We’ve been talking about editing this month on the Children’s Book Hub. Even though I myself am a freelance children’s book editor as well as an author, I rely heavily on my collaborations with editors – at our publishing house, as well as on a freelance basis.
My mother and I are fortunate to work with truly gifted editors at our publishing houses – but for my own independent projects I always seek feedback from a freelance editor (such as Emma D. Dryden, whom I interviewed this month for the Hub). You see, I’m not very good at editing myself.
There are many good reasons to work with a freelance editor in today’s publishing world – but here is perhaps the most compelling one: Once a manuscript has been rejected, it will seldom be reconsidered by that same publisher… even if you rewrite it. So it’s very important to get it as polished as we can be before the submission process begins, and the best way I know to do that is to hire a freelance editor.
That said, there are a number of things we can do to become better self-editors, to get our manuscripts into the best possible shape even before we submit them to a freelance editor… and I thought, given this month’s focus on editing, I’d explore some of them. Here’s one for those of you who use Microsoft Word:
Use the Find and Replace and Thesaurus tools.
“Find and replace” is the most efficient way to replace overused words. For instance, I tend to overuse the word “wonderful”. It crops up all the time in what I’m writing and it drives me insane. What I do is write, write, write – and when I’m done, I click “Find” (under the Edit tab), type in the word “wonderful” and each time the tool pulls it up in the manuscript I choose a better word to replace it with (using the “Thesaurus” tool – or the real, bound Thesaurus if I get stuck!)
If you want to change a character’s name, you can use the find and replace tool to pull up all the “Mickey’s” and change them to “Mikey” in one mouse click. You can click “find next” and walk through the manuscript word by word, or you can click “find all” and do a global replace on a word or name.
Among the things you might want to ‘find and replace’ (with better choices from your Thesaurus!) are:
- Cheap or cheesy modifiers (very, just, etc.)
- Passive verbs / tentative or weak sentence construction (was going, been having, seemed, felt etc.)
- Words you use too often (wonderful, like, suddenly, little)
- Adverbs that prop up weak verbs
- A character’s name (Replace All)
Random comments on the children’s book industry from editors and agents attending the NJ-SCBWI mentoring workshop on February 22:
On THE ECONOMY:
“Things are getting tighter with budgets. As hard as it was to get published, it’s even harder now.”
“Bookstores are cutting down on their inventory. We can’t get as many books in, so we’re not buying as many books.”
“This is not just a correction of the marketplace, it’s a correction of the mind.”
“We’re going to be seeing far fewer advances for mediocre books.”
“But if you’re a new author, you don’t have a poor track record to hurt you.”
“We may see a return to house authors. Authors and publishers will enter a partnership. They’ll help nuture one another and careers will have a steady progression. If you find a house that loves you, they will love you long time!”
On MARKETING & PROMOTION:
“Learn how to market your books. Do school visits. Use social networking tools. Talk to other writers about your book. Talk to everyone about your book.”
“Get to know your publicist and marketing director. They are your friends. But don’t overwhelm them with 17 email messages a day. Let them know you’re their partner.”
“Realize that the books you see up front in the stores are paid for by the publishers through co-op marketing. If they have a talking slip? Paid for. If they’re on an end-cap? Paid for.”
“Become friends with your local librarian and your local bookstores. But always keep your publicist informed about what you’re doing. Don’t go over their head. Don’t go over your editor’s head, either. That’s bad business for everyone involved.”
“Don’t waste people’s time. Don’t send chocolate to all the Borders buyers in the country.”
“With school visits, you’re a celebrity to those kids. Get yourself out there. Build word-of-mouth.”
“Temper your expectations. If you wrote a teen non-fiction book, the big retailers aren’t going to carry it. That’s not their market.”
“Don’t follow today’s trends. Writing for the market in general is a terrible idea.”
“If you’re a picture book writer, don’t start writing a YA about vampires just because it’s popular.”
On EDITORS:
“Editors are always in the market for a well-written book. But I can’t define for you what that is. I know it when I see it.”
“Know what your editor likes. Know who you’re submitting to. I don’t like gross stories.”
“But I do! Send them to me!”
“We like authors who are agented because the work comes in polished.”
Sheesh. I spy on a SCBWI discussion list one day and think I get a scoop. A new cool children's editorial blog? I'm in! Then the next thing you know everyone and their brother already knows about it. *sigh*
Why promote Editorial Anonymous? Because whoever this person is (I will find you!) they update regularly. Really regularly. I'm a sucker for a good regular writer too. The posts are top notch and in one of them the editor laments the same old, same old. Trends that we've seen over and over in fantasy kidlit. Silly me, I was unaware that sinister YA fairies were a trend. Though now that I think about it . . .
Coincidentally enough, there was a Guardian article (found via Bookninja) that laments the same thing (sans fairies). Two great tastes, and so on, and such.
