Advice to the Newbie

I’m (ahem) away from my office this graduation week, which is a great opportunity to share this guest post from author Amy Parker.*

Advice to the Newbie

May is the season of graduates, the turning over of new leaves, the quest for new discoveries. As I remember my same transition from college into the publishing world, I can think of a few things I did right, and several things I’d love to go back and tell myself. So let me save you a little trouble and offer some advice to make the transition successfully.

Break the mold. If you were born between 1980 and 2001, you’re already expected to approach new opportunities with a sense of entitlement. Instead, break that mold by applying a little biblical wisdom: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12 NIV).

Lose the ’tude. Maybe you had the highest GPA in the class. Maybe you needed help carrying all of your pins and ropes and stoles across the stage. Maybe you took all of the Honors English courses in Oxford. But for now (actually, for forever), lose the attitude. It gets you nowhere. It robs you of the opportunity to learn. And honestly, it makes you look ridiculous. You’re the newbie now: listen with two ears; speak with one mouth.

Treasure advice from veterans. They may not move as fast as you. They may have wrinkles and gray hair, but there are libraries of experience behind those crows’ feet. When given the opportunity to learn at the feet of a veteran, keep a notebook handy, follow her instructions, and treasure the decades of experience and the wealth of knowledge she is taking the time to share with you.

Keep your morals buttoned. As the ambitious newbie, you’ll be tempted—more than once—to ‘take one for the team’ or ‘help out’ a higher up or to ‘do it the way we’ve always done.’ Regardless, if the morals or logic seem sketchy, don’t be afraid to question it or just back out. It’s one thing to pay your dues, but quite another to risk your reputation. You know the difference.

Keep your options open. Writing healthcare education courses wasn’t my dream job, but it was my first out of college, so I jumped at the chance. While I was there, I made great friends, got free Starbucks, and had an über-cool downtown office with frequent field trips to the library and the Frist Center for the Arts. It also paid my salary until my dream job came calling a short nine months later.

Never underestimate your dreams. Being a children’s book editor was my dream job—or so I thought. It turns out that being an editor was only a stepping-stone to what I was really created to do: write. But had I known that from the beginning and skipped straight to writing, I would have also skipped all of the vital connections, perspective, and experience I gained along the way.

Follow your heart. If there were only one piece of advice I could give you, this one would be it. It may seem sappy and cliché, but it’s truly the only way to a fulfilled life. Continually evaluate your life, your job, your career. Is it going the way you want it to go? Is it making a difference? Are you making something other than money? If not, do some soul searching, and take one immediate step to ensure that you’re walking the path of your heart.

Congratulations. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Make the most of it.

* Amy Parker has written more than twenty books for children, teens, and adults, including the best-selling A Night Night Prayer, Thank You, God, for Mommy, and Thank You, God, for Daddy. She has collaborated with authors ranging from New York Times best sellers to her very own son.

 

Tweet: Some advice for graduates: how to be the newbie.
Tweet: “Being a children’s book editor was my dream job—or so I thought.”

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Published: 20 May, 2013 | Posted in Guest Posts, Miscellany | Tagged as: , , ,
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Short Saturday: Creative Writing

A few weeks ago something clever went Internet viral and because such things are usually videos (often involving cats *), I’m quite pleased to inform you it was, instead, a clever piece of writing.

In fact, it was an obituary in the Biloxi-Gulfport Sun Herald. It begins,”Harry Weathersby Stamps, ladies’ man, foodie, natty dresser, and accomplished traveler, died on Saturday, March 9, 2013”—and if that didn’t get your attention, this might have:

He despised phonies, his 1969 Volvo (which he also loved), know-it-all Yankees, Southerners who used the words “veranda” and “porte cochere” to put on airs, eating grape leaves, Law and Order (all franchises), cats, and Martha Stewart. In reverse order. He particularly hated Day Light Saving Time, which he referred to as The Devil’s Time. It is not lost on his family that he died the very day that he would have had to spring his clock forward. This can only be viewed as his final protest.

