‘when I hear a moan from the back of my classroom, the gremlins who attack file names are usually responsible.’

Chapter 1: Misunderstanding Editing

One of the big problems with editing is that people misunderstand the word. Worse, they assign several meanings to it so that no one appears to fully understand what others are talking about. Innovations in the publishing industry, market upheavals, and shifting responsibilities have changed the definitions of editing, proofreading, galleys, and other publishing terms in the past decades. I can’t retrain the industry, but here is a mini glossary that may help us communicate. Do not expect everyone’s definitions to match mine or anyone else’s for that matter. They will mostly help you understand how carefully you must determine what an editor is likely to do for you.

Revision: Revision is a lot more than editing. It is reworking your piece before you start the editing process. Of course, you may perform some editing functions as well. (Don’t we all edit a little every time we sit down at a keyboard or pick up a pen?) We think it applies in a larger degree to manuscripts than to short presentations like query and cover letters, but I know writers who have revised their marketing material many more times than their books. It is the