DENTON WRITERS LEAGUE
FIRST EDITION
AUGUST 2004 VOL. 15 NUMBER 8

DWL Home Page: http://byjoni.com/dwl

If you would like a copy of the newsletter e-mailed to you instead of through the US post, please contact George Avera or Joni Latham.

WHERE WE MEET AND WHEN

The second Saturday of every month, at the

Denton Library-North Branch - click here for map 
3020 N. Locust St (corner of Windsor St & N. Locust St)
 Denton, TX

General Meeting 10:30 a.m.

Lunch at Noon at the
 Evergreen Super Buffet - click here for map 
1006 W. University Dr
Denton, TX 76201

NEXT MEETING - AUGUST 14, 2004

For those of you who have not renewed your membership, this will be your last newsletter.

The annual workshop will be on Sept 11 at the North Branch of the Denton Library from 10am to 4:30pm.  This year's presenter is Lorraine Heath who will tell us the secrets of manuscripts, agents and money.  We will have a potluck this year at the library with BBQ provided by the DWL, so bring your favorite veggie, salad, dessert, etc.  There is a place on the registration form to tell what you are bringing.  Please return the attached form by Sept 4 so that we will know how much enough meat to order.

Guest Speakers

August - Karen DeVinney, Managing Editor-University of North Texas Press
September - Annual Workshop
October - Pamela Stone
November - Gloria Oliver
December - General Meeting    

GUEST SPEAKER

Karen DeVinney has been managing editor at the University of North Texas Press for almost 5 years.  Before getting into publishing, she earned a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and taught literature courses at UNT and Texas Woman's University. 

JULY MEETING RECAP

Hart Parris is over the self-publishing department at RonJon Publishing.   Up until recently, they published mainly documents and books in Academics, Sciences, and Business markets.  After examining the current self-publishing market, they found a need for a publisher who would work within the author's wishes to produce a quality product at a reasonable price.  Self-publishing allows the author to totally own and control their finished book, no editors requesting changes in characters or story lines.  Also, since most of today's publishers don't have money in their budgets for marketing, which used to be one of the perks for going with a large publisher, the author might as well self-publish if they are going to do all the promotional work.  RonJon is one of three Xerox partners in the state of Texas which means they are one of the the most advanced and skilled digital printers in the country.

The author submit their manuscript via disk, e-mail, or ftp ( ftp.RonJon.com ) in MS WORD format.
Manuscript is evaluated and recommendations made to the author.
Manuscript goes to design team, who formats for printing, adds cover, ISBN, and barcode (Editing is available if needed.  Artwork is available if need.).
Galley sent for proofing.
Finalize galley.
Print minimum of 50 books.
Time: usually 4 to 6 weeks, if the author returns all proofs and galleys in a timely manner.

Quite a few of the others use this service and then send a copy to one of the large publishers.  If the book is already formatted for printing and is written well, publisher more like to accept it.  This of course is dependent on the publisher's market.  It's always best to check with the publisher for going this route especially if that is the main reason you are self-publishing.

Although they do not actively market in behalf of their authors, RonJon does offer marketing kits, including posters, business cards, flyers, bookmarks, and mailers starting at $350.

Finding Your Own Professional Editor

Author:  Gary Kessler
Date:  26-03-03

If you have sufficient training and talent to be publishing your book or article, you really should not need to engage the services of a professional editor before you submit your manuscript to an agent or publisher.

The strength of your writing and ability to tell a story should shine through minor content and style problems in your manuscript, and traditional publishers have editors of their own to polish the manuscripts they contract to publish.

However, there may be situations where a pre-submission edit is appropriate:

• You feel a professional edit would enhance the salability of your manuscript.
• An agent feels you need to have the manuscript edited before approaching publishers.
• A publisher is only interested in publishing the work if you make revisions that you need the help of a professional editor to accomplish.
• If you are self-publishing or contracting the services of a book production company (e.g., a POD producer or a vanity press), you will probably have to arrange for and pay for the edit of the book yourself.

With the current deluge of well-written manuscripts in the publishing market, agents and publishers do, indeed, expect work to be more highly polished than ever before.

So, what can you do if you think your manuscript needs an edit?

You can find a fresh set of eyes to review your manuscript. Ask literary or well read friends to read your work, make suggestions and point out possible grammar, spelling, and punctuation problems. Or ask for recommendations from other authors, local publishers or university creative writing programs.

You can also find editors listed in the publisher’s “bible” of publishing services, The Literary Marketplace. This large, two-volume set published annually is available in the reference section of most public libraries. Or, with a wary eye, you can do an Internet search for editorial help.

Fnding Editorial Services Online

Reliable editorial services that can be contacted via the Internet include:

• www.the-efa.org - The Editorial Freelancers Association site. The association has training and experience requirements for membership and a job board where you can list jobs (for at least $15/hour). The website also now has a listing of members who you can approach directly.
• www.consulting-editors.com
• editorialdepartment.net
• www.copyeditor.com - A less reliable Internet job board where you can advertise for an editor. Credentialed editors do check this website, but there is nothing to keep those with no experience or ability from bidding for editorial jobs. If you use this service, it is doubly important that you ask for and verify credentials.

