Bookcraft 2.0: Writer, Book Editor, Copyeditor — What Do They Do?

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Who Does What?

Phil and I have moved into Section Two of the four sections of his book. Are you surprised to notice that I’ve not talked about sentence structure or commas? . . . . When I was a publisher, I used to tell my boss:

You have to build the book, before you can see the commas.

Beginning of the Writing Process (courtesy of Voyages In English 2006)

This diagram shows the part of the writing process that Phil and I are currently working on.

This post is a closer look at what we’re actually doing — what his role is as the writer and what my role is as the book editor.

The Writer

The writer, that’s Phil, crafts the message. In this case that’s his blog posts.

The writerâ€™s job is to choose words with precision and arrange them carefully. His purpose is to convey meaning. He does this by prewriting, drafting, and writing/revising. The writer is on the outgoing side of the message. In this process, Phil’s blog posts are the draft in the diagram.

The Book and Content Editor

The editorâ€™s job is to challenge the writing. All editors are on the incoming side of the message. We remove ambiguities, errors, and barriers. An editor ensures that the meaning the writer intends is the meaning that reader receives. Editors look and listen for the audience and then tell the writer the truth about what they see and hear.

That’s why and how great writers and editors form lasting partnerships. The relationship is balanced and symbiotic.

As the book editor, my job is to help structure and challenge the writing to ensure that every idea and detail belongs in the book. As the content editor, my job is to challenge the writing, looking for problems in the expression of ideas â€” logic, clarity, and cohesion. I think about questions like these.

Is the focus clear? Is the message sound? Does the structure make sense for the premise? Does every part meet the standards?
Is the structure natural to the topic? Is the navigation seamless and not in the way of the message?
Is the voice confident and consistent? Does it sound like Phil’s voice? Is the tone authentic and appropriate for the audience?
Do the words make sense, with a consistency? Will the reader hear what Phil is saying without a chance of misunderstanding? Does the word choice fit the premise and the way the audience listens?
When I turn the page, is what comes next, what the reader expects?

As I answer each question for myself, I share my answers with Phil. Every week we talk. Phil uses our conversation and specific edits to do his writing revisions. He adds new content where he agrees it is needed to make the pages fit together and flow. He wants the message in the book to work for readers.

The Copyeditor

When we’re finished with all of the pages, we’ll hand them over to a copyedtior. Then the focus moves from â€œwhatâ€ the writer is saying to â€œhowâ€ and â€œhow wellâ€ the message is said.

Though copyeditors still care about sense and logic, their irreplaceable contribution lies in their work to achieve linguistic perfection. Copyeditors check for grammar, usage, mechanics, syntax and semantics. In some scenarios, proofreaders follow to check spelling and punctuation. They also check to ensure that no new errors have been introduced during the editing process. In other scenarios, copyeditors do these roles too.

Phil and I have three more sections to get through the diagram. But keep watching, we might be doing a few things with Section One while we’re working on those. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find or make a book from your archives, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Bookcraft 2.0: Even the Best Shoes Don’t Belong in a Bookstore

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Look for Books Like Yours

If you recall, Phil, an editor, and I have been through his pages. We sorted them into four parts. I’ve read the parts through again and begun the process of fine tuning the order. This will get us to the final book map. We also checked the market at Amazon to see what books like Phil’s new book were doing. . . .

I promised to tell you more about that.

When I started in publishing I was a freelancer. I read everything I could about writing and one bit of advice always confused me:

Go after the publishers who already sell the kind of book you want to write.

To me, that advice seem counter-intuitive. Why would a publisher want another book about writing if they already had a list full of them? Shouldn’t I go to where a publisher didn’t have any?

Bookcraft 2.0: Book Research at Amazon, the Data Giant

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Hitting the Market

Whether your plan is to sell your book or give it as a value-added premium, it’s a shame to invest the time to build a resource that no one is going to read. Book ideas aren’t different from other product ideas. They need market research to validate their worth.

No idea is a great just because someone had it.
It becomes a great idea when we prove it solves problem or meets a need in a new and remarkable way.

If you start from scratch or work from your own blog, a trip over to Amazon for research is the first place you should go once your idea begins to take form. Because I was new to Phil’s blog, it took time to get to that single — Hey this might be it! — idea. So we’re on our way over that right now.

Come along.
Read more

Bookcraft 2.0: The 90% Rule of Repurposing Content

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Content Always Wins

When I left you on Friday, an editor friend and I were on our way to Milwaukee to meet with Phil to make a bookmap from the rough cut of his book. The rough cut had been built on a set of criteria that made choosing content from his archives an easy decision-making process. I outlined those criteria in Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content. Now, it was time for a finer cut. Armed with 5 categories of pages, I was sure that we’d sort them into 7 or 8 chapters and make a bookmap. That was the plan.

Because our topic is timeless, we can be flexible about schedule. That gives us even more room to focus on what’s best for the book. Here’s what happened.

We didn’t make a bookmap.

I was wrong about 7 or 8 chapters.

The plan went out the door early on

because

To make a great book, the content must win. Always.

Making the Finer Cut

In order to make that finer cut, we needed a finer set of criteria. Again, we turned to black and white rules — that crucial tool for sorting intellectual gray questions efficiently.

We made two black and white “gating rules.”

A simple definition of what the book would do — Every entry, story, or example would offer a practical application for the reader.

Every written bit of content had to meet the 90% Rule of Repurposing Content.

We read aloud each piece, if it failed on either point, without question it was out.

What is the 90% Rule of Repurposing Content? It’s a rule that I made up.
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Bookcraft 2.0: Why No Bound Book Has 666 Pages and Get Your Free Blank Bookmap

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Done with the Rough Cut, Time To Map the Book

After I found the 140+ pages, I discovered that Phil actually had 6 more months of archives. What a bonus!

So I now sit with close to 170 pages — sorted into 5 categories. Those 5 categories will soon become 7 or 8 book chapters. That will happen when we’ve reviewed the larger ones to break them into more readable chunks.

The next step is to plan how the pages map out.

We’re actually going to make a bookmap.

No Bound Book Has 666 Pages

You may never have thought about it, but it’s a fact:

You can’t have a page 1 without a page 2.
Every sheet of paper has a front and a back.

That’s the first reason that page counts matter. Paper is tangible.
There are some things that paper won’t do.

It’s also a fact that:

No bound book has 666 pages.

keep looking »

Bookcraft 2.0: Writer, Book Editor, Copyeditor — What Do They Do?