Last Friday, April 1st, Google announced a whole new way of enjoying ebooks while keeping many of the characteristics of physical books intact. Brilliant!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-_U92YX7eA
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Be Careful with Your Facts
In light of my last post on taking care of details, I thought my readers would be interested in seeing some oddities and errors I found – in the past week! An Irish Soda bread recipe in a local circular called for: 3 cups flower Hmmm. Roses? Daffodils? Tulips? What color? Green, perhaps? And this on Amazon in describing a book: Praying in the Holy Spirit is one important bible study about the …
Expecting the Unexpected
I used to think that if you did a, b would follow, closely tailed by c. That belief was blasted into smithereens by the time I hit my third decade of life. I’ve learned that doing a MAY bring b, or q, or something not even remotely related. I’ve learned in my life, my career, and my faith to expect the unexpected. So why am I telling you this? Well, a couple of weeks ago I promised you a blog …
You Say Tomato, I Hear Guacamole
I have a hearing problem. My ears are fine. For some reason listening to songs like Smoke on the Water and LaGrange on my headphones forty years ago had little or no effect on my eardrums. But over the years, I’ve begun to hear something different than what is being spoken. Come to think about it, maybe it was Deep Purple and ZZ Top that caused this. Politician says: “I can solve the problem.” I …
The Worst Proofreading Error of All-Time
Take a close look at the picture above. Read it out loud. The word “not” is missing. As in “Thou shalt ___ commit adultery.” It is from an edition of the Bible published in 1631, now affectionately known as “The Sinners Bible” or “The Wicked Bible.” Adulterers of the realm celebrated! (Just kidding.) The Royal Printers in London, Robert Barker and …
A Sensational New Market for Books is Found
In a startling revelation this week, the Foundation for Applied Knowledge and Enterprise (FAKE) in Danville, Delaware released the findings of their ten-year research study to identify unreached markets for printed books. Since the human market has been fully reached with books, the methodology used by FAKE was to determine which species of life on earth was advanced enough to warrant creating …
Details, Details (Do They Matter?)
I was chatting with a reader the other day who told me about an advertisement she’d received about a new book. She said, “I read the sample, but then the author said that Black-eyed Susans bloomed in May, but they don’t bloom until August. I didn’t buy the book.” “Did you like the story otherwise?” I asked. “Yes.” “But you’re not …
Is Book Publishing Fair?
Anyone who has been around young children has heard their cry of protest, “That’s not fair,” when some sort of consequence is meted out for misbehavior. In reality, what is being objected to is fairness, as consequences were spelled out ahead of time and known to all. Parent: “One more word about this and you will go to bed without dinner.” Child: “Word.” Parent: “OK, to your room you go…no …
Appreciating Reviews
While researching my St. Patrick’s Day blog, where I reminisced about writing a novella, I must confess I poked around and looked at the fate of a few other books I wrote as well. I tell authors that a one-star review isn’t as bad as they think because that shows that your book is being read by impartial readers. I had to remind myself of my own advice as I read a few poor reviews. …
What An Editor Does–Phase 2
Next week, I promise, we’ll jump into the nuts and bolts of editing. But today I want to talk about what editors don’t do. Why do I bring these things up? Because I’ve encountered each and every one of them as a freelance editor. I’ve had clients say, “While you’re editing, can you do the copyedit?” or “Since you’re also an agent, would you be willing to pitch just this book to an editor?” Here …