Three Things about Authors, From a Copy Editor's Perspective

First, we all start out as newbies, and there is nothing wrong with this. We have to begin somewhere. Just think of all those people who wish to write a novel someday, yet haven't. Well, we've done it. And it's not as easy as it seems, right? So we've done something huge. Now there are relative measures as to this "newbie" status, with a few authors exhibiting their vast potential Day One, like Nora Roberts aka J. D. Robb, Ayn Rand and other greats, which leads me to the next point.

Second, we all continue to learn, to grow in our craft as we pursue our careers as authors. Yes, even the J. D. Robbs of the world. We never stop gaining knowledge as to our art. In the State of Texas, lawyers are required to annually complete a minimum fifteen hours of continuing education. For me, as an Indie author, I easily read weekly that much and more of how-to material. Even if a book/article is about things well-known to me, I still search to find one nugget of gold therein that is new and useful. But regardless of the actual time expended, we career authors continually strive to improve.

Third, we all have blind spots, no matter how brilliant our writing is on the whole (just like our cars have blind spots no matter how wonderful the make and model). We all have unconscious, as-yet-unknown oversights that show up in our writing. Hopefully some ace copy editor or critique partner can point those out for us, so we can watch for them and deal with them as needed.

I've read where some authors update their earlier work, applying their current level of expertise to novels from the beginning of their career. Whether we make this particular effort or not, our work as authors is never really done. So keep on writing, learning, perfecting.

Best wishes to all.

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

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http://denisebarkerauthor.blogspot.com/

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

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What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue.  You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley
The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra

HarperCollins Took a Tiny Step in the Right Direction

Per this article by Laura Hazard Owen, https://gigaom.com/2014/10/02/finally-a-big-5-publisher-raises-digital-royalties-but-theres-a-catch/, it seems HarperCollins has an online Web site to sell their authors' books and, based on HC's announcement on Thursday, has increased the previous royalty rate for physical books and e-books from 15% and 25%, respectively, to 25% and 35% on their Web site. It's a tiny step in the right direction for compensating the authors, the creators of all those books.

Click the link to read the full article.

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

amazon.com/author/denisebarker

http://denisebarkerauthor.blogspot.com/

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

http://bit.ly/AMAZONDeniseBarkerEbooks

http://bit.ly/BNDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/SMASHWORDSDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/KOBODeniseBarkerEBooks

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue.  You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley
The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra

Amazon v. Hachette

I've been watching some of the clips and reading some of the blog/newspaper articles on this subject. (Remember some of the owners of these newspapers also own some of the Big 5 Publishers.) I've run across some very succinct articles, but this one I just have to share. Check out C. J. Lyons's No Rules, Just Write blog post entitled "Three Sides to This Fight?" found here: http://www.norulesjustwrite.com/three-sides-to-this-fight/.

The Internet brought about the possibility of the situation which has currently involved Amazon v. Hachette. And while I don't think Jeff Bezos helped to create the Internet, he did have the foresight to build Amazon upon it.

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

amazon.com/author/denisebarker

http://denisebarkerauthor.blogspot.com/

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

http://bit.ly/AMAZONDeniseBarkerEbooks

http://bit.ly/BNDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/SMASHWORDSDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/KOBODeniseBarkerEBooks

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue.  You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley
The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra

Son's Gift to Author Mom is One for the Books

Here's a nice tearjerker of a story. How a son self-published his mother's book, At the End of Magic (written more than ten years ago), as his thank-you to her for raising him, for putting him first in her life. You'll love this article. It's worth the tears. See http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/blogs/274023831.html?page=1&c=y.

I've bought my copy. Want yours? Here's an Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/At-End-Magic-Mary-Petrie-ebook/dp/B00L6IMAMQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1410304482&sr=1-1&keywords=at+the+end+of+magic.

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

amazon.com/author/denisebarker

http://denisebarkerauthor.blogspot.com/

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

http://bit.ly/AMAZONDeniseBarkerEbooks

http://bit.ly/BNDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/SMASHWORDSDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/KOBODeniseBarkerEBooks

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue.  You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley
The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra

Standing Against Plagiarism

This just hurts my soul. There are some things I hate with a fury: bullies, abusers, people who steal the efforts of another. Here is such a story.

