If you’re considering publishing yourself rather than, or in addition to, travelling the traditional publishing route of agents and publishing houses (in which case I hope you’ll read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series), one of the most important decisions you can make—right up there in importance with professional-level editing—is your choice of a book cover.

Let me just say this right up front: any sighted person who tells you he doesn’t care about a book’s cover is either fooling you or himself. With 40% of human brain real estate given over to receiving and processing visual information, we’re a visual species; for lots of good survival reasons, we place a lot of importance on what we see even when we’re not aware of doing it. People with functioning eyesight can have trained their visual facilities or ignored them; they can be more or less consciously aware of how visual they are, but no-one with a human nervous system is “not visual.” 

And all of us judge books by their covers.

Your Cover Sells Your Book
Whether you imagine your readers browsing bookstore shelves for your title, or (far more likely and getting likelier by the day) browsing pages of books at an online bookstore, you’re going to have to tell them a lot with one glance at your cover. Whether or not you decide on a print version of your book (and POD services like CreateSpace and Lightning Source put print in nearly anyone’s reach), or decide to go digital only, your cover is your first and most impactful sales tool.

Your cover design consists of cover art and typography working together. Elements of cover art include image, color, contrast, brightness, clarity, and composition. Elements of typography include typeface (font), size, position, and most if not all the elements of the cover art itself. If these are artfully combined to convey a few important things about your book at a glance and compel specific readers—the ones most likely to buy your book—to click them and find out more, then to follow your cover's invitation to a sale, you’ve scored a cover design hit.

Bad Cover! No Biscuit!
I just went browsing through a couple of hundred author-published books whose covers were reduced to about 150 pixels, which is the size at which most of your potential readers will see your cover. Here are some things I noticed by glancing at the images as they went by:

• Type in styles and sizes that made it difficult or impossible to read the title, the author’s name, or both
• Too many typefaces
• Type obscuring other cover elements, including faces that would otherwise be the cover’s focal points
• Type out of proportion with other elements
• Body text enlarged and re-purposed as display text
• Fancy type unreadable at any size, but especially so when reduced
• Covers made up of too many images to convey a coherent message about the book
• Cover art that seems unrelated to either the type style or the book’s title
• Muddy colors, overly garish colors, just plain horrid colors
• Amateurish art and/or photography
• Too many cover elements
• Muddled composition
• Cover elements that lack a relationship to one another

I didn’t look further at any of those books, and I’m betting almost no-one else did either.

To be fair, I also saw some lovely cover composition and typography that would stand up proudly next to any traditionally-published book out there, and even outclass a good many of them. These are books by authors who know and care about the difference between amateurish cover design and covers that hook potential readers. They may not have taken on the task of cover design themselves, but if they didn’t they went to someone who knows how and hired it done.

Make Your Cover Work for a Living
Your cover needs first and foremost to be simple. Simple doesn’t necessarily mean plain, but it does mean that there are a few cover elements that work together to tell the reader something about the book—its genre, its general approach, its tone.

Does that sound like a lot to convey in one picture and some type? It is, and it will be a challenge to do it right. Will it be more than you can handle to produce a professional-looking cover with art and typography appropriate to your genre and the voice and feel of your book? There's one way to find out: 1. give it a whirl and see what happens. 2. be honest with yourself about the results 3. be willing to hire the work done if needed.

Just My Type
Typography alone is an artform. You'll need to be able to judge what each typeface conveys in the way of information, personality, and appropriateness to the elements of a particular book. By studying what others have done, you can learn a lot about what works and what doesn't. Type doesn't always have to be fancy and attention-grabbing, nor does it always have to be plain and unobtrusive. What it has to be is right for the particular purpose you have for it.

You may feel like you already know quite a bit about type. Would you put an old-west style typeface on a contemporary romance novel, or a delicate script face on a murder mystery? Probably not. Almost no-one makes type mistakes quite that blatant. But typeface and other typography decisions have many deeper layers and subtleties for the learning, including but not limited to negative space, linespacing, line weight, and letterspacing. 

