Beyond the Elements of Style

What is Copyediting?

Ah, copyediting. That catchall phrase so often used—and misused—to cover everything from proofreading to ghostwriting.

The reality is that copyediting comprises a very specific set of tasks done to a manuscript. When in doubt, start with Wikipedia:

The “five Cs” summarize the copy editor’s job: Make the copy clear, correct, concise, comprehensible, and consistent. Copy editors should Make it say what it means, and mean what it says.

Typically, copy editing involves correcting spelling, punctuation, grammar, terminology and jargon, timelines, and semantics; ensuring that the typescript adheres to the publisher’s style.

Copy editors also add any “display copy”, such as headlines and standardized headers, footers.

Copy editors are expected to ensure that the text flows, that it is sensible, fair, and accurate, and that any legal problems have been addressed. Some newspaper copy editors select stories from wire service copy.

Copy editors may shorten the text, to improve it or to fit length limits. This is particularly so in periodical publishing, where copy must be cut to fit the layout, and the text changed to ensure there are no “short lines.”

So a copyeditor begins with a stylesheet, either one used by the publisher or one that he or she creates. The stylesheet ensures consistency: one makes a decision about how to spell something, for example (as in copy editor or copyeditor!), or what one chooses to capitalize, etc.

Using this stylesheet, the copyeditor goes through the manuscript and makes sure that spelling, grammar, usage are all correct and that usage is consistent throughout. Copyediting may also include format editing—in other words, making sure that headers and subheaders are used correctly and consistently throughout the manuscript.

Copyeditors use terms that may sound like jargon to the uninitiated (as indeed does the language used in most specialized fields) but are helpful in deciding what changes to make and explaining why one is making them.

Want to learn more? Sign up for the copyediting elist published out of Indiana University and you’ll learn everything you ever wanted to know about dangling participles, poorly constucted sentences (and how to fix them!) and compound sentences. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

And Yet More on Blogging: RSS Feeds

I’ve been writing recently about a number of ways to market your books, and I received an email from one of my readers asking what an RSS feed is.

A lot of people use RSS to subscribe to blogs. Here’s the quick-and-dirty Wikipedia take on it. Instead of having to remember to visit a blog every now and then to see what’s new there (and who can remember?), you can use an RSS reader. It will notify you when there’s a new listing.

Both the Mozilla Firefox browser and the Mozilla Thunderbird mail and news client have RSS tools, as do many other browsers. I use Safari, and the blogs I subscribe to just show up in a blogs folder, looking very much like a mail folder. Each blog is its own subfolder, and the blog article titles show up like email messages.

Try subscribing to blogs that you read, and you’ll both save time and get more information. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Hope for Authors?

Does Apple’s new iPad represent hope for authors?

Okay, yeah, so I’m a Mac girl, and of course my cult believes that the world will be saved by the Macintosh. But a new product offering hope to those of us who spend our days sitting in a room and writing?

Bear with me for a moment here. Let me take you back to the beginning of the century, when record labels suddenly realized that musicians could make a perfectly good living without them. Creation and recording? Online. Distribution? Online. Marketing? Online. And while the music consumer in me loved the change (iTunes rocks, let’s face it), the author in me said, hey, wait … at least there’s still an income stream here for musicians. The song itself isn’t the product: the concerts, the t-shirts, those have become the products. Musicians can thumb their noses at the establishment and still pay the rent. But what about authors? Come on, who’s going to spend $75 for a favorite author’s face on a sweatshirt? Or pay $150 to go to a reading?

Ain’t going to happen.

So along with other writers I’ve been watching events unfold with some trepidation. And while I will admit to owning a Kindle and having become addicted to the ease of download and portability, I also have concern about the monolithic control of Amazon. So I was interested in this article by Eliot Van Buskirk in Wired magazine (and thanks to my friend Pete Tedlie for turning me on to the article!):

Wired.com’s Brian Chen and Dylan Tweney were right about Apple launching a book store to complement the iPad. The new iBook store will work pretty much the same as iTunes, functioning as one of 12 new apps that come installed on every tablet, and allowing users to choose books from a growing catalog. People who may never have contemplated actually buying an e-book before might consider it, now that it’s something they can do on their shiny new tablet. Authors and book publishers will have a larger market to pitch to, and they could take more risks on lower-selling authors, given the low cost of distributing e-books.

