The Push And Pull Of The Editorial Process

I'm about halfway through the proof version of my latest non-fiction paranormal book for Dundurn, Tomes of Terror: Haunted Bookstores & Libraries and have to say that I'm really pleased with the editorial and design team.

A draft of the cover flat for Tomes of Terror: Haunted Bookstores and Libraries

Yes, I'll admit, the process wasn't without frustration. I'm quite passionate about both bookish locales as well as sharing ghost stories, so there was a lot of me, personally, invested into this manuscript.

Too much me, perhaps.

I spent a bit too much time dwelling on my own passion for bookstores, for libraries, for spooky stories. Content that might bring value to an in person author appearance or talk, but which might be too much for the pages of this particular manuscript.

I needed an unbiased editorial viewpoint to keep me from diverging too far off the path that would appeal to the broadest audience.

I disagreed, of course, with several suggestions for how to revise the book, saw value in many other suggestions, and stubbornly pushed and prodded in that ego-centric way that authors can sometimes fall back to when someone else is trying to "rain on their parade" by suggesting an alternative way to approach something.

So there was push and pull, and disagreement.

But at the end of the day, as I'm halfway through a solid proofing read of the book, I have to say, I'm impressed.

Unedited proof showing sidebar of the "side story" for a chapter

The editorial team at Dundurn took what was a pretty good manuscript that I turned in and they have helped to craft it into something pretty amazing. The book takes just the right balance of speculative wonder about the paranormal and an appreciation for bookstores and libraries, offering something of value for both camps of potential readers without going too far off in one direction. A great editorial suggestion to pull some of the "back-story elements" from the main body of some of the chapters and insert that into sidebar boxes works brilliantly. 

This worked nicely, because, in doing research for the book, I fell in love with the history of the locale I was writing about and wanted to share interesting tidbits of the building's history or some intriguing factual notes that were related to the original story. The problem, though, is they didn't add to the main story as well.


Tomes of Terror isn't exactly the book I had envisioned when I pitched the book to Dundurn.

It's even better.

The Power Of A Good Editor

I've said it before - I'll say it again.

A writer should never underestimate the power of a good editor.

As a writer I have been extremely lucky to have worked with a number of great editors over the years, both in my fiction and non-fiction endeavors. An article posted on The Mark News yesterday is another good example of the way in which an editor's "red pen" and fine-tuning can turn a well-written piece into something even better. Or a beautiful raw mineral into a wonderfully polished gem.

Yes, writers are endowed with more ability than ever before to get their words out there directly, to self-publish, to push their words onto platforms that didn't exist when I first sat down at a manual typewriter and hammered out words, hoping to one day see them in print.

And as much as I admire -- and take advantage of -- the ability to "go direct" in getting my words out there (I've been blogging here since 2005), I am continually reminded of the extreme value of the mostly hidden work that a good editor brings.

This blog, for example, is the perfect example because I rarely ever edit my own writing, never-mind have an editor go through my posts before they're released into the world. My blog is typically a "first draft" attempt to get down some thoughts that are kicking around in my head. It actually started, for me, as a way to "warm up" to my early AM writing sessions They are, thus, mostly raw and unedited pieces of my writing - an online sketchpad or writing journal.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post called A Smudge of Eink documenting my frustration with an ebook reader that had "died" on me. Believing the article was worthy of being read by a larger audience, I sent it over to an editor at The Mark News where I have written a series of articles related to the book industry. It had been a while since I'd done an article for them and I felt this particular one would fit nicely with my others.

Like before, when the editor sent back the changes made for my approval, I was impressed with the fine polishing done to my raw words; with the expertise in smoothing out some slightly awkward bumps in the prose, with re-arranging words into a finer flow of text.

A couple of examples:

My post title: A Smudge of Eink. I, of course, think that's a cute title, conveying my original discovery and frustration with a technology that I have been enjoying.