Every type decision a professional makes has a good reason behind it. You can learn a lot by studying what professional designers have done with it on book covers. Ask yourself why you think they went a certain way with a design and not another. Think about how the type looks at full size and at thumbnail size, and how two typefaces on the same cover relate to one another in terms of likeness and difference and how they define the spaces around them.

You may be as “visual” as any other human being, but that does not, in and of itself, make you a cover designer. That’s why many authors make enough of a study of professionally-designed covers to be able to create something that works for their book. Others depend on professional cover designers. Unfortunately there are a lot of cover design websites in the virtual woods, and not all of them are created equal. Some “professional” covers I’ve seen are scarcely better than the best of the worst out there.

Your Sales Copy
If you’ve got a click-worthy cover, the next thing your potential reader will see is the copy you wrote to convince them to buy it. Write this copy with care after studying at least several dozen examples of books from your genre and others. Your sales copy needs to be long enough, and contain enough of the flavor of your book, to engage the person reading it, make them curious, and make them click through to your sample or a sale. It needs to be short enough to do its job and get the hell out of its own way before your reader's eyes glaze over.

So go learn enough about typography, cover design, and copy writing to be dangerous. This is not your grandmother's publishing environment; if you're going the "indie" route you have to know a lot more about what goes into a high-quality book than last-century's authors would have conceived in their wildest dreams. But in exchange you'll have real choices and real power over the books you decide to publish yourself. 

-Bridget McKenna

The Book Designer
It would be entirely possible for an article on cover design to consist of two words and a link: 

Joel Friedlander: http://www.thebookdesigner.com. 

I think it’s safe to say that Joel has done more for the awareness of cover design among indie publishers than anyone on the Internet. 

In addition to providing a virtual education through his website and e-courses in self-publishing, Joel also runs a monthly ebook cover design awards program that’s an education in itself on what makes a strong book ­­­cover, and what will keep it strong when it’s reduced to 150 pixels. He also has many years’ experience in print book design, and you can hire him (!). It just gets better and better. If you’re serious about designing wonderful covers for your books, or being able to participate meaningfully in discussions with a professional cover designer, study the monthy contest posts. They contain a wealth of cover design knowledge.

Barry Eisler on Covers, Titles, and Branding
Bestselling thriller writer Barry Eisler has some very good advice on the purpose of a book's cover and title and how they work in harmony. Barry has a good understanding of the difference between a good cover and a bad one, and the difference between a cover that's merely eye-catching and one that captures the soul of a book. 

Do-it-Yourself Publishing, Part 2: Editing, Editing, and Editing
Self-publishers have a lot of work cut out for them on the road to producing high-quality books, and each author / publisher will need to make an informed decision how much of that work to do, and how much to contract out to professionals. In this article I’m going to discuss the need for competent, professional-level editing for author-published books.

A New World of Publishing
I think being about to publish your own stuff is the greatest thing since some 13th century Korean genius invented moveable metal type and changed the world. Now it has changed again. Simply to publish a book and see it for sale on its own page on the Internet doesn’t require much in the way of learning about publishing, or even about writing. If publishing for its own sake is your motivation, get out there and publish something; I’ll be lining up to support your right to do it.

I may not, however, be lining up to buy your book.

A New World of PROFESSIONAL Publishing
A writer who wants to publish a book and enter it into direct competition with books published by “name” publishing companies is facing a slightly steeper learning curve. That person needs first and foremost to write a book of professional quality, and to publish a book that’s been edited and proofread and formatted competently—a book with a professional-looking cover and professional-quality sales copy that can stand beside any big publisher’s book with its head high.

This series hopes to bring you a lot closer to that goal. In this week’s article we’ll cover the function of editing in your plans to publish a book of quality; just be prepared for it to go a little slower than you may have thought. Good publishing is not necessarily instant publishing. This stuff takes time.