Still, books have not fared well during the growth of other electronic media and will face the same stiff competition on the iPad that they face elsewhere. Either way, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos should feel a bit tense today facing new competition from an extensible device that also does e-books and can be had for less than the price of a DX Kindle.

I was able to perceive some hope there. I have an acquaintance who makes a very nice living, thank you very much, exclusively writing ebooks. Right now the only categories that afford that kind of income are erotica and romance, but where they lead others may follow.

And anytime more people have books accessible to them, it’s a Good Thing. Consider the possibilities of the future, and then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Resource for Online Publishing

Many thanks to Michael Brady for this particular resource: a website that will be enormously helpful for those of you who are thinking of true self-publication—that is, designing your own book—or who want to publish online. Thinking of starting your own literary journal? This is the place for it!

The site, Smashing Magazine, includes links to many good, new, free fonts, to CSS and WorldPress templates, to web usage surveys, and more.

It includes free fonts, tips on web usability, links to really useful articles on other sites (from pitfalls in using stock photography to icon use to emerging techniques for web designers, to … even more free fonts.

The site looks like a blog, but don’t let that put you off: the blog posts are from members of the Smashing Magazine network and connect to even more interesting sites, where you can lose a lot of time … but learn a great deal in the process as well. The articles are extremely useful and updated daily, so check back often. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

The Internet Archive

I keep thinking I know my way around the Net, but this one was new to me:

The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

I’ve just begun to explore it, but it seems to be a grand resource for writers … Here’s more about it:

Libraries exist to preserve society’s cultural artifacts and to provide access to them. If libraries are to continue to foster education and scholarship in this era of digital technology, it’s essential for them to extend those functions into the digital world.

Many early movies were recycled to recover the silver in the film. The Library of Alexandria – an ancient center of learning containing a copy of every book in the world – was eventually burned to the ground. Even now, at the turn of the 21st century, no comprehensive archives of television or radio programs exist.

But without cultural artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. And paradoxically, with the explosion of the Internet, we live in what Danny Hillis has referred to as our “digital dark age.”

The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet – a new medium with major historical significance – and other “born-digital” materials from disappearing into the past. Collaborating with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we are working to preserve a record for generations to come.

Open and free access to literature and other writings has long been considered essential to education and to the maintenance of an open society. Public and philanthropic enterprises have supported it through the ages.

The Internet Archive is opening its collections to researchers, historians, and scholars. The Archive has no vested interest in the discoveries of the users of its collections, nor is it a grant-making organization.

At present, the size of our Web collection is such that using it requires programming skills. However, we are hopeful about the development of tools and methods that will give the general public easy and meaningful access to our collective history. In addition to developing our own collections, we are working to promote the formation of other Internet libraries in the United States and elsewhere.

As both a writer and historian, I’m very much in favor of the Internet Archive’s mission, particularly this statement: “without cultural artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures.” We can all benefit from these cultural artifacts, whether to learn from them, write about them, or be enlightened by them. Visit the archives soon, and often, at archive.org. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

New Tool: Readability

So I follow techie news, and—like many others—often use David Pogue’s words for guidance on new apps, products, etc.

So what’s his take on the best of 2009? Here it is, in a NYT article:

I’ve installed Readability (yes, you can do the trick he advises with Safari, too) and am not quite as enamoured of it as he is, but that may be because I need to play with my settings some more, and it’s still well worth a try. Internet and computer tools are just that … tools, somthing meant to make your life and work easier. If Readability does that, good. If it doesn’t, move on. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

More on Book Marketing: the Video

James Patterson does it on prime-time network television. Others do it on websites and in social communities. Where are you doing it?

I hope that you’re doing it somewhere, because integration of different media is the cutting edge of any kind of marketing these days. And it’s become easier and easier to do your own book trailer (think of what you see on movie trailers and translate it into a book) than ever before. You don’t even need a video camera.