As it turns out, this amusing, yet warm and loving obit was written by the deceased’s daughter. And apparently she’s started a trend, if the New York Times paid death notice for Antonia Larroux is any indication. (It tries a little harder for laughs, and if you’re not a friend or family, you may not get all of them.)

It made me wonder if the sassy obituary is a thing these days. And it made me think I should probably get started on mine. After all, I’ve already planned my funeral/party. :)

* And what’s not to love?

I’m off to Ireland, by the way. The posts shall continue, but I will be a little less responsive, between the time difference and my other activities. I’ll answer everything in full when I get back. Sláinte!

Tweet: The sassy obituary—it’s a thing.
Tweet: A few weeks ago something clever went Internet viral—and it was a clever piece of writing!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Published: 18 May, 2013 | Posted in Miscellany | Tagged as: ,
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On the Road Again: Vacations and Travelogues

If you enjoy traveling—in particular if you love a good guidebook—you may already be aware that Google purchased Frommer’s last summer. Two months ago they announced there would be no more print editions. I understand all the reasons why (check those links) but as you know, I sit in front of a computer all day. When I’m done with work, I don’t want to spend more time with the computer—I really like curling up on the couch with a pile of guidebooks when I’m planning a trip.

I also love travel writing. And I’d intended to rerun—here, now—a version of my post “Travelogues for Fun and Profit” to let you know I’m taking a short vacation. (As before, the blog will continue—I’ve got some good guest posts lined up, and I’ll check in from time to time.)

Instead, I offer this, from my other blog. It’s a travelogue (mostly), if you’re interested in that sort of thing. It starts like this …

On the Road Again

The other day I set out to run errands midmorning and my car wouldn’t start. As is my wont, I called my brother, who dutifully set aside his morning plans and drove twenty minutes in to town with his portable, plug-in battery charger/diagnostician, to prevent the meltdown his sister would surely have if she were stranded for an hour or two in her comfortable home.

We ended up at Auto Zone watching a nice young man install a new battery. My brother, a farmer, was telling me a funny (in hindsight) story about saving seeds from a batch of habañeros he’d grown; his farmer’s hands are immune to the oil but he’d wiped the sweat from his face and gotten a rude, burning surprise.

The Auto Zone man engaged in a lively conversation with us about how best to handle peppers and Scoville units and what to do about it when you forget you have pepper juice on you (hint: milk, not water). He talked about police-grade pepper spray, made from the hottest peppers. He was quite knowledgeable. Finally I said, “Do you grow peppers? Are you a cook? A chili competitor?”

No, he’d watched a show on the Discovery Channel. “You can learn a lot of interesting things on television,” he said.

Indeed, you can.

But I like to do my own discovery. (And you know how I feel about television.) Although I rarely rearrange my furniture, I am adventurous when it comes to new travel experiences. I think both are by-products of growing up in a military family. My father was an air force pilot.

We lived in Stephenville, Newfoundland, in Canada, for three years when I was a young child. I still have very vivid memories of the experience. The culture was so different, so … not-American. I loved the folk songs I heard, and made my parents buy me a record of them, which I still have. I can still sing some of the songs, even.

I’se the b’y who builds th’ boat

and I’se the b’y who sails ’er,

I’se the b’y who catches the fish

and brings ’em ’ome to Liza …

I think this may have been the beginning of my fascination with the foreign.

I always thought I would travel more. My parents made sure we saw every national park and roadside attraction, of course. We had a family vacation in Hawaii in the 1960s, which was quite an eye-opener. I grew up, got married, didn’t make much money, got caught up in, you know, just staying alive. Sure, there was the odd trip or two into Mexico. And my husband and I spent every opportunity in Yosemite National Park, since we were just an hour’s drive away.

But I wanted to go to Greece. I wanted to go to England. Italy. Vienna, as the song said, was awaiting me.

