The Frugal Editor
Subtitle: Do it yourself editing secrets for authors: From your query letter to final manuscript to the marketing of your new bestseller
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Genre: Nonfiction: Writers/Editing/Writing
Available as e-book at http://bit.ly/FrugalEditorKind
Second Edition Gets Spit and Polish
Digital Books Make New Edits of Even a
Book on Editing Possible
Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s newest book is a second edition of the multi
award-winning The Frugal Editor: Do-it-yourself editing secrets for authors:
From your query letter to final manuscript to the marketing of your new
bestseller. And now it’s sporting new formatting and even a few additions
all because of the magic of e-books.
The
author of the HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers was inspired a poem
one of her clients sent her for editing. The author had used the lovely-to-look
at ampersand everywhere she need to use an and. That, of course, could be
a style choice, but not all style choices are good choices. Poetry should be
trimmed of excess words, but this choice only shortened conjunctions that could
have just been red-penciled out. The poet said she had made the choice because
ampersands are so pretty. Yes, they are. So pretty and so rarely used that the
reader could become distracted from the poem’s intent and the imagery. Carolyn’s
editing instinct has always demanded that trickery with font, formatting,
strained metaphors and the like should be avoided. She can only hope her client
took her advice.
But the
incident made the author realize that most writers don’t understand when
ampersands can and should be used. So, it was back to the recent edition to make
additions—thanks to the ease of fixing books published digitally these days.
The first
edition of The Frugal Editor published in 2007 was winner of USA Book
News’ pick for Best Professional Book, a Reader Views winner, and received nods
from the Next Generation awards and the Military Writers Society of America, but
the new version is Expanded (more than 100 pages)! Updated! And Reformatted. It
also has a a new subtitle, a new cover by
Chaz DeSimone
with a new three-dimensional look by
Gene Cartwright.
And this e-book version was honored again by Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Awards
and the Next Generation Indie Awards.
The second
edition covers new editing tricks the author has come to appreciate since the
first was published, including how to spot the overuse of helping verbs when
simple past tense would work just as well; a reminder that politically correct
usage isn’t always what a writer should strive for (consider some of the
language used in the award-winning movie Twelve Years A Slave); and more
on style choices vs. grammar rules and how to make those choices.
She says, “I'd be embarrassed if I had to say I hadn't learned anything more I
could share with my readers in seven years since the first edition was
published.”
The
Frugal Editor
received plaudits from industry shakers like Marilyn Ross, founder of Small
Publishers or North America; Tim Bete, director of Dayton University’s Erma
Bombeck Writers’ Conference, and respected industry editors like Barbara
McNichol.
Howard-Johnson,
an instructor for nearly a decade at UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, chose to
release this new edition for e-books with Amazon’s Kindle because their free app
allows readers to access it for many platforms and the lower price of digital
publishing gives her struggling students and clients an affordable choice. It
will soon be available for print, too.
Whichever
format a reader chooses, The Frugal Editor battles the gremlins out there
who are determined to keep an author’s work from being published or promoted.
Resolved to embarrass authors before the gatekeepers who can turn the key of
success for them—these gremlins lurk in a writer’s subconscious and the depths
of computer programs. Whether a new or experienced author, The Frugal Editor
helps writers present whistle-clean copy (from a one-page cover letter to your
entire manuscript) to those who have the power to say “yea” or “nay.”
The
author is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in
Arts and Entertainment Award, her community’s Character and Ethics award for her
work promoting tolerance with her writing, and its Diamond Award for her work
with arts and culture. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of 14
women of “San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen.” She has worked for
Good Housekeeping Magazine and as a journalist for several newspapers and
has been a popular presenter at writers’ conferences nationwide like the one at
San Diego State University and the Sinclair Lewis Writers’ Conference. She is
also a novelist and poet, which informs the advice she gives to authors of those
genres.
# # # #
“Absolutely essential for beginning writers and a necessary reminder for the
more advanced. The mentor you've been looking for. This book won't collect
dust!”~Christina Francine, review for Fjords Review
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