There are a lot of different ways to create your book trailer (both Macs and Windows machines have software that does it more than adequately), so I’ll leave that explanation to the experts: just Google “create book trailer” or something of the sort and read about it. And—this may be the most important step—watch as may book trailers as you can stand. It’s essential to see what’s out there, what people are responding to, etc.

YouTube is making the distribution process easier and easier. Check out these two YouTube features:

• YOUTUBE CHANNELS: Have a whole section of YouTube that’s your very own! And Butterscotch has a quick and easy beginner’s guide to creating a channel. If you haven’t done it yet, now’s a good time to start, according to this Mashable post.
• YOUTUBE STREAMS: Once you start getting people interested in your work, you can create a YouTube stream … in essence, a space where you can watch the video in real-time with other people and discuss it. This is a terrific way to do virtual book presentations, since publishers now have limited budgets for travel and you may not be able totake that sort of time off from your day job.

So take time to learn about the process and play around with creating your own book trailer—again, even before the book is published. Creating buzz takes a strategy and video should play a prominent part in your online marketing plan. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Calling Poets and Fiction Writers!

Okay, so it’s been a while since I posted to my blog. Bear with me: my personal life has been in an upheaval (to put it mildly) but it seems that I’m getting it back on track, so I’m back to my blog now as well!

Today I want to point all poets and short fiction writers to a tremendous web resource of which you might not be aware. Duotrope lists an amazing amount of information about an amazing number of publications, both print and online, that are open to submissions. It tells you about reading periods, whether simultaneous submissions or reprints are accepted, the average response time, genres, comments … in short, just about anything you might want to know about the publication.

Duotrope also keeps track of the frequent changes in the literary world: which publications have folded, which aren’t accepting submissions, which new ones have appeared, etc. And you can have all of that information sent to your inbox for free by subscribing to either the poetry or the fiction edition of the digest here.

So check it out! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Social Media for Readers and Writers

So let’s start our tour of social media with my favorite group of people—people who read and people who write! With some exceptional help from some of my colleagues at LinkedIn (a social network site you’ll find mentioned here), I’ve put together a list of social media sites you might want to check out. They’re not in any particular order, so don’t bother looking for one; perhaps you can see it as an example of the random nature of the Net!

Remember as you browse the first rule of social media: there’s no one-size-fits-all here. Some of these sites may interest you; many of them will not. And that’s as it should be, because you don’t want to spend all of your time online! Explore the sites at your leisure, see which ones seem to work for you, try them out. If you don’t like one site, move on.

And if you find more to add to the list, drop me an email at jcezanne@customline.com and let me know!