I was a single mother before I made it across the Atlantic with my sixteen-year-old son. Our British hosts gave me a blank book upon our arrival. “Write everything down,” they said. “Otherwise you’ll forget the details.”

And God, as you know, is in the details.

I wrote a travelogue about that trip and e-mailed it, a chapter at a time, to friends who wanted to hear about it. Upon the announcement of subsequent trips, I was asked, “You’re going to do another travelogue, aren’t you?”

Well, yes, I am. :)

I’m getting ready for another trip now. I’ll tell you all about it.

* * *

Thanks for sharing this space with me. As noted, I’ll be on the road for a couple weeks but we’ll still be here talking about books and authors, writing and editing, words and language, and the publishing industry.

Tweet: There will be no more print editions of Frommer’s. Travelers sigh. Or not.
Tweet: I like curling up on the couch with a pile of guidebooks when I’m planning a trip.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Published: 16 May, 2013 | Posted in Miscellany | Tagged as: , , ,
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Stacking the Deck in Your Favor

A while back I was approached by a writer who was looking for editorial help with a novel he’d written. I took the project and we went through several drafts until it was good. And it was good, kids. This writer was young and unsigned, but he knew what he was doing; I just helped him grow his craft.

During this process, he asked me an interesting question: When I pitch my project, should I say it’s been through a developmental edit?

Good question.

I have seen two schools of thought on this issue. One school says you’re expected to do everything you can to make the book the best it can be, and publishers will appreciate your investment in your work. The other school (and this comes from a friend of mine who works at a respected literary agency) says “we want to know what the author can do, not what her professional editor can do.”

See the conundrum here?

It’s a very competitive climate for authors right now. There’s always been many more manuscripts on offer than available openings in a publisher’s list, but that ratio is even more strained at the moment. (As former publisher Michael Hyatt says: “The supply of hopeful authors is infinite while the supply of publishing resources is finite. Publishers can only publish a fraction of the proposals they receive.”) Between prevailing economic conditions and changes in the industry that have unsettled all the players in it, traditional publishers have scaled back on what they’re willing to risk and how many times a year they’re willing to risk it.

This competitive climate means you need to create the best possible product to have any shot at all at traditional publishing. So should you hire your own editor? When should you hire your own editor?

There’s no question that many unsigned authors are engaging professional editors to help them polish their manuscripts so they can land an agent. And I’ve worked on more than one manuscript that ultimately was picked up by an agent. One of those authors told me,

Everything I have read said to submit your very best work to agents/publishers. In my case, I had gotten as far as my experience would take me when I sent my manuscript to you. I needed a professional eye to tell me “yes, this can work” or “why don’t you try again with a different project?” I looked at the editorial process with you as a kind of writing course. I would have the benefit of an experienced professional telling me exactly where to strengthen the work or, as mentioned above, to stop wasting time on that project. (Emphasis mine.)

It’s also no secret that agents work with their clients to improve the product before they shop it—many agents are former editors—either with hands-on editorial work or by suggesting the author seek editorial help on his or her own. I’ve also been hired in scenarios like this. Furthermore I have frequently been hired to critique manuscripts publishers are considering signing; I’ve also been hired to critique manuscripts for authors before they turn them in to their publishers.

Do you see where I’m headed with this line of thinking? As an editor, I’ve been involved with manuscripts at every conceivable stage of the process between an author’s desktop and a publisher’s press.

But the question was about disclosure. Should you tell a prospective agent? Personally, I believe that honesty is unquestionably always the best policy. Still, the author I mentioned above worried that the agent would wonder how much … editing … had actually been done. In other words, the agent might think the manuscript was completely ghostwritten, rather than assuming it was good work that simply got better after a few editorial suggestions.

Writers who’ve worked with me know I require the author to do his or her own rewrites. Oh, I can write. And I’ll make suggestions (“Maybe Little Johnny says it like this: —”). But I just feel like it’s up to you to write your own book.

Bottom line? Everyone from the author to the agent to the publisher is interested in one thing: selling books. The way to do that is to make sure they’re good books. That generally results from the concentrated efforts of author and editor. Who cares when it happens! Should you tell? I say yes.

UPDATE: This post has spurred lots of interesting commentary on Facebook and Twitter—and there are some interesting comments with alternate viewpoints below. Be sure to check them out!

 

Tweet: Should you hire your own editor? When should you hire your own editor?
Tweet: “I looked at the process with an editor as a kind of writing course.”

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Published: 13 May, 2013 | Posted in The Book Biz | Tagged as: , , , ,
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Short Saturday: Five Things Fiction Acquisitions Editors Never Say

We’ve talked some here about the various types of editors and what they do (you can start here and then check this). Quickly, though, acquisitions editors are the folks at publishing houses to which your agent is sending your book proposals. If you’re me, acquisitions editors (or their assistants) are sending you work.

I follow quite a few acquisitions editors on Twitter (NYC Editor Gal cracks me up); I follow the blogs of more than a few former acquisitions editors (see right); and on occasion I have lunch with an acquisitions editor. :) Acquiring editors are always on the go, always short on time, always a little behind … and they often call on editor humor to get them through their very long days.

Like this piece from Ramona Richards * at Novel Rocket. It’s hilarious and oh, so true. Here are the five things:

1. That’s such a pretty manuscript, I want to buy it.

2. Fiction is exactly like nonfiction; any good editor will do.

3. Fiction is exactly like nonfiction; no platform equals no sales.

4. It’s Amish, so I want it.

5. I’ve never seen a book like this before, so I’m not interested.

Read the article. There’s more than just this—including the most important piece of advice you’ll get here or anywhere. Check it out!

* Fiction acquisitions editor for Abingdon Press, Ramona Richards has edited more than four hundred publications and worked with such publishers as Thomas Nelson, Barbour, Howard, Harlequin, Ideals, and others. She’s the author of nine books, including the recent Memory of Murder from Love Inspired. An avid live music fan, Ramona loves living in the ongoing street party that is Nashville.

 

Tweet: Five things fiction acquisitions editors never say.
Tweet: This includes the most important piece of advice you’ll get here or anywhere!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Published: 11 May, 2013 | Posted in The Book Biz | Tagged as: , , ,
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The Best of Just About Everything

Book readings/signings draw an interesting mix: people in the biz, people who want to be in the biz, people who simply love books, and so on. The featured author reads from his brand-new novel, takes a few questions, signs some books, and then folks stand around talking until the bookseller ahems discreetly, at which point people look at their watches and realize they should go home.

I went to one of these events a few weeks ago (in fact, I’ve already written about it briefly), and I want to tell you about the author and his book, because I really enjoyed it. Them.

I was introduced to author Michael Dahlie (pronounce this like daily) by my friend Beth, who is working on her MFA at Butler University, where Dahlie is a writer-in-residence. She sent me his A Gentleman’s Guide to Graceful Living, which won the 2009 PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel—follow this link and scroll through the list of winners; he’s in very good company—and later won the Whiting Writers’ Award (look here for winners).

“Read this,” she wrote. “You’ll like it.”

I did and I did. So when Beth let me know that Mike would be at Parnassus Books reading from his latest novel, The Best of Youth, I wrote it on my calendar. When the time came, I was one of the interesting mix. Which brings me back ’round to that question-and-answer session.

We discussed the author’s life in New York before he sold his first book. (New York City features prominently as a character in both A Gentleman’s Guide to Graceful Living and The Best of Youth.) Dahlie lived there eight years, much of it as a starving artist, and that insider view of the city and its foibles and inhabitants is on every page.

From there we moved to the subject of editing (“on average, how many rewrites do you go through?” and suchlike) and then one gentleman brought up Dahlie’s editor. If the editor requested changes, he asked, would such requests be to make the book more artful or to make it more commercially viable?

