Archive for the ‘publishing’ Category
Choices for getting your manuscript published
April 14th, 2009 | 
Author: With the changing economy and lay-offs, quite a few people are expressing interest in writing. Some hope to write the next Great American Novel while others want to make a living freelancing.
Eleven years ago, I graduated from college with a degree in publishing. I loved every minute of the coursework and am confident I chose the right major. So many people go to college and then end up working in a different area. Thankfully, I’ve used my degree every year for the last eleven years!
A year ago, I wrote a three-part series on the choices for publishing your manuscript. I know there are others out there, like Michael Hyatt and Rachelle Gardner, who are far more qualified to speak on these topics, but I hope this series will give you the basics.
Part One: Traditional vs. Self-publishing
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A Must for Every Christian Writer & Freelancer
Have you seen Christian Writers’ Market Guide 2009
The guide breaks the writing market into three broad categories – book publishers, periodicals, and specialty markets (greeting cards, gifts, software, games, CD/DVD/Video).
The book publishers section starts with a listing of topics and the names of publishers interested in that topic. Over 150 topics are included ranging from autobiography to fiction for teens to marriage to self-help to worship resources. What a great way to find publishers to target!
Following the topical listing is a detailed listing of each book publisher. The alphabetized listings detail contact information, basic guidelines, special needs, and lots more for each publisher. A separate section is devoted to subsidy publishers. Those publishers that do not accept unsolicited manuscripts and require an agent are noted along with those who accept book proposals via The Writer’s Edge and Christian Manuscript Submissions.
Next is a list of book distributors followed by a market analysis. This section is useful for the discerning writer who wants to target the best publishers. The analysis covers the number of books published, what topics are most popular, and who had the most bestsellers.
After book publishers comes the periodical section. The divisions are similar to publishers – topical listings, alphabetical listing, and market analysis. The major difference is within the alphabetical listing, the periodicals are alphabetized within their type, such as children’s, pastor/leadership, music.
Because of this method of organization, when I found a periodical in the topic listing that I was interested in, I turned to the index for finding the detailed listing of the magazine. Otherwise, I would have to look in each periodical type for the name.
The back section of the book contains valuable information for writers – conferences and workshops, writers’ groups, editorial services, literary agents, and contests. With the exception of literary agents and contests, the groups are organized alphabetically by state location.
As a special bonus, a CD is included with the book. This CD is perfect for the writer that travels frequently and doesn’t want to lug around the actual book. What’s on the CD? The entire book in a searchable format along with additional resources for writers! I could spend hours pouring over the additional resources and have barely comprehended all that is included. To say that the CD is priceless to a freelancer, a beginning writing, or an author doing his own promotion would be an understatement.
The big question on my mind about Christian Writers’ Market Guide 2009
I flipped to the teen section of periodicals since her story is geared for that age level. A couple of minutes of scanning gave me information for 2 magazines that will accept her word count. Then I looked at the topical listing section for periodicals, cross-referenced the names to the alphabetical section, and found another possible magazine for her. Two of the three magazines are ones that I’ve never heard of so probably wouldn’t have found otherwise.
If you’re concerned about the cost of a book that will go out of date in a year, realize that the detail listings for most companies include their website addresses. While the contact information, such as the editor, might change over time, a website address will probably remain the same and give you a good starting point for finding the current information in the future.
If you are a writer interested in the Christian publishing world, buy your copy of Christian Writers’ Market Guide 2009.
Product Details:
List price: $34.99
Paperback: 560 pages
Publisher: WaterBrook Press; Pap/Cdr edition (January 13, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307446433
ISBN-13: 978-0307446435
Plodding: An Editing Journey
If you are a writer, do you ever wonder what it would be like to be an editor or what it is like on the other side of the desk? While I would love to be a writer, I know I am an editor at heart. Editing is my God-given talent. I don’t say that to sound pompous, but it comes naturally to me just how playing a piano comes naturally to some. Writing takes effort for me, probably because I can’t simply write a sentence. I have to backspace, rewrite, delete, evaluate for grammar, write again before going to the next sentence. I’m one of those people that has to have everything close to perfection before moving on.
Somewhere, and I have no clue where, I came across “categories” for writers. Some writers are plodders, some writers are sprinters, and some writers are something in the middle that I can’t remember what it’s called. I’m a plodder. I take my time. Once I finish an article or whatever I’m working on, it rarely has to be overhauled. Everything is in its proper spot and a quick once-over to catch the minor problems makes everything good. A plodder is a writer who will take about an hour to write a 250 word article and spend about 5 minutes revising it. The sprinter is the complete opposite. They want to see the finished product. They don’t care if they make mistakes; they just want the story to get on the page. The sprinter will spend 5 minutes writing the 250 words and an hour revising. They are the people that go through multiple revisions before coming to a finished product. And the writer in the middle that I can’t remember is one who is the ideal writer. The one who writes a draft, revises it, all in equal sections of time. Anyway, all of that is to say that I am a plodder when it comes to writing.
