The Author-izer » Editing

Writing and Publishing News for April 19th through April 27th

Sallie Goetsch — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 05:00:43 +0000

Here’s what I’ve tagged for April 19th through April 27th:

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Writing and Publishing News for February 15th through February 19th

Sallie Goetsch — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 05:02:50 +0000

Here’s what I’ve tagged for February 15th through February 19th:

Writing and Publishing News for January 31st through February 4th

Sallie Goetsch — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:01:24 +0000

Here’s what I’ve tagged for January 31st through February 4th:

Writing and Publishing News for January 8th through January 17th

Sallie Goetsch — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:05:46 +0000

Here’s what I’ve tagged for January 8th through January 17th:

Writing and Publishing News for December 7th from 09:42 to 10:02

Sallie Goetsch — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:06:11 +0000

It’s a busy day in the writing world:

Writing and Publishing News for November 11th through November 13th

Sallie Goetsch — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:04:16 +0000

Here’s what I’ve tagged for November 11th through November 13th:

Writing and Publishing News for November 6th through November 9th

Sallie Goetsch — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:01:44 +0000

Here’s what I’ve tagged for November 6th through November 9th:

Interview with Mitch Joel

Sallie Goetsch — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:08:00 +0000

Mitch Joel is a social media rock star who runs an extremely successful digital marketing business in Beautiful Montreal. I’ve been listening to his Six Pixels of Separation podcast since he started it. Since he’s just come out with a book by the same name, everyone is interviewing him about his social media insights.

I, on the other hand, wanted to talk to Mitch about publishing. He’s said too many interesting things on Media Hacks recently. (Two of the other contributors to Media Hacks, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, have just published a best-selling book together, and another one, Hugh McGuire, runs a book start-up.)

In this interview, Mitch talks about:

His previous experience with the publishing industry
The importance of having a platform
The difference between writing a book and writing a collection of blog posts
The powerful mystique that publishing a book retains even (or especially) in the age of social media
The value of a good editor
Why his publisher made his book more blog-like
Distribution and business models in publishing
What makes a book a book

Mitch is an incredibly articulate one-take podcaster. I’m not. I’ve edited this interview slightly for fluency. In particular, I’ve rearranged the beginning, because Mitch and I started our conversation before his introduction.

A big thanks to Mitch for such a fabulous interview.

Since they can’t keep Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone in the stores, I’d recommend you all buy it on Amazon (and give me a few cents in commission while you’re at it).

Bookmarks for June 14th through July 2nd

Sallie Goetsch — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:06:15 +0000

These are my links for June 14th through July 2nd:

What’s the Hardest Part About Editing and Rewriting Content?

Sallie Goetsch — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:54:00 +0000

That question comes from Jacob Bear on LinkedIn:

What’s the hardest part about editing and rewriting content?

As a copywriter, I get asked a lot to rewrite web pages, press releases, direct mail and other content. I try to avoid doing this (creating original copy is a lot more fun and more lucrative), so I’d like to post a series of online video tutorials to walk people through the process.

I’m trying to get a sense of the biggest writing challenges, so I can address them in the videos.

Actually, the thing that’s really hardest for me is writing what copyeditors call “queries” rather than just fixing problems. But that wasn’t the kind of editing Jacob was talking about, so I said this instead:

Editing other people’s content is actually fairly easy; the challenge is to preserve their “voice” if the writing is informal/personal. Editing your own material is harder because you’re close to it. It’s best to take a break from it, wait a few days, do something to get it out of your head so that you can look at it with fresh eyes. You could ask a friend or family member to read it and tell you whether there’s anything confusing.

One successful author I know recommends doing all your editing on hard copy: print it out, take it and your red pen away from the computer, sit down, and write in the edits and comments, without changing anything yet. Then go back and make the changes at the computer.

Or, of course, you could just refer clients who want editing rather than original work to someone who’s happy doing rewrites.

And, incidentally, I charge the same amount whether I’m writing new content or editing. You may find that raising your rates for editing a) makes you more willing to do it and b) reduces the frequency with which you get asked to do it.

There were a lot of good answers posted. It’s worth going over to LinkedIn and reading all of them.