Rachel Ann Nunes had one of her stories stolen by someone using the pen name Sam Taylor Mullens, whose real name seems to be Tiffanie Rushton. I say this "seems to be" her real name as she has twenty-two aliases, per a recent post entitled "Utah Schoolteacher Charged with Plagiarism and Cyberbullying" at http://www.davidfarland.net/writing_tips/?a=414.

If you care to donate even $5 toward Ms. Nunes's court costs, go here:
http://www.gofundme.com/StandingAgainstPlagiarism.

For another excellent article on the topic, see http://johndopp.com/plagiarism-sam-taylor-mullens-busted/.

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

amazon.com/author/denisebarker

http://denisebarkerauthor.blogspot.com/

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

http://bit.ly/AMAZONDeniseBarkerEbooks

http://bit.ly/BNDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/SMASHWORDSDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/KOBODeniseBarkerEBooks

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue.  You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley
The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra

KDP Royalty Payments for Sales in Other Countries

I recently changed banks and had to make the related updates regarding all online transactions, deleting the old banking numbers and putting in the new.

When updating my Amazon KDP account, I thought changing my home country, my US settings within KDP as for royalty payments, would be like an automatic default for all the others.

I was wrong.

So if you are making sales in Germany, Canada, Italy, France, England, Spain, Japan, India, Brazil, Mexico and Australia, then you need to check your KDP account and change each setting accordingly.

For example, the other countries were set to "issue a check" (with a minimum of $100 required and a fee may apply before issuing) and the form of money was that of that particular country, not mine. So my UK sales were defaulted to issue a Check and payable in Pounds. France was Check + Euro.

I set all mine to EFT (electronic funds transfer) + USD (US dollars).

You Indie authors out there may have money waiting to be paid to you from countries around the world.

Check your KDP account and see.

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

amazon.com/author/denisebarker

http://denisebarkerauthor.blogspot.com/

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

http://bit.ly/AMAZONDeniseBarkerEbooks

http://bit.ly/BNDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/SMASHWORDSDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/KOBODeniseBarkerEBooks

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue.  You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley
The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra

What Exactly Does a Copy Editor Do?

It's easier to show than to tell what I do as a copy editor. [Note: "copy editor" used here is the two-word open noun version.] See how many errors you find in this one sentence:

He saide 'the quick brow fox jumped over moon and the grey goose was lose in the back yard, he said.

I'll show you two correct versions at the end of this post. For now, here are the errors and quick explanations where needed:

1. He saide should be He said.

2. As a dialogue tag (the He said at the beginning of a line of dialogue), it should be followed by a comma.

3. The opening quote should be a double-quote mark, not a single-quote mark, for those authors residing in and/or publishing in the United States.

4. The first word within the quoted dialogue should be initial capped, so the quick should be The quick . . .

5. Brow should be brown.

6. Jumped over moon is missing a word. Should be jumped over the moon.

7. A comma should precede and in our example above, pursuant to 16CMS 6.28, separating the two complete sentences (each having its own subject and verb).

8. Grey should be gray per US standards as the preferred spelling found in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (Web11). Our other US guideline is The Chicago Manual of Style, Sixteenth Edition (16CMS).

9. Lose should be loose. The first means to misplace, to not be able to find something, to have lost it. The second means running about, moving freely.

10. Back yard should be one compound word, a noun, backyard, per Web11.

11. There needs to be a closing quote mark, a double-quote mark for US purposes, after the terminal punctuation following backyard.

12. The second he said at the end of the sentence is a repeat of the dialogue tag at the beginning of the same sentence. So one needs to be deleted. First, because it is a repetitive phrase. Second, because you only need one tag per line of dialogue (and not for every line of dialogue).

13. After deleting the second dialogue tag as repetitious, then you must change the comma at the end of the line of dialogue to a period.

So here is the corrected sentence:

He said, "The quick brown fox jumped over the moon, and the gray goose was loose in the backyard."

If you prefer to have the tag line at the end (but mix these up in your scenes), here is an alternate corrected version:

"The quick brown fox jumped over the moon, and the gray goose was loose in the backyard," he said.

Hope you have enjoyed this little peek into my world as to how I copyedit a sample line of text. [Note: "copyedit" used here is the transitive verb format, or t.v., which requires a direct object, as in "a sample line of text."]

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

amazon.com/author/denisebarker

http://denisebarkerauthor.blogspot.com/

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

http://bit.ly/AMAZONDeniseBarkerEbooks

http://bit.ly/BNDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/SMASHWORDSDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/KOBODeniseBarkerEBooks

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue.  You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley
The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra