In the past few weeks I’ve received queries from several writers about my editing services. “How much do you charge to edit a 110,000 word novel?” and “What will it cost to copyedit my nonfiction book. It’s about 300 pages.”
These seem like perfectly reasonable questions, don’t they? The problem for me, as an editor, is that they are too vague. Editing is a very broad term that covers every function from development through line editing to proofreading—soup to nuts in editorial services, so to speak.
When you’re on a budget (and really, who isn’t?), it’s important to plan for your upcoming expenses. Your editorial budget should not be an exception!
All writers who publish—whether traditionally, independently, or through assisted publishing—will need some level of editorial services. When you plan to seek an agent or query publishers directly, you should use at least one professional editor before you submit. In the case of self-publishing, the responsibility for editing falls entirely on your shoulders, and you may want to seriously consider a wider range of editorial services before your work goes live.
If you’re looking for a great descriptive verb for your latest word picture, look no farther! This printable bookmark is filled with choices for creating dialogue, compelling descriptions of your character’s antics, or though-provoking sentences in any style or genre. as Debbie Maxwell Allen wrote in her blog, “Sentences that use walked, sat, and thought pale in comparison to stalked, sprawled, and stewed. However, don’t label yourself as a failure if strong verbs don’t automatically show up in your manuscript. Adding stronger verbs is something you do in your rewriting.”
Print this out on card stock for a handy reference that’s always at the ready—and another big thank you to artist Ginny Millard at www.banyantreestudio.com for creating it. Please visit Ginny’s website and let her know how much you appreciate having all these fantastic word choices at your fingertips.
If you like the idea of a bookmark filled with words, you’ll find another filled with Synonyms for Said in an earlier blog.
And don’t forget to “bookmark” Change It Up Editing and Writing Services for all your editing and writing needs in 2013. Let me help you say it the way you mean it!
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Present Tense: Breathlessly Waiting to Read About What’s Already Happened
Several months ago I wrote “Present Tense: Breathlessly Waiting to Read About What’s Already Happened,” in which I posited that writing in present tense is difficult for most writers to do effectively. Two fellow bloggers commented that they felt their stories worked best using present tense, and I invited each of them to write a guest blog about this to share with us.
print and e-book formats. It offers both a mirror and a roadmap to guide women to new understandings about individual thoughts, actions, and strengths.
You can hear the author speak about resilience today, Tuesday, March 5, on A Moment of Change with Sherry Gaba and Cathleen O’Connor on CBS Skye Radio. And be sure to check out Dr. O’Gorman’s blog at http://thepowerfulwoman.net for more on this subject.
Learn more about this fantastic “must-read” tool for personal growth here, and buy or download the book at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, or at your favorite bookseller today!
Happy Reading, and please let me know what you think of The Resilient Woman!
—Candace
Update 4/1/13: Publisher’s Weekly review of The Resilient Woman here.
I am excited to announce the publication on Tuesday, March 5 of an important new book I was privileged to edit: The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power by Dr. Patricia O’Gorman, PhD offers both a mirror and a roadmap to guide women to new understandings about individual thoughts, actions, and strengths.
Societal messages that tell women they aren’t smart enough, pretty enough, good enough—self-sabotaging girly thoughts that tell them who they are and how they should act—compete with the voice of women’s inner strength, a strength that helps them forge their own best solutions for their best courses of action.
In The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power, Dr. O’Gorman offers a thoughtful analysis of the causes of girly thoughts as well as in-depth self-evaluation assessments any woman can use to identify her personal strengths, weaknesses, and resilience style, plus seven daily steps that offer concrete strategies for women to create and strengthen their own resilience. In The Resilient Woman, readers discover:
resilience patterns established in childhood
how girly thoughts become so powerful and how to neutralize them
relationship issues that are specific to women
how to overcome physical/ psychological/emotional trauma
how to self-motivate by losing the victim mentality
methods for tuning in to the inner self and consciously align with personal strengths to expand their personal power
what resiliency is and is not, and how to achieve it
personal resilience patterns
Author Patricia O’Gorman, PhD, is an internationally recognized psychologist, coach, and public speaker known for her work on women, trauma, and substance abuse. She is a cofounder of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics and has held positions ranging from clinical director of a child welfare agency and interim director of a crime victims organization to Director of Prevention for NIAAA and founding director of the Department of Prevention and Education for NCADD. Dr. O’Gorman maintains private practice offices in Saranac Lake and Albany, New York. For information, please visit: www.patriciaogorman.com.