In case you failed to notice, there's a new kidlit editorial blog in town, by the name of Must Love Books. This was apparently a private blog for a long time and only recently has the mysterious T.S. gone public. So the post entitled So you want to work in publishing is a good start. I think it pairs nicely (as Alvina Ling pointed out) with Cheryl Klein's earlier version. So if you've book luvin' teens asking you how one goes about becoming an editor, here's what to hand them. Honest-to-God, this happened to me. A kid I knew asked about this and I printed off Cheryl's advice. Now's he's an intern at FSG. These guys know what they're talking about.
Yesterday I watched Bridge to Terabithia and The Lives of Others in quick succession. Literally one hour passed between the two. In that state of .... severe mental confusion is the only term that comes to mind, I was not able to write up my Review of the Day (and it's a doozy too) or even scout out much interesting info. So here are just a couple things I saw recently that caught my eye on other blogs as particularly smart/funny.
First up, books you love to hate. Or, rather, the ones you couldn't finish. When Leila Roy saw an article in The Guardian discussing the books your average British reader couldn't get through (check out #2), she opened up the topic and there definitely been some interesting comments. Who knew Francine Green couldn't hold her own?
Your average Pixie Stix Kids posting tends to come in a clump. There won't be anything for a week or so, and then suddenly you'll find yourself inundated with intelligent conversation. The most recent piece of interest? A trendwatch on emerging graphic forms for children. The hypothesis is thrown out that the graphic-centered book is a trend. Which is to say, it may go away. I think it is not a trend. Feel free to discuss. (UPDATE: Oh my God, she wrote even more information on the topic! I feel exhausted just looking at it).
Now I'm always delighted when editors take the time to give some advice to their authorial charges. Cheryl Klein is one of the best, so her recent piece Slush Pile Saturday, Ms. K offers her thoughts on, "The number one problem in novel submissions," poor first chapters, and the importance of killer last lines.
Speaking of advice, here's some from another sector entirely. I'm always terrible when it comes to promoting the latest publication of the online kidlit webzine The Edge of the Forest. Well, it's out now (go, shoo) and MotherReader's Pam Coughlan has a great piece in it entitled Be a B-List Blogger. If you have ever wondered how to increase stats on your kidlit blog, this piece may help.
Sometimes we're so smothered in snark that we have a hard time appreciating the "nice". And I'm talking actual "nice" here. Not ooey-gooey saccharine-filled "nice". So there's this new thing at 7-Imp that they're trying out where every week-end people will, "gather and discuss what Beautiful and/or Kick-Ass Things Happened to You or That You Read or That You Noticed This Week." Sounds good. It'd be cool if there were a blog program that could waver between a blog and a wiki whenever the mood struck you. Technology not having progressed quite so far, this will do in the interim.
Where's the helpful School House Rock song for homophones?
In any case, one of the reasons I'm glad that I'm not a children's book editor is that I don't have to deal with authors accidentally mixing their words into a jumble. And Cheryl Klein's posting SQUIDS 101: Commonly Confused Homophones just drilled that relief into me further.
I don't know how editors will feel about this, but there's a website out there that offers up the names of the editors of children's books who, "have, at least once, bought the rights to first novels by unknown novelists or nonfiction writers." It's doggone fascinating. I don't know where they culled this information but my sources inform me that the list is legit. Take a gander.
We’ve been talking about editing this month on the Children’s Book Hub. Even though I myself am a freelance children’s book editor as well as an author, I rely heavily on my collaborations with editors – at our publishing house, as well as on a freelance basis.
Interesting. thanks for sharing!
Tara,
Who did the artwork for your banner? I love it. You a a great example of how to market yourself. I am going to show you off in my next marketing class.
Kathy
Hi Kathy! Thanks for visiting my blog. You do a superb job at organizing and hosting all the NJ-SCBWI events.
My banner was created by the amazing Val Webb. You can visit her website at http://www.valwebb.com. She is teaching a class on children’s book illustration in March…although she lives in Alabama, not New Jersey!
Thanks for the quotes, Tara. Ah, there is still hope for the well written book:)
So which editor liked gross and which didn’t?
Thanks for posting this Tara!
Love this post. Thanks for sharing. Btw I loved your interview with Cynthea Liu - I was away from my computer for about a day and half and I missed it. I am planning on checking her book out.
I’m taking all of this as good news! I still have a reason to keep pushing forward (besides the gratification that the writing itself gives me, of course).
Thanks for posting these. Got a few chuckles from them too, and that’s always a good thing.
Hi Tara! I’m bummed I didn’t find your blog sooner or meet you at the conference (I just kind of stumbled into here). As for me, I cringed when one of the editors said “don’t use profanity” on your personal blog . . . already broken that rule, ten times over. I guess if I’m lucky enough to get published someday, I can always go by “Susan Snodgrass” or whatever.
Thanks for the recap!
I know who hates gross because I brought it up at the lunch table.
Nice mentorship. Especially the group critique, Tara! Tara rocks!
And the first pages are always illuminating. I’ve got a lot of work to do on mine apparently…oink..oink.
Barb