Back to editing… At any given point while working with a manuscript, I have three things running through my head, often simultaneously. First, the actual words on the page. My husband thinks I’m nuts, but I often read the manuscript aloud. This, of course, gives him the right to say that his wife talks to herself. =) I read sentences, paragraphs, sometimes whole chapters this way so I can “hear” the grammar, the flow of words. Believe it or not, I pick up on quite a few word order problems and some other things by reading aloud. At the same time my brain is processing the words, my eyes are looking for punctuation errors, misspellings and the like. Some proofreaders will actually see a comma and say “comma” but I don’t go that far – my DH would send me off to the loony bin for sure! The third thing happening is a constant lookout for logic problems, repetition, inconsistencies, ways to improve, and anything else. Each issue that is found, whether minor like a missing comma or major like repetition, has to be marked, corrected or rewritten. A rewrite requires careful attention to the author’s voice and style so the correction doesn’t stand out as written by someone else. Then the process continues on. At no point do I simply read the manuscript; no matter what stage the manuscript is in, the process is always the same.
The other day I had what turned out to be an amusing thought. I really wanted to get through the final stage and finish with this project. (Who wouldn’t since it’s been lurking around in its various stages for about six months?) So, I thought to myself, “If I can read a 300-page novel in a couple of hours, why can’t I read a 250-page manuscript the same way? Surely, I can have this whole thing done in 3-4 hours if I’m not interrupted.” I sat down with my stack of pages and proceeded to think I would be done by dinnertime. HA! In the time frame of 3-4 hours with almost no interruptions, I completed about 50 pages.
Editing is a slow, tedious process. Perhaps slower than writing. Mentally, it is exhausting. But in the end, it is equally rewarding to writing when I get to hold that printed, bound manuscript that I shared in creating. =)
Interesting Grammar Question
I was working with a student tonight, and he asked a simple grammatical question that gave me reason to stop and think. In a sentence, he had the phrase “the land.” He asked if he changed it to “Russia” would he leave “the”? At first I thought it an odd question with an obvious answer. Then I realized that for some countries we do use “the” and for others we don’t.
For example, we say “the United States of America” or “the British Isles” or “the Philippines.” On the other hand, we don’t say “the Russia” or “the Britain” or “the Portugal” or “the Kenya”…you get my point.
Why is that? Is there a pattern with the ‘s’ ending (states, isles, philippines)? If so, how does something like “the Caribbean” fit in?
Under the gun with my WIP
I haven’t been blogging much; well, other than those few random things that didn’t take much thought. I am feverishly working on the final edit of an author’s manuscript. Tomorrow I plan to dump the manuscript into its book layout, and this project is out of here!
I’m hoping that the gremlins that invaded the manuscript don’t invade the layout. Seriously, I found some very naughty gremlins in this project!!! Things (aka mistakes) that I know weren’t there before are there now. Hmmm…definitely gremlins. Every manuscript I work with goes through 3 to 4 stages: Stage 1 = first read, return to author with queries; Stage 2 = second read, review author’s changes, return to author for approval; Stage 3 = another read, not always necessary depending on the original condition of the manuscript, return to author; Stage 4 = Approve minor changes from Stage 3, dump into book format).
I usually do 90% of my editing on-screen. It’s so much faster since I don’t have to do the edits on paper and then transfer them to the computer. When I first started working with this manuscript months ago, I did start with what I call a “paper edit” – all done on paper. However, there were some extensive rewrites, and after working with the first chapter, it seemed more feasible to work on-screen. I probably should have done a paper edit in stage 2, but I stuck with the on-screen process for this particular book since stage 2 was still a little rough with a lot of changes.
Tuesday evening – wrapping up Stage 3 and rapidly approaching Stage 4, I printed out a chapter to take with me since I would have some downtime while playing bingo (yes, bingo – my husband and his mother used to play a lot years ago, so they wanted to go last week. I tagged along and surprisingly, my DH won the jackpot game. We sorta felt obligated to go back this week. ) Anyway, I am so thankful I printed out that chapter! Somewhere between stages 2 and 3, something happened. I know I have an eye for punctuation and grammatical problems, but that printout definitely didn’t show it! I found random commas, misspellings, odd punctuation, huge inconsistencies…My plans were to dump the book into layout on Wednesday, but seeing those 20 pages persuaded me otherwise! Now I’m trying to finish 272 pages before tomorrow. Guess I shouldn’t be blogging, huh?