Read what others have said about this important book:
The Resilient Woman explores why and how we revert to our girlhoods for so many of our emotional responses, how to analyze and overcome the results of those responses, and how to make decisions based on our adult selves.” —Elaine Wilson, Esq., past president of the Foothill (East San Diego County) Bar Association
“The Resilient Woman offers the tools we need to make change in our lives plus the actionable steps to help us live from our base of personal power. It’s a masterpiece!” —Teena Cahill, PsyD, humorist, TV and radio show host, director of Wisdom and Beyond, and author of The Cahill Factor: Turning Adversity into Advantage
“The resilience journal Dr. O’Gorman guides readers to create is an excellent exercise for every woman to use to begin the process of developing a resilient life. This is a book I recommend not just for woman; men will benefit from this information, too.”
—Erin Merryn, Glamour’s Woman of the Year 2012, political activist, and author of Stolen Innocence and Living for Today
“(This) practical and warmly written book invites readers to recognize and boost their resilience as they take the journey to transform and give higher meaning to their lives. By the end of The Resilient Woman I was saying, ‘Yes, I am!’ and ‘Yes, I can!’”
—Kathryn Brohl, LMFT, author of Social Service Workplace Bullying; A Betrayal of Good Intentions
“The Resilient Woman reflects (Dr. O’Gorman’s) latest thinking on an issue that debilitates tens of thousands of women—a way of thinking and behaving that can literally be fatal—and shows the way to a new path of personal power.
—Julie D. Bowden, MS, marriage, family, and child therapist and coauthor of Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics.
I encourage women (and the men who love them) to read this essential book, and then feel free to share your opinion on your favorite online book site. You can purchase the book or download it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or wherever books are sold.
Happy Reading, and please let me know what you think of The Resilient Woman!
—Candace
Update April 15, 2013: Watch Dr O’Gorman discussing her book on WTNH.com
“A resilient life is generated not from the things that happened to you, but from your reactions to them.” —Patricia O’Gorman, PhD, The Resilient Woman
My father turned 86 this week; our homes are a day’s travel apart—two airplane flights and an hour-long drive at both ends. My father is in poor health, and each time I visit I wonder if this will be the last time I will see him.
If nothing else, my father is resilient. He’s been hospitalized with pneumonia several times in the past six months; his lifestyle has changed from autonomy to dependence on others for many things, yet he refuses to give up anything he doesn’t have to give up. He still shops and runs errands, even though he has to depend on others for transportation; he insists on cooking for himself and even makes a full dinner for a neighbor once a week; he still believes he will be back to driving himself around town one day soon (not a hope I share, by the way); and although he grumbles about all the medications he’s on for his heart, lung, and circulation issues, he is as compliant about following his doctor’s orders as an 86-year-old man can be. My dad probably wouldn’t describe the way he deals with these challenges as resiliency, but I would.
Merriam-Webster.com defines resilience as “An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” I’ve learned that I’m resilient, too; in the past year, I: Continue reading “Resilience, Part One”
Imagine my surprise this morning when I found my name mentioned in a new blog post!
Cindy Pasquelene, who writes at The Writer Backblogger, was one of the winners of last week’s drawing for free editing. Cindy sent the first 1,500 words of her NaNoWriMo novel for my feedback, and . . .
I spend some time every morning searching Twitter, blogs, and the Internet for interesting things to post on my Facebook page. If you aren’t already a fan, I hope you’ll check it out here.
I held two drawings last November for free editing: one winner was randomly selected from my blog followers and one from fans of my Facebook page.
The Facebook winner was author Maureen Francisco, whose first book, It Takes Moxie, was approaching the publication date. Because Maureen is a savvy author and a skilled marketer, she knows how important it is to get the word out about her book; she used her free editing to have me work with her on several articles she hoped would be picked up by major media outlets.
I’d like to share a short excerpt from “6 Ways to Improve Your Work Ethic” so you can see how a little tweaking here and there can make a BIG difference without changing the author’s voice. I’ve lined up the original followed by the edited version so you can see the differences:
In the past week I came across two websites that offer unusual editing services. Unusual isn’t bad, but in these particular cases, unusual is definitely NOT good for authors.
One of these companies is a membership site that proposes to save authors money on professional editing by trading editing with other members; in other words, you and another writer edit each other’s books, thereby eliminating the cost of having your manuscript professionally edited.
What’s wrong with that? Nothing, as long as you understand that the chances of having a professional edit your work are slim to none. In reality, this service is a beta-reader service, which is very useful in its own right—but let’s call it what it is. And it is no substitute for professional editing or proofreading.
In the past few weeks I’ve received queries from several writers about my editing services. “How much do you charge to edit a 110,000 word novel?” and “What will it cost to copyedit my nonfiction book. It’s about 300 pages.”