The Mark News title: The E-Smudge of Death. This revised title, of course, is a more dramatic statement - it serves to pull the reader in and immediately lands on the initial feeling of shock and terror I felt when discovering my ereader had died.

And next, just a snapshot showing the editorial modifications on a single paragraph.

You can see how these simple yet important edits don't change the intent of the original prose, but neatly refine it into something more readable.

And that's part of the power of what a good editor can do to a piece of writing.

This particular edit is thanks to Emily Burke, Managing Editor and Sarah Murphy, Copy Editor at The Mark News: Two fine members of The Mark News editorial team that I've had the pleasure of working with over the past couple of years.

As I've said, I have been lucky, over the years, to have worked with some great editors. And I look forward to continuing to enjoy the benefits of these silent, mostly hidden-from-view publishing world agents who revise, suggest and work with writers to create much better pieces of writing for readers to enjoy.

The Value Of An Editor

Last week I wrote a blog post about an interview I recently did with Kelley Armstrong. During the interview, Kelley talked about the great relationship she has with her editor at Random House and how, though when she gets back work with edits there is a slight disappointed that her writing isn't perfect yet, there's also a good feeling to know that it's all part of the process to make her writing, her story even better.

Seeing how flat the publishing world is becoming (and even being a partipant in some of that with the Espresso Book Machine I operate at Titles Bookstore), I think it bears pausing yet again to look at the value an editor plays. I can talk, endlessly, about how often, as a writer, my own work had been made better whenever paired up with a decent editor, but I'd rather look at what some others have recently said about the value of an editor.

The Cite blog recently talked about the value of editors in which they mention an IBM study that showed a 30% marked improvement on a specific call to action related to clickable web links when edited pages were compared to non-edited pages. Dr. Mark Nelson's blog post on this topic suggests that while it's difficult to measure and analyse the value of the editorial process, publishers should contemplate how to present the pivital part they play in the industry much more prominently.

Digital Book World also had an interesting article about How to Measure the Value of Editors. They mention that even if editors don't make changes, just having that second set of eyes being able to offer a different perspective allows writers to relax and create better work. They also go into detail about the same IBM study that attempts to actually measure the value of an editor

But alas, the value of an editor is not something that is easily measured when it comes to something like fiction writing. Perhaps those who recognize the benefit that a good editor can have on their writing should sing their editor's praises, the way Kelley Armstrong does.

Top 10 Quotes From BookCamp Toronto

On Saturday May 15, I had an absolute blast at the 2nd BookCamp Toronto.

The theme for this "unconference" where everyone is welcome (ie, writers, technologists, publishers, readers, editors, designers, book sellers, book buyers, printers, librarians ... anyone who cares about books) was "Book Publishing Is Going Digital, Now What?"

This day long conference, or rather unconference was completely free, but did have a limited number of spaces, requiring pre-registration, and the pre-registration filled up in something like 24 hours if I remember correctly.

The basic premise for an unconference is that all attendees are participants at the event. All points of view, backgrounds, and levels of experience are welcome. Of course it also means all participants are responsible for themselves. While there is a certain amount of mob rule at a BookCamp, attendees are encouraged to vote with their feet, clean up after themselves, and speak-up when they encounter something they don't like -- in other words attendees are generally encouraged to act like adults.

BookCamp Toronto was organized by Alexa Clark, Hugh McGuire, Erin Balser, Mark Bertils and BookNetCanada. Of course, it was also supported by dozens of other friends and volunteers who helped make the day fantastic.

One of the ways I could tell the day was a success was that of the 4 concurrent sessions taking place, I knew I'd want to be in AT LEAST 2 of them at the same time. Now that's a GREAT sign of a phenomenal schedule, and a wonderful problem for a programming line-up to have. I was able to attend the following sessions:

- eBooks in Education & Academic
- Where are you at? Geolocation
- Leaping off the Page: Transmedia Storytelling*
- A Bucket of Cold Water: The Future Is Now
- Building and sustaining a community of readers online

* I had to attend Leaping off the Page, since I was co-leading the session with Jill Golick.


