- Don’t thoroughly research your market; stick with your assumptions.
- Make no production schedule.
- Organize your nonfiction book as you learned the information, not how the reader could best learn it.
- Write fiction that’s all introspection, no action, except for characters who sit and talk about their introspection.
- Write too many words.
- Rewrite after editing without getting a second edit.
- Send a book to production piecemeal.
- Send diskettes with undated, unnamed files, and include duplicate or outdated drafts.
- Invent your own proofreading techniques and symbols.
- Rewrite big-time after typesetting and composition.
(c) 1998 Chris Roerden
Chris Roerden has been a full-time freelance editor since 1983, after 25 years in niche publishing. She can be reached by e-mail, croerden@aol.com , by phone, 414/781-5412, or visitwww.MarketSavvyBookEditing.com
| This article is from thePMA Newsletterfor February, 1998, and is reprinted with permission of Publishers Marketing Association. |
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