Michelle Heumann, Freelance Copyediting

A good editor needs to be familiar with regionalisms!

"I looked at the websites of presses that call themselves hybrid (or use words like co-publishing, collaborative, or bespoke) and talked with ten people who had published with hybrid presses to learn about their experience...I’ll begin by explaining what a hybrid publisher is (and isn’t) and conclude with questions you may want to ask if you decide to explore this option. In between, I’ll share what 10 authors had to say about why they chose the hybrid path, what they liked best and least, and what advice they would give to others."

Historical novelist David Gilman tackles the age-old questionhow can genre writers best bring their subjects to life? https://hubs.li/H0KNd280

"Deep third personwhere the narrator’s voice is the character’s voiceoffers many benefits of a first-person narrator but with more flexibility. It is convenient when there are multiple POV characters. But deep third can be a real bear to manage. Action tags that provide clarity, like Jane felt or Jane saw, also create distance between character and reader. When the POV character intently observes other characters, readers may think the POV has shifted to the observed character. When characters are the same gender, pronouns quickly become ambiguous. Here are a half-dozen ways to minimize both distance and ambiguity, starting with the simplest. They also improve characterization and make for more powerful writing."

In creative writing, the wrong way is sometimes right (and vice versa). The Subversive Copy Editor Carol Saller pits good grammar against badthis week in Fiction+ at CMOS Shop Talk. https://cmosshoptalk.com//how-grammar-goofs-work-in-creat/

"It’s a tough decision for a writer to make, one of the toughest. All your life you’ve fantasized about one of the big New York publishers buying your book and its subsequent astronomical launch into the stratosphere. But it hasn’t happened yet in spite of your eating, sleeping, and researching the craft of writing for years. While the non-responses (don’t) come in, and the polite rejections clog your inbox (and your arteries, or so it may seem), the option of self-publishing hangs out there like a flag unfurling in the corner of your eye, waiting for you to take notice and give it some attention. It’s Plan B and has been for a long time."

"Whenever you decide to directly quote, excerpt, or reproduce someone else’s work in your ownwhether that’s a book, blog, magazine article, or something elseyou have to consider, for each use, whether or not it’s necessary to seek explicit, legal permission from the work’s creator or owner. Unfortunately, quoting or excerpting someone else’s work falls into one of the grayest areas of copyright law. There is no legal rule stipulating what quantity is OK to use without seeking permission from the owner or creator of the material. Major legal battles have been fought over this question, but there is still no black-and-white rule."

In this week's #SimpleMarkup, Edie sits down to work, only to discover she's been sabotaged. #comics #lol #humor #amediting #editor #editors #editorslife Blog post: https://pikkoshou.se/sm156 Archive: https://pikkoshou.se/80a76 Store: https://pikkoshou.se/52211

"But a successful story exists independently from its author. It seems so real that readers don’t have to be schooled in the facts of the story’s world, but can, through the actions and dialogue of its characters, adapt and understand how it works."

"If you have a book idea or a manuscript, one of your first questions is probably: How do I find a publisher? Or, if you’re more advanced in your knowledge of book publishing, you may ask: How do I find a literary agent? The good news: there’s no shortage of resources for researching publishers and agents. The bad news: you can easily spend hours going down the rabbit hole of available information."

Do you think in italics or in regular text? This week’s Fiction+ installment looks at options for formatting thoughts and other unspoken discourse.

Hyphens are important!

Put down your red pencils (but don’t throw them away). The Subversive Copy Editor Carol Saller looks at book covers and other promotional copy, this week in Fiction+ at CMOS Shop Talk.

When you're reporting exactly what somebody saida direct quotationyou put the word or words in quotation marks. http://ow.ly/IkfI50ARmg2

In this week's #SimpleMarkup, Edie is sitting around wondering what else could go wrong in her day in 2020. #comics #lol #humor #amediting #editor #editors #edi...torialkaren #editorslife Blog post: https://pikkoshou.se/sm150 Archive: https://pikkoshou.se/80a76 Store: https://pikkoshou.se/52211 See more

In a new post on The Editors’ Weekly, Frances Peck explores the reason behind Zoom fatigue and offers some suggestions to cope with this real issue. Do you suffer from Zoom fatigue? What are some of your tips to coping with endless video calls? http://blog.editors.ca/?p=6799

Many authors overlook the power of editorial reviews on Amazon. Don't let that be you! Thanks to Jane Friedman for letting me share more about this underrated piece of marketing your books on Amazon.

Are you avoiding the inevitable? Workshop your synopsis into multiple lengths for different submission purposes with this 4-week course. Register here: https://www.alexandrawriters.org//online-the-dreaded-syno/

"Publishing could have a game table on the floor of a Vegas casino, nestled between blackjack and roulette. Bet on which title will earn out, and which will fail. When a title doesn’t break even, the casino swipes the chips off the table. But when a bet wins, it can make up for all those losses. A few bestsellers can support a press despite many money-losing titles. So how do publishers decide which books to bet on? There’s lots of risk involved when you take a look at a few words sent via email and decide that those words might, in one to three years, end up selling enough copies to earn back the money that you spent to make those words into a book, and then earn a little more so the publisher can take a little bit of money home herself."

How cool would it be if you found the oldest citation for a word that appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary? http://ow.ly/u3df50AuRKB