Here's a link to the full schedule, so you can see these were just a small portion of what the day offered. Again, it was one of those fantastic schedules where I truly wanted to be able to be in two or three places at once.

Rather than try to capture the pure essense of the wonderful day, I thought I'd share the top 10 quotes I jotted down during BookCamp Toronto (or #bcto10) as a sort of quick "snapshot" into some of the great discussions that took place that day - I did my very best to properly attribute the people speaking, but must admit I wasn't adept enough to always identify the person speaking.


1) "People will pay for content but not if they feel you're shafting them." Evan Leibovitch from York University, discussing open access content in the eBooks in Education & Academia session.

2) "There's not a single ebook reader that supports tabbed reading . . . having multiple books open at the same time." Evan Leibovitch discussing how academics often use books for research and study.

3) "Please, please, please, no DRM." John Dupuis, York University Library, stated after explaining in great detail how as a librarian he will ALWAYS be willing to pay for content, will never stop paying for content to support his academic institution.

4) "I have a feeling every single panel today is going to devolve into this type of discussion." John Dupuis after listening to yet another merry-go-round discussion of "print books vs ebooks."

5) "The agility of paper and pen." - okay, in all honesty, I missed the first part of this statement, but quite liked the way that Bob Logan of sBook perfectly described the reasoning behind the habit of writers and editors, though heavily using digital media to create their works, often still default to printing and hand-writing notes. Because I'll admit that though I do more work on the screen, I DO still have to print for a better final edit (at least for fiction and not for things I write on this blog - though I regularly do catch nasty typos and errors on this blog).

6) "Did you have an onion on your belt - was it the style at the time?" Ryan Bigge, content strategist and cultural journalist in response to a comment during the "print vs ebook" discussion that suggested new technology would never be as good as the way it has always been done.

7) "We talk about computers and ebook resources as unlimited, but they're not. There is a cost." Unattributed female participant in eBook in Education & Academia session wanting to ensure the discussion considered unseen costs, such as electricity and the huge volumes of "throw-away" trash waste involved in the rapid updates to hand-held devices and other hardware.

8) "Because they're not in Canada." A statement from one of the enthused and engaged Pearson Education editors at the eBooks in Academic session in response to the question John Dupuis posed as to why their bosses, the "big decision" makers weren't there. [Of note, there were about half a dozen folks from Pearson at the discussion, but, as interested as they were in digital strategies they are, and as involved in developing content for the products being discussed, they, are, unfortunately, not the people making the high level decisions that drive the company -- Too often, I see the sad result of the really smart and eager to progress people being held back from bringing a company to success by high level mandates that prevent them moving forward -- okay, Mark's editorial aside is over now]

9) "The only problem with using these great apps on mobile devices where traveling to other countries are the roaming charges, where a Rogers rep pops out and punches you in the face." Ron Nurwisah, The Afterword co-editor, National Post as part of a great discussion on some really cool geolocating apps and projects.

10) "If we can figure out how to get everyone paid properly, we can finally get somewhere." Deanna McFadden, Harper Collins Canada. [Ah, Deanna has a way of saying things that go right after my own heart. I think I'll go watch her BookNet Canada Tech Forum presentation again - I found it truly inspirational]


Okay, this is a tough one as I just realized something. These aren't the Top 10 quotes I jotted down at BookCamp Toronto, these are the first ten quotes I found from the 6 pages of notes I made, and are mostly from the first couple of morning sessions. Once I started typing out this list I realized I was in way over my head. I made more notes than could easily be summed up here in a single post.

So think of these like a "teaser" to the rest of the day, and, if you see an unconference, particularly a BookCamp styled event coming in your area, plan on registering EARLY and getting yourself there quickly.

Pursued From Out Of The Night

I recently recorded and posted my entire story "From Out of the Night" on my Prelude To A Scream Podcast.

It's a dark humour tale of a panicked woman whose only desire is to save her family from the flesh-eating/blood-thirsty creatures stalking around in the night outside their home.