• Literature Map: Gnooks is a self-adapting community system based on the gnod engine. Discover new writers you will like, travel the map. of literature and discuss your favorite books and authors.
• Book Glutton: Read books online with other people—suggest books, discuss books, see who’s reading what. Sign on as a glutton and take the video tour!
• Library Thing: So if you feel a need to catalogue your personal library online, Library Thing is the place for you. You can do it here, and then connect with others whose libraries you like. Note that there’s a fee once you pass 200 books.
• Good Reads: Another book cataloguing site. Also offer some great lists and trivia. (As I write this, Twilight is simultaneously on the “best books ever” and “worst books ever” lists, so it’s even-handed!)
• Author’s Den: From the site: “While some of the other sites focus on readers, here’s one that focuses on authors as well. From the site: “The largest most vibrant free online literary community of authors and readers! Visited by 1,400,000+ readers/mo.” It claims that authors “willreach many readers” and that readers
  can “discover, interact, get personal, buy and read!”
• Red Room says that it’s “where the writers are,” and explains, “Red Room provides authors and members with free, easy-to-use, elegant online homes. It’s a place for the literary community to promote their work, express themselves, and connect with their favorite authors.”
• Swap Tree is a book- (and music-, DVD-, and video-game-) swapping community. Have a book you want to trade for another? This is the place for you!
• We Read: Ger personalized recommendations for books, share your recommendations with others. Includes discussion forums.
• Write Lit“aims to bring writers and readers together from all parts of the globe. It seeks to help the writer — technical, commercial, and literary — earn a living, and find audiences for his work. Furthermore, it aims to provide a venue for readers to share their passion for the written word.”
• Authonomy: This is a community sponsored by HarperCollins UK that “invites unpublished and self published authors to post their manuscripts for visitors to read online. Authors create their own personal page on the site to host their project – and must make at least 10,000 words available for the public to read. Visitors to authonomy can comment on these submissions – and can personally recommend their favourites to the community. authonomy counts the number of recommendations each book receives, and uses it to rank the books on the site. It also spots which visitors consistently recommend the best books – and uses that info to rank the most influential trend spotters.”
• Writers’ News/Writing Magazine: This is a singularly useful site, a clearinghouse for a number of different activities: competitions, classes, book discussions, forums, links … it’s all here.
• Bookworm: a blog that celebrates books and reading with lovely enthusiastic reviews by the author, Lubya Kably.
• Media Bistro: Though not strictly an author/reader sort of site, Media Bistro is a community that can be useful to writers looking to improve skills, get jobs, and connect with other media professionals. They have local chapters throughout the United States that offer get-togethers in person.
• Book Marketing Network, part of the whole Ning family of social networks, describes itself as being “for book authors, self-publishers, book publishers, publicists, marketers, and others involved in writing, publishing, and marketing books.” Includes, in true social media style, something for everyone—photos, videos, discussion boards, events, and blogs.
• The Book Place, also a Ning community, features a blog, podcasts, reviews, and discussion.
• Writers Digest: the online community associated with the grande dame of aspiring writers’ magazines, Writers Digest , the site offers some social networking but mostly supports the magazine. Online subscriptions are available.
• Gaia Community: once you join the community you’ll have access to the books section. Very useful if you’re interested in spirituality and healing topics.

In addition to the list above, there is a Facebook application called Visual Bookshelf that you can access from inside Facebook. It’s another community that shares reading lists and reviews.

So that’s it for now! I’ll update this list periodically, as community life on the Net is always changing, always growing … but this should get you started. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

May Fitzgerald Be Your Inspiration, too!

Today’s guest blogger is Michael Sean Morris, a writer I know from a historical fiction email list and the words and energy behind the informative and delightful Pop Culture Institute:

*****
Here is where I have no legitimate experience (i.e., getting published) but have the theory down. Besides, the only reason I haven’t been published is a) insecurity, and b) I never send anything out. Once I get those licked I’ll be set.

My God in all things literary, F. Scott Fitzgerald (hallowed be thy name), used to take two, and no more than three, days to write a single short story. In his opinion they could easily be overwritten. Once you have the idea, sketch it out in one go, then flesh it out the same way, either the same day or the following. Put it away for 24 hours, final draft and send, before you get cold feet.

Whether it was innate talent, the speed involved, or simply the massive number of submissions, he managed to publish regularly enough that by the 1930s Scribner’s and the Saturday Evening Post were asking him for stories. He used the short stories to explore themes in his novels, as a quick form of currency, and, I suspect, preferred short fiction because it was easier to focus on as his brain was pickling from bootleg hooch.

Having tried his techniques (minus the booze) I find there’s something in them. If it’s not your thing, don’t force it, but consider this. Many literary journals publish short stories. The pay isn’t great, but it’s a credit with terrific cachet, and often the stories in them are excerpts from a novel in process, a testing of the waters, if you will. In fact, I’ve decided to market my own Chapter One in this way, as it may lend the entire project a momentum and credibility it doesn’t currently have (since I’m one of those loser know-nothings without a paper for my education .”

*****

I’ve always believed that writing short stories is excellent exercise for novelists: the form foces the writer to think about word choices, characterizations, descriptions, and flow in ways that longer works (which, let’s face it, allow us to become a little sloppy) simply don’t. Even reading a lot of short stories is a good mental exercise: it keeps the focus clear.

Whatever your inspiration, try something challenging in your writing today. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!