Not so fast!
Some years back I went to a pub in Inverness, Scotland with some friends. I was buying the round, so I went up to the barkeep and said, “I’d like five pints of Guiness.” An old gentleman sitting at the bar looked up from his pint, gave me a concerned look, and said, “For God’s sake, lassie...slow doon!”

So that’s my advice to the author/publisher who plans to publish a book that will go toe to toe with any best-seller out there. Slow doon! Give yourself time to breathe, time to find the help you need and get it done, time to look and look again until your book is as well written, as professionally presented, as clean and error-free as you can make it.

Production Values
Recently author Will Entrekin wrote a blog article in which he compared indie publishers to indie musicians. Generally speaking, an indie musician wouldn't dream of putting out an album without a producer. If they did, they couldn't expect to compete with professionally produced albums on the level of attention or sales.

The editor can be likened to the producer of a book—the person who has the skill to fine-tune your sound, take your music to the next level, and work with you to create something that stands out from the crowd. Yes, you may end up spending money, and it’s going to take longer to see your book on its glowing internet sales pages, but the value you put into it will be tangible to the reader. It will build trust between the reader and the writer. That trust will go a long way toward building your career.

Maybe because I make my living editing as well as writing, this seems like a given to me. But recently I found considerable anti-editor feeling in the indiepub community in response to an article by a well-known freelance editor. Some who commented feared the loss of their “vision” or “voice” if an editor got his hands on their book. Some felt the feedback they got from writing friends was all the editing they needed. Some felt they were “…past that stage…” in their writing.

Want my opinion? You’re never going to be “past that stage.” Fuggedaboudit. I’ve been a professional writer for nearly 40 years, and written and edited for a living for 24 of those. I still need an editor to save me from stupid mistakes and ensure my best work emerges from what I write.

What Editors Do
Editors work at a lot of levels, from helping you develop your story to polishing the rough spots off your language. You need only buy the editing you need, but be honest with yourself; a copyedit and proofread won’t fix a book whose problems are at the level of story and character.

Some editors will offer to go over a sample of your manuscript and tell you what kind of editing your story needs. They should be able to supply examples of their work­ to help you decide whether you and they are a good match. For example, a primarily technical editor may be ill-suited to help you perfect your murder mystery.

The prices quoted here are an average of several professional editors’ rates. Some editors are willing to be flexible on price, and they may also be able to look at a sample and give you a cost estimate.

Developmental Editing
The most intensive (and costly) level of editing is developmental, in which an editor works with you to improve plot, storyline, characterization, etc. This deep level of editing, if needed, will cost you between $45 and $60 per hour. The good news is you might not need it, or you might not need much of it, especially if you have the skill to follow the editor’s suggestions for improvement. As with all editing, you decide how much of it to accept.

Many writers don’t want to go to someone else for that level of help with their book; for one thing, it’s expensive. For another, if a writer's work needs help at that rough-chunk level of granularity the best bet may be to slow down, go back, learn more, and return to the editing and publishing stage when you’ve learned more. No matter what stage of the game you’re at, writing more will make you a better writer.

Copy Editing
Copyediting covers grammar, spelling, punctuation, and consistency. It’s the middle granularity of editing, where deep changes to the story are not being considered, but neither is the editor concerned with the finer points of language and voice. This will run you about $30 an hour if the text doesn’t require a great deal of it. Many editors will charge more per hour if your work requires so much copyediting that it’s practically a rewrite.

Line Editing
Line editing, which some editors do along with copyediting, and which usually costs about the same, concerns itself with making the language of the story consistent with its intended style and voice, so that it reads smoothly, and every sentence does what it’s supposed to do. It’s like a fine-sanding run to even out the rough spots of your prose.

You’ve probably noticed by now that some of these editing terms are a bit fuzzy and belong to overlapping sets. This is why publishers (whether huge conglomerates or one-woman shows) often don’t hire a separate editor for each task, except for a separate proofreading run.

