Friday, March 8, 2013

From Writer to Author by Anne Haw Holt

I published From Writer to Author on Kindle the last week of February. This is my first try with an e-book and I was astonished at how easy it is. I plan to publish this book in paper through Amazon in June. My fiction was published by Avalon in hardcover. Amazon purchased all five of my books in 2012 and is gradually publishing them in paper and on Kindle. 

From Writer to Author is an expanded version of the handout titled "Clean Up Your Writing" I give people who attend classes I call "Prepare Your book for Publication."  I do these classes in libraries and for small writing groups where I can give writers some individual attention. From Writer to Author is a handbook--something  to refer to regularly as a writer trains to prepare a clean manuscript. 

I don't know everything about writing or editing. I learn something new constantly, but my work gets better. Sometimes I think it could improve a little faster, but it does improve. Writers have to work at polishing their work until it becomes automatic to produce a clean manuscript.

Editing is the worst thing about the new "publishing revolution" not only do individuals publish books without  editing but even mainline publishers have cut their editing staff to the bone. We used to get some real support from our publisher, but that seems to be gone. 

Getting every error out of sixty thousand to more than one hundred thousand words is not easy, but we writers are going to have to learn to do it ourselves unless we have money to hire a professional editor. Most of us do not have $2.00 or more per page to hire someone to polish our work. It falls to us to learn how to do it. 

Anne Haw Holt
From Writer To Author
http://www.ahholt.com
http://www.amazon.com/author/ahholt

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