You can listen to the full story online or download it from the podcast's website here.

Pardon me for taking a few moments to pat myself on the back, but here are a few interesting things about this tale that struck me.

First, there's a phrase I wrote into the tale that I still love after all these years (could it possibly be as long as two decades now) since I first wrote them.

We are pursued from out of the night by dreams of the unknown and visions of the unexplainable.

I quite like that. Not sure why, but it jumps out at me now. Every once in a while something I wrote ages ago does that to me. I'm pretty sure it jumped out at me back then when I decided to use that sentence for the title of the story.

The second in my back-patting exercise is how truly realized the characters in the tale are. And while I'd like to pat myself on the back for that, I know that much of this is thanks to some great suggestions from an editor.

Working with an editor, I managed to take a tale that I had originally crafted in a quick afternoon and polish it into something a little stronger and better. And this was back in the day when editors and writer's main "conversation" wasn't as quick and immediate as a simple email. This was back in the day when good old fashioned letters and manuscripts were exchanged via Canada Post/US Mail.

I had previously sent the story to 6 other markets before it crossed the desk of Stephanie Connolly, editor of The Darker Woods magazine. She wrote back saying she liked the tale and suggested a re-write in which I should expand upon the relationship between the two main characters as well as explore a bit of the "back story" behind Mary's fears. She said if I'd sent the re-write back to her, she'd consider publishing it in her magazine.

I took her advice, dove back into the story, and, using her guidance, questions and suggestions, discovered further buried details about the characters and further strengthened the tale. She accepted the tale and it was published the following year in The Darker Woods #2.

And though, when this story was first published, she decided to "cut" the very final scene from my story, feeling it didn't add to the tale, I put it back in when it was re-printed in One Hand Screaming. Ironically, I put it back in specifically because, in my mind, the actions of the very final paragraph speak to the relationship between the two main characters in a way I believe the editor had intended when offering me the great suggestions she did.

This illustrates, to me, the critical importance of listening to an editor's suggestions in your writing. But also, the fact that, while you should always take what an editor says very seriously, don't completely abandon something that you personally feel rather strongly about. I've had friends who have completely re-written their novels to suit an editor's tastes after a first reading, only to have the same editor completely brush them off after weeks of hard work and revisions. Then, when they've tried the re-written novel with editor 2, that editor makes suggestions that sound more like the author's original work.

Why does this happen? Because every reader, including editors, have their own personal preferences and tastes. What editor 1 loves, editor 2 finds it flat and boring. What editor 1 hates, editor 2 believes is the best thing they've read in years.

In my own experience of writing and working with editors, I've found that it's critically important to listen closely to what an editor is suggesting. And crucial to take everything they suggest quite seriously. Many of my stories have been revised following an editor's suggestion and advice and have come out to be far better than the original. Sometimes it's a simple matter of tweaking one small thing, and other times it's more detailed revisions.

So, an editor's advice is critically important. But it's also critically important that you don't just blindly follow the advice, but rather consider what the advice might mean to your story.

Ultimately, there's no winning if ALL you're trying to do is please a single editor.

Ultimately, you must take the editor's advice and see how it fits (if it fits) in with the "truth" you're trying to get across in your story.

When an editor makes suggestions or offers advice, YOUR key as a writer, is to seriously consider the advice, then re-read your story with that advice or those suggestions in mind. And if you're able to spot ways in which you can incorporate the advice, without losing the original intent of the story, or without losing part of what drove you to create the tale, characters and situation in the first place, then chances are, you'll come out ahead of the game.

The trick is figuring out where exactly to compromise without compromising your integrity as a storyteller. If my goal in writing a tale was to convey the importance of a husband's devotion to his wife, anything I do that takes away from that conveyance doesn't help the tale, nor me as a writer.

Sounds hard?

It is.

Writing is hard, though very satisfying work. This is yet another one of those challenges that a writer must face. Because, when you face it, and it works, you come out much stronger and your writing wins.