Proofreading
Proofreading is a final read-through to catch those last errors that are often invisible to the author, but more easily seen by a fresh set of eyes. This is the last step in the editing process, and should be saved until all the changes you plan to make are done. Proofreading should take place just before you’re ready to print or electronically publish your book.

Self-Editing
Really? I waste all this ink on telling you to get an editor, and now I’m going to tell you to do it yourself?

Yes.

The first stages of editing are always in the writer’s hands. The more you know about how to edit yourself, the less editing you’ll be paying for. As you grow in your ability to tell a story, build a character, and use the language to best advantage, you’ll be doing more and more of your own editing as part of that process. You’ll be spotting excess modifiers, over-familiar phrases, complex words where simple ones are better suited to your purposes (and vice-versa), and those extra, unneeded words that fall into a first draft and need to fall right back out again.

Keep watching this space, because I’m publishing a short ebook on self-editing, and very soon now I’m going to make it possible for you to get a free copy.

Your Writing Friends as Editor-Surrogates
If, after reading those hourly rates, you’ve decided you’ll just depend on your writing friends for free editing, bear this in mind: if any one of your friends is the equal of a good professional editor, you’re not only extremely lucky, but you have a rare friend. You may, on the other hand, have a friend whose editing skills you’re overestimating. Beta readers, alpha readers, and friends eager to help do no take the place of someone whose job it is to help you make the most of your writing. That’s my opinion, anyhow.

Jaye Manus says it very well here, in her article “Do You Know How To Work With Editors?”

Finding an Editor
Editors are plentiful; good editors less so. Do your homework. If you know other writers who have worked with freelance editors, ask for names and contact information. Bear in mind that most big publishers use freelancers for copyediting, so ask anyone you know who’s had a book traditionally published, too; they may be able to get a name for you. If you find an editor on the Internet, get samples, get references, get acquainted. You’re probably hoping to save money, but editing is a business and editors have to put food in the fridge. Anyone who works too cheaply may be worth what you pay.

Go. Write. Make it happen. And make it as good as you can make it.

-Bridget McKenna

<PLUG>My editor’s ad is on this page, over there to the right. She’s good.</ENDPLUG>

Remember to come back for next week's article: Judging Books by Their Covers

HOT OFF THE PRESSES! If you like this OP article, you'll love this one by Jaye Manus:  Adventures in Self-Publishing: Fear Not The Process
...
And now back to our regularly scheduled blog:

Publishers, of late under some pressure to explain their relevance in a brave new world of independent author publishers and a growing number of indie curious, have gone on record with lists of reasons why they still matter. Of course it could be pointed out—and has by a number of people—that if an industry as old and established as publishing has to explain why it's still relevant, chances are it's not and already knows or suspects it. The quest for relevance will occupy those publishers who have any hope of surviving the disruptive interference of digital publishing for some time to come. Those whom it eludes will chase it all the way to the unemployment line.

The fact is, the publishing industry as represented by the so-called "Big Six"  is still relevant to people who dream of a big traditional publishing deal complete with a fat advance, generous royalties, a big first printing, bookstore shelf space, co-op advertising, a hard-working publicist pounding out press releases, and maybe a bookstore tour to kick off their career before they get back to work on the next book. In fact, this dream, much like the points of the leaked Hachette memo of late 2011, (expertly fisked here by Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler) outlining what publishers do for authors, belongs to a past century. The reality has changed out from under us, and many writers don't yet realize it. Of those who do, many don't know what to do about it.

Or you could do it yourself...
There's another publishing industry in town, however; or I should say in all the towns, because new publishing, unlike the old, is not centered around one particular city. It's distributed in each author who has published her own book, or is getting ready to do so, or even (I see you out there! Yeah, you!) just considering sticking her toes in the water. And yes, before you ask and make me think up another subhead, there's work involved, and a bit of a learning curve, depending on how much of the work you'll do and how much you'll hire out. There's also fun, satisfaction, liberation, and flavors of control that authors haven't experienced since...well, maybe forever. Oh, and higher royalties. As in much higher.

