SIGRID MACDONALD: AUTHOR AND EDITOR

"Here's the best way to proofread copy: Get somebody else to do it."
William Safire—How Not to Write

Have you just completed that special manuscript? Months or even years of research, toil, and overcoming roadblocks are finally behind you. Your book is finished—almost!

Every author needs a professional editor before going to print. Even the most seasoned writers no longer have any form of objectivity about their work in the final stages and for first-time authors, a highly-skilled copy edit is essential. Staring at a manuscript, day in and day out over a long period of time, prevents us from seeing our own mistakes or stepping back to ascertain flaws in our plot line and inconsistencies in characterization.

Stephen King recommends giving a manuscript to a trusted reader once you’ve reached the point where you've written all that you can. After receiving important feedback from your reader, it's time to hire an editor.

THE ROLE OF THE EDITOR

What constitutes a good editor? It depends on what you're looking for. Some people only want to have their work checked for basic spelling and grammatical errors. Why is that necessary, you might ask, in the age of spell-checkers? A spell-checker can only determine if a word is misspelled, not if it’s being used out of context. For example, if you wanted to say, "My aunt came over for tea," but you wrote, "My ant came over for tea," the spell-checker will accept that as being correct. Likewise, it will consider both "everyday" and "every day" to be spelled properly. That's true but "everyday" is an adjective whereas "every day" is a noun preceded by an adjective.

Other people want a more comprehensive copy edit. They tend to use the same words repeatedly yet their work would sound much fresher with synonyms. Some sentences are constructed awkwardly or phrased in the passive tense. Often writers use too many adjectives or adverbs. An editor can easily turn those problems around.

Lastly, new writers may be unsure about the flow of their ideas. They want a critique of their manuscript. With fiction, they're looking for tips on character development, background setting, and plot resolution. If the book is nonfiction, writers often need a professional opinion as to whether or not their language is understandable, their concepts are clear, and their research is up-to-date.

Editors are usually familiar with several different types of English. I grew up in New Jersey so I use American English as my default, but I've lived in Canada for almost 20 years, so I'm familiar with Canadian spelling (e.g., I spelled “nonfiction” the American way. If I were to have written that as a Canadian word, I would have written "non-fiction"). And I’ve edited at least six books for authors in the United Kingdom, therefore, I know British spelling, as well as Australian.

In addition, I rely on the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, as well as Collins Gage Canadian Dictionary; generally, I use my own good judgment for punctuation, but I own a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style and use it whenever clients request me to do so.

Good editors care about the outcome of their clients’ books. They take the time to chat with authors on e-mail, on the phone or in person, if possible, to determine exactly what the writer wants from the editing process.

Good editors also empower their clients; they give them confidence and direction, and add polish and professionalism to a manuscript.

WHAT AN EDITOR SHOULDN'T DO

An editor should never change the voice of the author. We all write differently. Just because someone uses a style that is completely foreign or even unpalatable to the editor, the editor must correct obvious errors, eliminate redundancies, or make developmental suggestions while maintaining the original tone and message of the writer. If people tell me that their books no longer feel like their own since they've been edited, I suspect that the editor has inadvertently imposed his or her own style of writing on the book.

COMBINATION AUTHOR AND EDITOR

I’m not only an editor; I’m also an author. I know what it's like to work for a year or two on a book and feel nervous about giving it over to a stranger. I’ve written two books and numerous articles that have been published in American periodicals such as the Women's Freedom Network Newsletter in Washington, D.C., and the popular magazine, Justice Denied. In Canada, my works have appeared in the national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, as well as The Anxiety Disorders Association of Ontario's Newsletter, and Carleton University Women's Center's periodical entitled 52%. I had an article published in the Toastmaster (Toastmaster International's magazine), which went out to more than 250,000 people in 80 different countries, am a frequent contributor to True North Perspectives and She Unlimited magazine, and recently had a dark piece published in a horror mag.

Consequently, I understand the world of publishing and marketing. Writing a book is only half the job! Marketing, networking, and promoting comprise the other half.

MY EXPERIENCE

After the release of my novel, I became interested in editing and have since edited 50 full-length books, and numerous articles and websites, as well as curriculum vitaes and biographies. I've worked with several publishing companies in North America and England.

Almost half of my clients have English as a second language, thus, I'm accustomed to helping writers to clarify exactly what they want to say in a language other than their native tongue.

I've also worked with the visually impaired, who face a different challenge from those who are fully sighted; those with Parkinson's or post-stroke, who have trouble articulating their thoughts; and I once edited and published a book of memoirs for a client who was 103-years-old!

I often deal with first-time authors who are bright, enthusiastic and talented, and eager to see their books in print. And, of course, I assist experienced authors who know that editing their own material can spell disaster.

MY STYLE

Editing is both an art and a science. Some things are indisputable; words are either spelled correctly or incorrectly. But many other issues related to punctuation, grammar, and style are individual.

Technology now allows me to make corrections directly on a document and return it to you via e-mail, and it enables you to accept or reject those changes. That's the wonderful world of Word's tracking program, which highlights any alterations that I make in red, so that you find them immediately, and can accept the spelling and grammatical changes, but perhaps reject a synonym that I chose that didn't fit quite right for you.

READ MY TESTIMONIALS

http://sigridstestimonials.blogspot.com/

FREE SAMPLE EDITS

How do you know if my style will work for you? Easy. Send me 500-600 words and I'll do a free sample edit. Be sure to tell me exactly what areas you want me to focus on, aside from standard corrections of spelling, typos and grammar. I aim to please and your concerns are my concerns. I don't do anything by formula; whenever I work on a book, it’s a unique and individual piece to me. So please let me know if your verb conjugation may be slightly off because English is your second language, or you're prone to making mistakes with apostrophes, you're afraid that your novel has too little dialogue and too much background material, or you think that your nonfiction article may be boring.

COPY EDITING

A basic copy edit includes a review of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and of course, typos. A more comprehensive edit involves all of the aforementioned and checking for repetitious words, inconsistencies throughout the text, potentially confusing phrases or concepts, and awkward sentence structure. (A page is counted as double-spaced text, size 12, in Times New Roman font.)

MANUSCRIPT EVALUATION

Is your book salable? Sometimes it’s hard to know because you can’t assess your own work. I offer an evaluation service where I critique your manuscript, and provide you with a report highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the material. For fiction, I look at character development, dialogue, background and setting, plot resolution and credibility. For nonfiction, I examine flow, organization, consistency and redundancies, as well as up-to-date references. In both cases, either a member of my team or I will let you know if your book is finished, or if it needs to be tweaked or rewritten in certain areas.

WHY HIRE ME WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY OTHER EDITORS OUT THERE?

Many of my clients are afraid to hand their work over to someone else because they're not sure if it's good enough. Or conversely, they’re overconfident — they think their book is on its way to Oprah when it still needs a lot of work to make it marketable. And everyone who contacts me wants to know where to go after the editing process. How will they publish their book? Should they approach publishers directly or go through agents? Is there a stigma to self-publishing and are the self-publishing companies all the same?

I offer one-stop shopping. First, I specialize in copy editing so that I'll polish and perfect your language and sentence structure, remove redundancies and repetitions, and eradicate typos and problems with spelling, grammar or punctuation. Second, I offer a comprehensive critique of your manuscript. Third, I know a heck of a lot about the publishing process, having self-published two of my own books. I now have a Hollywood agent for my third book, and have dealt with dozens and dozens of authors over the years who have published traditionally or on their own.

I'm also part of a team. Why is that important? Because you don't want to be left hanging after I've edited your manuscript. You don't want to randomly type in publishers' names or genres into Google in the hope that you can find someone who’s looking for your type of manuscript. I'm familiar with publishers who are looking for general manuscripts, sci-fi material and fantasy, children's books, feminist or women-related novels, and publishers who prefer Canadian authors. And I know the best self-publishing companies, which will save you money and aggravation in the long run.

My colleague Anita Flegg, author of Hypoglycemia: the Other Sugar Disease, operates an editing business called The Sharp Quill (http://www.sharpquill.ca/). She is an accomplished technical writer, book coach, editor and manuscript evaluator; Anita has a particularly keen eye for detail, is focused, and very organized.

I also work with Jean-Noel Bassior in Los Angeles (see below), a well-renowned journalist with two decades of experience in mass media. She can help you write a dynamite query letter and book proposal that will make publishers take notice.

Can I guarantee that publishers will accept your work? Absolutely not. Beware of anyone who makes that kind of promise! It's not realistic because generally speaking, editors don't have that kind of power. But highly-skilled editing in conjunction with an excellent book proposal, a super website, and a great marketing plan will vastly increase your chances of being picked up by a publisher.

What about self-publishing? Will it cost a fortune? How do you choose among the vast array of companies? I've worked with several self-publishing houses directly, and also indirectly heard about them through my clients. I know who's good and who's not. I know who will get your book up on Amazon, and produce a quality book that you can actually afford to purchase yourself (many companies don't. I've had so many clients despair because they’ve published with a certain self-publishing outfit and discovered later on that the cost of buying their own book was so high that they couldn't make a profit by buying their book to sell at talks).

I also have great contacts who can do page formatting, headers and footers, and create awesome cover art!

Phyllis Zimbler Miller, well-renowned author of The Lieutenant's Wife, will brand you—enable you to clearly identify what makes you and your book different from everyone else's, and discover the best way to promote yourself; Phyllis is a master at helping people best utilize social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter, and she can design a captivating website that draws in exactly the kind of traffic you're looking for.

And Susan Levin of Speaker Services will teach you everything you ever wanted to know to become a fully professional public speaker (more info below). If you don't live in LA, and most of us don’t, no worries because Susan does webinars regularly.

Start with me and watch your rough manuscript blossom into a polished book with an engaging book proposal, synopsis, and query. It will then metamorphize into your own individual baby with a special message; you’ll learn how to deliver it directly into the hands of the right publishers, and zoom out onto the Internet with a specific, targeted marketing plan geared exactly for your intended audience.

HOW TO SUBMIT MANUSCRIPTS AND SHORT STORIES

My turnaround time is generally four to eight weeks for a full-length book and 10 days to two weeks for articles. I accept manuscripts as e-mail attachments, on CD or disk, or as printed documents, and I can edit directly on the manuscript using a tracking program. I can also work on a hard copy of your book, if you would prefer.

Please put something about your book in the subject title of an e-mail, so that it isn't destroyed by my spam filter!

Don't forget to read what my clients have to say in my blog entitled Sigrid's Testimonials. Several of my former clients would be happy to write to you, if you want further reassurance about my work.

CONTACT ME: sigridmacdonald at rogers.com

HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR BOOK BY BECOMING A PROFESSIONAL SPEAKER

My colleague Susan Levin, owner of Speaker Services, has several programs that I recommend to my clients who are interested in using speaking as a way to grow their business or service.

Check out the Speakers’ Bootcamp—a five day intensive, which will catapult your speaking to the next level. It's hands-on, highly interactive and includes branding, media training, storytelling, audience involvers, marketing strategies plus a stellar template for designing your programs and talks. Not only that, but your investment for approximately 60 hours of coaching is unbelievably modest. Private coaching is generally $250 an hour. A three camera video demo shoot is a necessity if you want to get paid for speaking! You must be in front of an audience, as the event planners want to see how charismatic and interactive you are before they hire you.

The demo is done in a showcase format, and you receive up to three hours of coaching on content and production from Jack Barnard beforehand. (My sister, Kristin Macdonald, did the demo in Nov ‘08 and it was awesome. You can see a sample of her video, produced by Speaker Services, on YouTube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=da4CIwIi8Hk.)

Visit http://www.speakerservices.com/
to learn more about how Speaker Services can help you to market yourself and your books.

BOOK MENTORING PROGRAM

You've finished your book and you're ready to hit the ground running. But wait! Who do you approach? How do you find an agent or publisher who is right for you? Is your query letter dynamic enough? What about writing a book proposal—what should you put in and what should you leave out?

Jean-Noel Bassior is an expert in this field. She's a journalist with 20 years experience writing for major publications such as Redbook, McCalls, Parade, AARP The Magazine, Woman’s World, New Age Journal, Complete Woman, and many others. Her work has been syndicated worldwide by The New York Times Syndicate, Knight Features (London) and other agencies. And Jean-Noel is a contributing editor to AARP The Magazine, as well as the author of Space Patrol: Missions of Daring in the Name of Early Television. She's done numerous celebrity interviews with people like Celine Dion, Mike Wallace, Larry King, Ed Bradley, Shirley MacLaine, Sarah Ferguson (Duchess of York), Goldie Hawn, Tony Bennett, Mary Tyler Moore, and Lorraine Bracco.

And now Jean-Noel can help you to focus and perfect your manuscript, so that it's professional enough for mainstream publishers.

For free consultation, e-mail: jeannoel at sign earthlink.net or use the contact button at the top left-hand side of the page. OR CALL 310.285.3009.

BOOKS TO THE LEFT

Please note that I have links to several books on Amazon on the left-hand side of my page. Two of those books are my own, and the rest are those that I've edited for clients. Some are excellent and I would encourage you to read about them or search inside the book on Amazon.

MY BOOKS: GETTING HIP and D'Amour Road

"GETTING HIP is a personal account of one woman's recovery from a total hip replacement. From the painful deterioration of her joint, to making the difficult decision to have surgery, Sigrid Macdonald takes us with her on her postoperative journey. She discusses preparation for hip surgery, potential complications of the operation, and provides a detailed description of her rehabilitation. Also included are interviews with ten people worldwide who have had hip replacements.

"GETTING HIP is written with wit and candor. It offers useful tips for coping physically and psychologically with hip surgery, as well as important information about how to treat a new hip in order for it to last as long as possible." (Book jacket.)

"After reading this informative and reader-friendly book, you will have permission to vary from the expected norms and accept your own rate of recovery."

Wendy Rogers, Physiotherapist (BPT)

“All anyone needs to know about this procedure is here."

Una Holmes, Veteran of a Total Hip Replacement

Read more about GETTING HIP at Sigrid's Recovery http://www.sigridsrecovery.blogspot.com/.

D'Amour Road

"Tara Richards is approaching 40. The thought fills her with dread. She is unhappy with her job as a rehabilitation nurse and disenchanted with her marriage, but lacks the courage to make a major life change. When her best friend Lisa disappears, Tara's life is thrown into turmoil. Has Lisa jeopardized her sobriety by going on a drinking binge, or has she been harmed by her partner, who has a history of battering? Tara joins a massive search for her friend in conjunction with the police, her colorful women's collective, and a 24-year-old man, whom she finds particularly captivating.

"D'Amour Road explores themes as diverse as women's friendships, domestic violence, wrongful convictions, addictions, midlife crisis, and infidelity. With pathos and humor, social activist Sigrid Macdonald draws us into the world of a quirky and imminently likable Canadian woman, whose life is about to be irrevocably changed." (Book jacket.)

She Unlimited Magazine Review by Chief Editor, Veronica Marie Kettler

"A powerful book based on a true story, taking place in Ottawa, Canada. Sigrid Macdonald vividly makes us aware of this growing and ignored epidemic. Missing Persons is an epidemic ignored by many, and as this story unfolds, it is amazing how our eyes are open wide shut.

"The title of the book is a masterful description which clearly depicts the pages ahead. It is an astounding book on women's passage in society. One woman's life, but many are still missing. I closed the last flap of the book feeling empathy and compassion for those unfound, and the painful footprints left by those still looking.

"The characters are real and the story is profound. It is original with a roller-coaster ride that explores the reality of a social problem everywhere. Macdonald establishes D'Amour Road, the road of love, also a road to tragedy and unsaid mystery as the search begins for Lisa.”

Review by Dannye Williamsen, co-author of IT'S YOUR MOVE! Transform Your Dreams from Wishful Thinking to Reality.

“In an auspicious debut novel, D'Amour Road, Sigrid Macdonald draws the reader into the free-flowing associative thinking of Tara Roberts, whose mid-life crisis is punctuated by a desperate search for her best friend, Lisa, her life sponsor, the one to whom she turns when she trips over life. Lisa's disappearance drives Tara headlong into the complex psychological and social dilemmas that define her mid-life crisis.

"With stunning originality, Macdonald thrusts readers into a non-stop ride that explores both the mundane and the soul-stirring themes that color the human landscape. In a well-conceived metaphor, Macdonald establishes D'Amour Road, the road of love, where Lisa's car is abandoned, as the focal point for the search for Lisa as well as the psychological search for Tara. Beginning with doubts about everything, Tara's search ends in certainties that are rooted in love and trust in herself: ­certainties that transform the old age of her youth into the youth of her old age."

Read more about D'Amour Road at http://www.visitdamourroad.blogspot.com/ or click on the link to the left that says Visit D'Amour Road.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Sigrid Macdonald

INTERESTED IN MY SERVICES? SEND AN E-MAIL TO sigridmacdonald at rogers.com.