In the last decade I’ve been intimately involved with 11 nonfiction book projects. I wrote or cowrote four, edited five, and ghostwrote one-and-a-half (one is not yet complete). These were the most rewarding experiences in my career. Here’s what I learned: the keys to success in a book project are planning, passion, trust, perseverance, and…
I hate fluff. I also hate wimpiness, cliched platitudes, endless bloviation, and bad grammar. This affects how I behave as an editor. It reduces the number of clients I have, and changes the way I approach content. Let’s say you come to me with a potential editing job. I look at what needs to be…
I edit smart people. And I don’t pull punches. If your writing has a problem, I’m going to tell you about it. One of my writer clients recently posted some of my editorial comments on Facebook, so everyone could see how, ahem, “direct” I was. He called me “ruthlessly encouraging.” This guy is writing a…
“Please review the attached draft,” reads the email. Now it’s your job to make things better by applying your expertise. You can be helpful . . . or you can be hated. See if you recognize yourself in the list below; if you do, resolve to stop behaving like an ass and help your writers…
You’re 90% of the way done with your (non-fiction) book manuscript. All the chapters are written. You’ve got a week or so to polish it, then it goes to the copy editor. And now that it’s complete, you have so many ideas on how to make it better. Since your perspective is gone by now,…
When your book is complete but not done, you have an opportunity. You can make it excellent. Or you can stagger across the finish line and spend the next few months dealing with unnecessary bullshit. This post is about how to crush it on that penultimate draft. This advice is for writers of non-fiction books,…
Every piece of business writing needs reviews. Some reviewer comments are specific and helpful. Here’s how to deal with the rest of them. Feedback makes business writing better. A good writer may need to get reviews from technical experts, legal authorities, better writers, copy editors, or clients. But at the typical company, the feedback process…
Here’s the five-step plan for what to do when you get a piece of writing back with infuriating comments: Read comments and suggestions from editor. Get annoyed that editor is finding fault and making stupid suggestions on how to change perfectly good prose. Figure out what problem set the editor off. Rewrite to fix the…
When writers send me pieces to edit, they all seem to come with an apology. Your apology is meaningless to me. “I’m sorry this is so long.” “I’m sorry this isn’t better organized.” “I’m sorry this seems to wander around a bit.” I have one client who doesn’t apologize, but submits every piece with a…