Don't I need a publisher to tell me whether my book is good enough?
Submitting books to agents and publishers is waiting for your work to be chosen by someone whose day-job it is to select small amounts of writing that fit certain narrow requirements from very large amounts of writing competing for a shrinking royalty pool (because the big advances and meaningful royalty percentages go to proven bestsellers and ghostwritten celebrity fluff). When publishers were the only way to get distribution, and agents were the only way to get to publishers (they never were, but most writers didn't know that) that made a kind of sense. For most projects for most writers, it no longer does, or at least it's not the only thing that does. We now have choices.

There are no fewer hungry young writers out there than there were when big publishing was relevant, and many fewer publishing slots to cram them into. What there are are smaller advances, lower royalties, far worse contract terms, and many fewer inches of bookstore space available to each. That's the reality of the book deal, if you can get one despite worsening odds.

Yes, your book may suck. If it's your first book, it almost certainly will until you learn how to unsuck it. As an independent publisher of your own work, it will be up to you to make sure it sucks as little as possible before you publish it. To that purpose, you're going to assemble your Scooby gang of readers, editors, proofreaders, etc., about which more in Part 2. Will having a traditional publisher guarantee your book won't suck? Sorry. Publishing companies have cut staffs and standards across the board the past couple of decades. Besides, Snooki gets first call on resources; she's going to make them lots more money than you. 

Maybe I'll self-publish after I have a few books out from "real" publishers.
Imagine yourself in ten years when you figure out how long you waited to be chosen by an agent, then to be chosen by an editor, a publisher to whom you are a commodity and probably not a very valuable one, the publisher's sales staff to whom your book was a commodity with a limited shelf life, chain store book buyers to whom your book was a one-second glance at a cover image, and ultimately chosen by a reader, two or three or four  years after you typed "The End"—all provided you ever got that far. Many, many good writers will not. And then think about how much money you left on the table with the crap royalty rate you accepted when you signed your contract. The agent walked away with 15% of everything you made, which was already the smallest possible slice of the cover price the publisher could get away with giving you. How real is that?

But that's not the end of the story. Because your book was marketed like produce, its time on bookstore shelves was limited to a few weeks for bookstores (for grocery stores a few days, for airports a few HOURS). Readers who may have found your work given time did not, because if the sell-through numbers didn't work for that quarter's budget (no long-term thinking in publishing for the midlist author), the downward spiral began: the publisher printed even fewer of your second book, and if the second book sold fewer copies than the first (and how could it not?) you may have found your series killed just as the third book hit the shelves. Sound crazy? I lived it. And so have thousands of other hungry writers.

Crikey! What can I do?
The possible alternative that's being offered in this article series is for you to write the best book you can, apply the self-editing skills you're going to learn before you submit it to a freelance editor (Surprise! That's who most publishing houses use.) and a proofreader, learn a few simple skills (or hire them done) to turn your manuscript into a book, give it a professional-looking cover and sell copy (VERY important), and let your readers decide whether what you've done is worth their money. And they will begin to decide that as soon as you publish the book, not two or three or four years from now. By the time a traditional publisher would have brought out your book even if you sold it today, you'll have at least one more ready to publish and be on your way to building a career.

What about all the competition among self-published books? How can I possibly stand out?
Let me just quote David Gaughran, author of Let's Get Digital, because he says it better than I could, as usual: 

"It always amuses me how these people seem to think that there is some demarcation in the marketplace between self-published work and that which comes from traditional houses.

Some writers say they don’t wish to self-publish as there is too much competition, and are seeking an agent instead. Well, I have news for you. If you manage to beat the insane odds and get a deal, you will still be up against the exact same competition--except there will be more of it, as you will be competing against 2 more years of books.

