Special WOTM Post: An Updated Award-Winner Is Help for Anyone Who Writes

Writers on the Move subscribers, visitors, and fellow participants have been an important part of my network for a long time now. You can read "network" as "friends," if you like for that is networking should be. 

Naturally, our trusted leader Karen Cioffi-Ventrice offered me a special spot to let our Writers on the Move principals and audience know about my new book because we're both convinced that reading is one of the best ways to further our professional careers.  It's friends like you that qualify me to give others advice on editing. So here goes! 

 The Frugal Editor: Do-it-yourself editing secrets for

authors:From your query letter to final manuscript to the marketing of your new bestseller is a New! Updated! Expanded! Second Edition of the multi award-winning first edition. It has a new subtitle, a new cover by Chaz DeSimone with a new 3D sensibility by Gene Cartwright. 

I am including “Seven Editing Myths” in this post. I hope it will highlight the idea that most writers can use a little updating on our editing skills. And it never hurts to brush up on some great new editing tips like formatting your ellipses the quick and professional way, or letting Word rid your copy of those pesky two spaces between sentences. Or leaning why I believe great editing is also great marketing.

Have a wonderful 2014 including great editing and great marketing!

Carolyn Howard-Johnson

http://howtodoitfrugally.com
Blog: http://SharingwithWriters.blogspot.com
Editing Blog: http://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com

Seven Editing Myths Waiting To Trip Up
Your Campaign To Sell Your Work

Your submission to contest judges, agents, publishers, producers, and editors may never get read if your query or cover letter violates professional expectations. Here are seven editing misconceptions that can lead you astray:

1. 

Agents are a cantankerous lot. (Nope! In The Frugal Editor twenty of the nation's best agents tell you their pet peeves and they do it in the best of spirits.)

2.      If your English teacher told you something is OK, it is. (No! Language rules have changed since you were a sophomore.)

3.      If a manuscript or query is grammar-perfect, you'll be fine. (No! Lots of things that are grammatically correct will annoy publishers, agents, and editors.)

4.      Always use your Spell and Grammar Check. (No! Some suggest you don't use it at all but The Frugal Editor will help you make this tool your partner instead of your enemy.)

5.      It's easy to avoid agent and editor scams. Just ask around. (The Frugal Editor tells you how to avoid being taken.)

6.      Your publisher will assign a top-flight editor. (Maybe, but don't count on it. Besides, you can be a better partner for an editor if you know about the process.)

7.      Formatters and editors will take care of the hyphens, ellipses, and all the other grungy little punctuation marks that English teachers avoided teaching because they didn't know how to use them. (Chances are, you'll catch even great formatters and editors in an error or two if you know your stuff!)

-------

Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the classes she has taught for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program.

The first edition of The Frugal Book Promoter was named USA Book News’ “Best Professional Book” and won the coveted Irwin Award. Now in its second edition, it’s also a USA Book News award winner and received a nod from Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Awards. Her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success was also honored by USA Book News and won Readers’ Views Literary Award. Her marketing campaign for that book won the marketing award from New Generation Indie Book Awards.

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of 14 women of “San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts.