Tuesday Book Reveal: Aid of Anyone who Writes - The Frugal Editor: Do-it-Yourself editing secrets for authors
World Wide Web—Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s newest book, is, yep, a rehash (second edition!) of the multi award-winning The Frugal Editor: Do-it-yourself editing secrets for authors: From your query letter to final manuscript to the marketing of your new bestseller.
The first edition was winner of USA Book News’ pick for Best Professional Book, a Reader Views winner, and received nods from the New Generation awards and the Military Writers Society of America, but the new version is Expanded (more than 100 pages)! Updated! And reformatted for e-books that have changed considerably since it was published in 2007. It also has a a new subtitle, a new cover by Chaz DeSimone with a new three-dimensional look by Gene Cartwright.
The second edition covers new editing tricks the author has come to appreciate since the first was published, including how to spot the overuse of helping verbs when simple past tense would work just as well; a reminder that politically correct usage isn’t always what a writer should strive for (consider some of the language used in the award-winning movie Twelve Years A Slave); and more on style choices vs. grammar rules and how to make those choices. She says, “I'd be embarrassed if I had to say I hadn't learned anything more I could share with my readers in seven years since the first edition was published.”
The Frugal Editor received plaudits from industry shakers like Marilyn Ross, founder of Small Publishers or North America; Tim Bete, director of Dayton University’s Erma Bombeck Writers’ Conference, and respected industry editors like Barbara McNichol.
Howard-Johnson, an instructor for nearly a decade at UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, chose to release this new edition for e-books with Amazon’s Kindle because their free app allows readers to access it for many platforms and the lower price of digital publishing gives her struggling students and clients an affordable choice. It will soon be available for print, too.
Whichever format a reader chooses, The Frugal Editor battles the gremlins out there who are determined to keep an author’s work from being published or promoted. Resolved to embarrass authors before the gatekeepers who can turn the key of success for them—these gremlins lurk in a writer’s subconscious and the depths of computer programs. Whether a new or experienced author, The Frugal Editor helps writers present whistle-clean copy (from a one-page cover letter to your entire manuscript) to those who have the power to say “yea” or “nay.”
The author is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing, and its Diamond Award for her work with arts and culture. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of 14 women of “San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen.” She has worked for Good Housekeeping Magazine and as a journalist for several newspapers and has been a popular presenter at writers’ conferences nationwide like the one at San Diego State University and the Sinclair Lewis Writers’ Conference. She is also a novelist and poet, which informs the advice she gives to authors of those genres.
Learn more about Howard-Johnson and her HowToDoItFrugally series of books at http://www.howtodoitfrugally.