We all go into the same ranking stew, whichever path we take. Trade published books don’t have any special tags which allow them to stand out from the masses, and, indeed many are languishing at the lower reaches of the rankings. Plus, you’ll still have to hustle. The only difference is you will be pushing something that costs four times as much, and receiving less than a quarter of the royalty rate."

But big publishers pay advances!
They do, but it's very rare indeed for them to exceed $5000 per book. If you are one of the tiny fraction of a percent of hopefuls to win through to a contract, your $5000 will be payable in thirds, and sent to you by your agent, who will have taken out 15%, amounting to a check for $1416 on signing, another on delivery of the book, and the final one on publication. You may not see the entirely princely sum for 12-18 months. This is an advance on a royalty that will likely be 4-8% of cover on a paperback original. If you get a multi-book deal they'll be accounted together, so if you don't pay back your advance on book one, the unpaid amount is added to what you owe on book two, etc. And when they offer you another contract, if they do, the unearned portion of your advance (and most midlist writers never earn out the advance) counts against you when they calculate your next deal. It's a pre-planned downward spiral of earnings, and it's been killing the midlist for years. I'm not saying no-one ever breaks out of it, but most starving midlisters continue to starve.

I haven't even got into bad contracts, but Passive Guy and Kris Rusch have a lot to say about that. The thing keeping big publishing breathing is a constant influx of new writers eager to sign anything.

But wait! What about...?
You have a hundred more questions, I know. And they're all good ones. I won't take them all on here, but if you'll read on, I'll do what I can to point you to some possible answers before the end of this article.

Now that I've at least considered publishing myself, what's next?
Your first assignment is to read some excellent books and blogs about the new world of publishing, which are listed below. Then come back here next week for Do-it-Yourself Publishing, Part Two: Editing, Editing, and Editing, wherein you'll learn some tips about self-editing, and lots and lots about professional editing, the many forms it takes, and how to get some.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...
Catch up on the new publishing universe with as many of the following as you can. This list is not exhaustive, but it's got a lot of good content. Some of these are only available as ebooks, which you can read on free Kindle and Nook reading apps for just about any computer or smartphone.

Let's Get Digital, by David Gaughran

The Indie Journey, by Scott Nicholson, et al
The Newbie's Guide to Publishing, by Joe Konrath
Surviving the Transition, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
A Self-Publisher's Companion, by Joel Friedlander
Be the Monkey - Ebooks and Self-Publishing, by Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath

Now go to the right-hand column of this page, click some links under "Blogs for Writers and Publishers," and get reading. 

-Bridget McKenna

At the bottom of this post is a list of recent articles on the importance of editing. Anyone wishing to skip over the author's opinion on the matter may scroll down to the list.  Below that is an article  on self-editing I originally wrote for my editing clients. I hope you'll find it useful. -Bridget McKenna


The Part About Assumptions
Many writers assume that when a publisher buys their book, they'll receive world-class editing to whip their work into world-class shape. And to be fair, that sometimes still happens, even in these disrupted times. But that assumption doesn't take into account the fact that most writers won't sell their manuscripts in the first place. The vast majority will never acquire representation, and the vast majority of those who do won't find a publisher. That much hasn't changed since "The Golden Age of Big Publishing." What has changed is the number of contracts being offered to new writers. That number has shrunk.

Of those writers who continue to beat their heads against that wall, some will be chosen (passive voice deliberate). They are most likely to be chosen if their book is already a) really, really good, and/or b) really well-suited to one or another publishing sub-genre. And even really, really good books go begging. Some fall prey to the exigencies of the market, others to the whims of narrowing editorial tastes (as agent Jenny Bent reveals here). Of those who are not chosen, some will give up, some will continue to fill drawers with "failed" manuscripts, and some will publish their books themselves.