Art or commerce? Boy, that’s a conundrum. (Naturally I wanted to leap up and say, “I’ll take this one, Mike!” Ha.)

Dahlie gave a graceful answer, paying tribute to his editor, Jill Bialosky (a poet and novelist herself, as well as editor at W. W. Norton & Co.), who he believes edited his work for its art, although he pointed out that Norton is the last of the Big Six (er, Big Five) publishing houses to remain independent of international conglomerates. He reminded listeners that books do need to make money. And then he said something so real and so lovely I got my pen out and wrote it down: “Believe me, when you are broke in New York, [editing a book for commercial viability] is something you think about.”

This is a subject Dahlie deals with very cleverly in The Best of Youth. Young twenty-something Henry Lang—innocent, sincere, possessed of a talent for writing and a very large inheritance—moves to a hipster neighborhood in Brooklyn, which he believes to be the center of the literary universe. Eventually he is given an opportunity to ghostwrite a novel for a celebrity actor (Kipling) who, according to the agent making the pitch, is “leveraging himself into new things and thinks this might be a good line for him.” Ah, yes, the Commerce School of Bookwriting. Naturally, it involved a meeting with the “author.”

“I’d write this myself,” Kipling went on, “but I’ve got so much going on right now. Of course, if this were real, not a book for kids, I’d never let anyone write it for me. I mean, I want this book to be great. Really. […] And it’s just, well, I thought if I had someone to work with … I mean, you’re the writer. But I have a vision for all this. I’ll be working very closely with you.”

Again, Henry slipped back into wondering if this was all a terrible idea, but he simply said, “Yes, Merrill said you had some kind of outline. I’d love to look it over.”

Kipling shook his head and said, “No, no, I don’t have an outline. I don’t even know who the characters are, or what happens, or where it’s set for that matter. But those things will come if we think about the thing that’s been on my mind for awhile […] What I’d like to write is a book about a young person, a twelve-year-old, say, who’s friends with an old person.” […]

“So there’s no plotline or anything laid out?” Henry asked again. […] It struck Henry that if this was what Kipling thought an idea looked like, it would all be hard going.

I laughed ’til I cried when I read this particular passage, because it’s happened to me—the celebrity, the lack of ideas. (And that’s all I’m going to say about that!) There’s plenty more commentary on the art (or artifice?) of the book biz where that came from too.

The Best of Youth is both subtle and hilarious. Henry is at once a naïf in hipster Brooklyn and yet certain of what he wants, if not how to get it. He is so inept—everything he touches turns to awkward—I laughed and cringed in equal measure.

Unlike Henry’s book, which is conceived in commerce, Michael Dahlie’s charming book is all art—a “send-up of literary life, modern culture, and the meaning of fame,” as one reviewer notes. I loved this story. And after all that cringing, it has such a satisfying ending—if it hadn’t been nearly midnight and I in bed, I’d’ve stood up and cheered.

Tweet: Art or commerce? Boy, that’s a conundrum. @MichaelDahlie nails it.
Tweet: #TheBestofYouth is both subtle & hilarious. I laughed & cringed in equal measure.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Published: 9 May, 2013 | Posted in Books You Might Like, The Book Biz | Tagged as: , , , , , ,
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Keeping Up With My Industry

When I got divorced (lo, these many moons ago) I’d been out of the corporate world for some time, raising the Boy. Then I went to work for a wonderful boss who, as I worked for him and just as a matter of course, brought me up to speed on “our” industry. Sometimes I asked questions, but mostly he was subtly schooling me in what I needed to know to be effective in my work. It was a fantastic crash course, and today I still employ the things I learned from him about my industry.*

All this happened before the Internet, before Facebook, before Twitter, before (God help us) smartphones. One person could, over time, accumulate a store of useful knowledge.