Choosing the Right Editor

When editor hunting, pay attention to the type of editor you think you need and the credentials and experience in working with books similar to yours of the editors you are researching.

Book and journal/magazine article editing is a specialty. The publishing industry has highly specialized style and format preferences that don’t match college-level English rules. Someone who is a college English teacher or a technical or newspaper editor may not have the right qualifications to be editing for the book publishing world.

In addition, the different genres and categories of book publishing are specialized. Look to engage an editor who has demonstrable editing experience in the appropriate genre or category.

What Type of Editor Do You Need?

The type of editor you need depends on what you need done with your manuscript:

• If you are looking for an evaluation of the marketability of your book or for advice on the structure or content of your book, you need a substantive editor. Those with experience as acquisitions editors in publishing houses have good credentials for this type of editing. Experienced literary agents also often do well with this.
• If you are looking for someone to do a complete overhaul of the content and structure of your book, you need a book doctor. This specialty requires considerable writing talent and experience in the specific genre or category of the book. So look for evidence of work on published books in your genre or category.
• If you are looking for an editor to clean up the style and format of your manuscript, engage the services of one with formal training in book publishing and experience in books in your genre or category that were actually published by traditional publishers. Although literary agents often offer to help clean up the style and format of manuscripts, few are actually credentialed to do so.

Learn From Your Editor

If you do bite the bullet and pay for any type of edit, spend a good deal of time examining what was done in that edit. Try to observe and absorb the restyling the editor did of your work; you should be able to work these techniques into your next work yourself.

How Much to Pay

Book editing, like many businesses, has an unregulated, “what the market will bear” payment structure. However, publicized rate structures are often significantly more than what editorial services are willing to work for - and most certainly more than publishers pay for these services.

Private clients should be able to find a good editor by offering payment within accepted ranges. Claims of $40/hour and $60/hour pay structures are common. But academic and small publishers generally pay $15-$20/hour for regular copyediting, while larger trade publishers pay $18-$25/hour. Publishers generally pay $22-$27/hour for substantive editors.

Ghost writers are usually paid by the book, and their payment is often indexed to the projected sales of the book (which itself is often indexed to the existing celebrity of the “author”).

The general copyediting rate is considered to be seven or eight pages (depending on the condition of the syntax) of standard manuscript copy per hour.

A standard manuscript page is considered to be:

• the normal 8 1/2 X 11-inch page and margin settings provided by computer word processing programs,
   
• using 12-point font in either Courier or New Times Roman (hint: New Times Roman uses fewer pages than Courier),
   
• with everything double spaced,
   
• and extra line spaces only between chapters and sections.

Estimating Editing Costs

To estimate how much your edit should cost, divide the number of standard manuscript pages by both seven and eight, which gives you a range of the estimated number of editing hours, and multiply by the hourly rate. Most editorial services will add three or four hours to the time to cover the preparation of general notes. They will negotiate who pays for delivery costs if hardcopies need to be exchanged.

Copyright 2003 Gary Kessler. All rights reserved.

Gary Kessler, a frequent contributor to the WritersNet discussion board, is a novelist and freelance book editor who has edited more than eighty-five published books for some twenty traditional publishers since 1997. He has worked inside both trade and academic publishing houses and has released books of his own in traditional publishing, POD-production, and electronic publishing forms. He is the editor of the two-volume Writer’sNet Anthology of Prose, which was released in 2002. Gary’s previous career was with the U.S. Government’s foreign media news agency, for which he served in embassies in East Asia and the Mediterranean and also served as the news agency’s managing editor. He provides writing and publishing tips for authors on his professional website at www.editsbooks.com.

On-Line Writers resources

Author's Network-for writers about writing based in Europe, but interesting- http://www.author-network.com/
Copyright Forms- http://www.loc.gov/copyright/forms/
Dallas Sceen Writers- http://www.dallasscreenwriters.com/
Denton Public Library - http://www.cityofdenton.com/pages/library.cfm
National Association of Women Writers - http://www.naww.org
National Writers Union - http://www.nwu.org/
New Writer's Market http://hge.members.atlantic.net/
Para Publishing Website - a good writing, publishing, and promotion source - http://parapub.com/getpage.cfm?file=/homepage.html&user=#user
Preditors and Editors-a resources to check out agents and publishers http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/
Ralan's Webstravaganza-speculative fiction resource http://ralan.com/
Society of Children's Writers and Illustrators - http://www.scbwi.org/
Texas Coalition of Authors, Inc. - http://www.texasauthors.org/
Texas Writers League - http://www.writersleague.org/
The Market List-the online resource for genre fiction writers http://www.marketlist.com/
The Novelist's Workshop-essays and advice on how to publish your book- http://www.monash.com/writers.html
Writer's Exchange - http://www.writers-exchange.com/epublishing/
Writer's Market - http://www.writersmarket.com/index_ns.asp
Writers Net-source for information for writers, editors, agents, and publishers - http://www.writers.net
Writing-World.Com - http://www.writing-world.com 
The Zuzu's Petals Literary Resource Homepage-for both writers and poets- http://www.zuzu.com/

There are multitudes of writing resources available on the Internet. Go to any search engine and ask for writer's resources, writer's markets, writer's contests, writer's conferences, etc