I’ve been thinking about this because of a vitriolic personal attack I received through my website, accusing me, among other things, of failing to keep up with the industry. It took me by surprise because, well, I actually do try to keep up. (For a variety of reasons, of course, but there is the small matter of this blog, which doesn’t spring fully formed from Zeus’s brow, after all.) It’s in my best interests.

“I’ll get the sad part out of the way first,” industry journalist Porter Anderson wrote a few weeks ago about someone who really has failed to keep up with the industry.

At the well-run, much-enjoyed Writer’s Digest Conference East this weekend in New York City, one of the nearly 500 attendees got into the aisle, waited patiently to reach a Q&A microphone, and then asked the speaker: “What happened to Borders?”

I’ve looked it up so you don’t have to: The last Borders stores closed on September 18, 2011. The bankruptcy filing was in February 2011. Close to 20,000 employees lost their jobs in that nightmare. This question was lobbed at the stage on April 6, 2013.

Yeah, that’s behind, all right. But how in the world can any one person keep up? (And still get her work done? And still take the occasional vacation and still, you know, read the occasional book? For pleasure.)

Twitter helps. ** I follow people in the book biz and related industries, and I line them up in categories on TweetDeck (agents, authors, publishers, kidlit, editors, and on and on). I take a few minutes every day to see what they’re saying, and I follow some of the links they post. There are bloggers I follow too (just look at the list in the right-hand column here).

One can’t read all of the bloggers all of the time, though. Which is why I’m going to mention this name again: Porter Anderson. He’s a thirty-two-year career journalist and he’s paying really close attention to the book biz in case you don’t have time to. Anderson writes the weekly Thursday column “Writing on the Ether” at national publishing analyst Jane Friedman’s blog. On Tuesdays he writes an “internationalist” version of the column he calls “Ether for Authors” specifically for writers. It’s at Publishing Perspectives. He’s also a regular contributor to Writer Unboxed, and appears at Digital Book World too. And I’ve just scratched the surface.

I don’t know how Anderson does it, but I stand in awe. He’s at all the big book/publishing conferences, he knows everybody in the industry, he’s reading everyone else’s blogs and tweets and articles, and he’s pulling it all together in cogent, timely, and intelligent analysis week after week. (And did I mention he’s got a great sense of humor?)

It’s that analysis thing that kills me: researching, thinking, and then making the relevant connections is hard work. But that’s what real journalists do. I go to the Ether first to know what’s going on in my industry. You should too.

* I’m not going to go all purple prose on you or anything, but I do appreciate the free education, Wayne Zeitner. I’ve tried to put it to good use.
** Thank you, Toni Birdsong. This was another education for which I’m grateful.

 

Tweet: How in the world can any one person keep up with her industry? I’ll tell you how.
Tweet: Paying really close attention to the #bookbiz in case you don’t have time to.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Published: 6 May, 2013 | Posted in The Book Biz | Tagged as: , , , , ,
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Short Saturday: America’s Second Revolution

For a pair of countries that share so much history (read David Hackett Fischer’s fascinating Albion’s Seed if you don’t believe me), England and the United States are curiously divided on words and how to use them. Or spell them.

The fact that we’re still talking about it in 2013 just proves the theme of this piece about Noah Webster by Christopher Zara at Glittersnipe:

A reformist in the purest sense of the word, Webster believed that adopting a unified American language was vital to the collective consciousness of the young nation. He was determined to either usher in that new language or die trying, … [because] for Webster, the dictionary meant more than just choosing the word “cookie” over “biscuit” or preferring “garbage” to “rubbish.” It meant solidifying a national identity for a nation that was still very much in the midst of an identity crisis. Were we a real country or a scattershot collection of colonies? Webster knew that the answer resided not in boundaries and borders, but in words.

When I was researching my previous post, I read about Webster, of course—but not that he was such a stickler. (I’ll bet he would love the Dictionary of American Regional English.) And ¡Viva la revolución! I’m proud to know the dictionary I use today is a direct descendent of Mr. Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language.

Tweet: For a pair of countries that share so much history, England & the US are curiously divided on words.
Tweet: Noah Webster led America’s second great revolution.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Published: 4 May, 2013 | Posted in Words & Language | Tagged as: , , , ,
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Not All Dictionaries Are Created Equal

If you’ve been coming ’round here for awhile, you know I have a thing for the dictionary. There’s, like, so much information in such a small space! It’s so efficient! And it contains all the building blocks for my work in one place! Aaaah.

But the dictionary’s a relatively new development, considering humankind has been writing down words since, oh, 2500 BCE or so. (We’re not going to quibble about dates; it was a long time ago.) When Jane Austen was writing—relatively recently—in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, no one spelled “correctly” because there just weren’t standards for that—or the standards were just beginning to be hammered out.

Samuel Johnson was one of the hammerers: he published A Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, and it became a best seller. This dictionary was arranged alphabetically rather than topically and contained textual references (that is, “use it in a sentence,” as your first-grade teacher used to say), in addition to definitions. It was the gold standard for more than a hundred and fifty years.

Fifty or so years after Johnson, Noah Webster published an American dictionary in 1805. It took another eighty years for the Oxford University Press to get in on the act; scholars there began work on the Oxford English Dictionary in 1884 and published all twelve volumes of that first edition in 1928. (According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the OED is the world’s most comprehensive single-language print dictionary.)

Me, I love my Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate eleventh edition, which is descended in a direct line from Noah Webster’s word book. A reader questioned me about that once. What was so special about Merriam-Webster? Was I dissing the OED? Not at all. I trust it and it’s certainly complete—but the MW11 is the preferred dictionary of many of the publishers for whom I work. Also, of course, Merriam-Webster is a dictionary of American English, which is what I use every day. And think about it: the OED may be a dictionary of the people, but it’s not really for the people: the second print edition is twenty volumes and $995. My MW11 was about twenty bucks.

Not that I use the big red book anymore. No, when you have your hands in the dictionary as much as I do, you need something online; it’s a lot faster than turning pages.

There are plenty of free online dictionaries, some better than others. Still, I would encourage you to stay with the tried-and-true; not all dictionaries are created equal. (Both Merriam-Webster and Oxford have an online presence.) Some online dictionaries have more information than others. More shocking to my lexicological sensibilities was the notion that words might be broken differently. For example, take the word experience. MW11 breaks it like this:

ex • pe • ri • ence

I was shocked to see another dictionary break it like this:

ex • per • i • ence

It may seem like a small thing, but publishing proofers hang on these sorts of issues. And of the two trusted free dictionaries I’ve linked above, only Merriam-Webster provides the word breaks.

Here’s something else that free version of MW provides: audio pronunciation. Yes! How many times have you cursed that phonetic spelling system with its accents and upside-down e’s and wished you could just hear it pronounced, definitively and correctly? You can. Click on the little blue speaker icon.

In time, you may wish to upgrade to a subscription service, if for no other reason than to avoid the ads. (Probably more importantly, neither Oxford nor MW offer every single word from their print editions in their free online versions.) I did this several years ago. And here’s yet another reason I like Merriam-Webster: the subscription service is $29.95 per annum (that works out to a little more than eight cents per day, if you’re keeping track). The OED, on the other hand—as fun as it would be to have access to—is $295 per annum and out of my budget. (To be fair, they also offer the Oxford Dictionaries Pro for $49.95; if you’re interested, check out the FAQs here.)

But I’m still fond of the recently updated online MW, from which I can access complete versions of the Unabridged, the Collegiate, the Collegiate Thesaurus, the Collegiate Encyclopedia, the medical dictionary, and both Spanish-English and French-English translation dictionaries. And they’ve just added a new feature they call “Rhymes With.” Type in upscale and you’ll get this list:

abseil, airmail, all hail, assail, avail, bake sale, bangtail, blackmail, blacktail, bobtail, broadscale, broadtail, bucktail, bud scale, canaille, cattail, chain mail, coattail, cocktail, contrail, curtail, derail, detail, doornail, dovetail, downscale, ducktail, e-mail, entail, exhale, fan mail, fantail, female, fife rail, fire sale, fishtail, folktale, foresail, foxtail, fresh gale, full-scale, gapped scale, Glendale, gray scale, greenmail, guardrail, Hallel, handrail, hangnail, headsail, hightail, hobnail, horntail, horsetail, impale, inhale, junk mail, Longueuil, lugsail, mainsail, mare’s tail, Mondale, moon snail, oxtail, pass-fail, percale, pigtail, pintail, pinwale, plate rail, pot ale, prevail, rattail, regale, resale, rescale, retail, right whale, ringtail, Sangreal, Scottsdale, sea kale, shavetail, shirttail, skysail, slop pail, small-scale, snail mail, soft hail, split rail, springtail, spritsail, square sail, staysail, strong gale, surveil, swordtail, taffrail, tag sale, telltale, third rail, thumbnail, timescale, toenail, topsail, travail, trysail, unnail, unveil, ventail, voice mail, wage scale, wagtail, wassail, whiptail, white sale, whitetail, white whale, whole gale, wholesale, yard sale.

Fantastic, no?

Tweet: Not all dictionaries are created equal! Here’s why.
Tweet: I love my dictionary! So much info! It’s so efficient! Everything I need in one place!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Published: 2 May, 2013 | Posted in Words & Language | Tagged as: , , , ,
2 Comments

Patience, Grasshopper

By now you know this publishing thing takes time, right? It’s true with the writing and editing process—don’t forget the 10,000-Hour Rule—and it’s certainly true with the process of finding an agent or publisher.

There will be lots of rejection, and that takes time too. But, kids, there are rejection letters … and then there are rejection letters. I once told a client the rejection he’d gotten was a good one; I congratulated him. “Thanks for the enthusiastic reaction to my St. Martin’s Press rejection,” he grumbled. “I’ll have to start looking at these rejections in a different light.” Oh yes. Yes, you should.

There are a lot of ways to get declined, starting with the standard it-does-not-meet-our-needs-at-this-time form letter. This rejection doesn’t even have your name on it. And what it means is exactly what it feels like: the publisher does not want to encourage you in regards to this manuscript. It is a firm no.

Remember, agents and editors track what’s selling (and what’s not selling); their jobs depend on it. If they don’t feel your manuscript will sell, if they just don’t feel any enthusiasm for it, or even if they already have something similar in the works, they don’t have time explain why; they just say no.

You’ll get a lot of these.

You might get rejections with your actual name on it. You might get rejections with some snippet of encouragement (“you’re a good writer,” say) coupled with the but it’s not right for us. Although it may not feel like much, this is a better decline than the plain ol’ form letter. Send a thank-you note back. Later, when you have something different or new, submit again.

As time goes on, you’ll join a critique group, get some feedback, tinker with the manuscript; you’ll read another book on writing, get some new ideas, start self-editing, make some other changes … and your manuscript will evolve and improve.

Now you’ll get … better rejections. :)

When an editor or agent takes time to critique your manuscript, good or bad (“weak ending” or “great writing but needs work on characterization” or “consider using first person”), that’s a good rejection. If he or she adds something like “I’d like to see it with changes” or “do you have anything else I can take a look at?” that’s a fabulous rejection.

By all means, when you get one like this, follow up right away. And then expect to wait some more. Keep working on your ten thousand hours. Start your next project. But take heart—you’re on the right track now.

Tweet: Rejection letters, good and not-so-good: this is what they look like.
Tweet: By now you know this publishing thing takes time, right?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Published: 29 April, 2013 | Posted in The Book Biz | Tagged as: , , , , ,
5 Comments