The chosen ones will face smaller advances, increasingly predatory agency and publishing contracts, shrinking shelf space, nearly or entirely absent marketing and promotion, and publishers who will overprice the electronic edition, scaring away potential readers. And guess what? They may or may not get the stellar editing they were hoping for.

The Part About Editing, and the Part About Self-Publishing
Whether you're publishing your own book or looking for a traditional publisher to shepherd it, editing can make or break it. As a traditionally published author you won't have a choice of editors, but you also won't have to pay directly for editing. You will pay in the amount of cover price your publishing company makes vs. your very small advance and your very small royalties.

Here at the Occupy Publishing camp (on the Internet, no-one can see your tents), we've noticed a double standard where indifferent editing is concerned. Readers who might not notice or care overmuch about a few typos in a Big 6 book are excoriating indie authors for minor errors. And it has to be said that not all the errors they find are minor; far too many self-published books hit the virtual shelves in dire need of proofreading, formatting, and editing.

If you decide to publish your own book, you face doing for yourself or hiring done everything a publisher would have done for you (including the things you dreamed a publisher would do for you, but which they very likely would not have done). Among those is engaging the services of an editor—possibly the same freelancer your publisher would have hired.This is tricky territory to negotiate. The Internet woods are full of editors, and not all of them are good. Not all of the good ones are suited to what you write. I gave birth to mine, and I highly recommend her editing talents, but let's face it, most writers are not going to go to that kind of trouble.

As a self-published author, you can shop for editors, but you will pay professional rates for their work. You can rely on friends to be alpha- and beta-readers, and that may be helpful, but you'll be fortunate indeed to get first-class editing out of them. If you know an editor well enough, you can negotiate rates and/or barter for services. You can learn to self-edit, which won't obviate the need for an outside editor, but will ensure she has less to do, and gets less of your money. 

The Articles
Here's a smattering of recent intertubes activity on the subject of editing, presented for your education and entertainment. I hope they'll help you make an informed choice about the editing for your books.

Guy reveals The Evil Secret to All Writing: Editing is Everything
Karin Cox, guesting on David Gaughran's Let's Get Digital, offers up Self-Editing: Back to Basics, Part I
Self-Publishing Review tells you Where to Find an Editor for a Self-Published Book
Phil Athans says Self-Published E-Books Are Losing Readers Due To Bad Editing
And less recent, but no less valuable, a couple of archived articles from the excellent Alan Rinzler: Fear of Editors
When Do You Need an Editor?

What did I miss? Please comment if you've found other good articles on editing, or books you've found helpful. 
Below is my self-editing article, "Search and Destroy," soon to become part of "The Little Book of Self-Editing for Writers. Watch the blog for details on how you can get a free copy.

-Bridget McKenna

Get yer red hot blogs right here!
Here are a handful of blogs OP thinks you should be following, if you're not already familiar with them. This is OP's idea of the best of the best out there for writers and writer-publishers.

These bloggers are dedicated to much the same ideas we are—that writers can and should empower themselves by learning about all their publishing options, and choosing a path that works best for their objectives at all stages of their writing and publishing careers.

What are YOUR favorite writer and publisher blogs? Leave a comment and let us know.

The Passive Voice -  Writers, Writing, Publishing, Disruptive Innovation and the Universe 
The Book Designer - Practical advice to help build better books
Let's Get Digital - How to self-publish, and why you should
The Business Rusch - Raising awareness of the new face of publishing
Dean Wesley Smith - Think Like a Publisher
The Newbie's Guide to Publishing - Outspoken opinions, and uncompromising facts
Barry Eisler - For Writers - A generous outpouring of resources for indie authors and all writers
A Brain Scientist's Take on Writing - Applying neuroscience to the writing life
J W Manus - One veteran writer's take on "The age of the new writer."
The Creative Penn - Helping you write, publish, and sell your book
The Book Deal - An Inside View of Publishing
The Red Pen of Doom - A reformed journalist blogs about editing, publicity, etc.    

Beware. You WILL spit whatever you're eating or drinking all over your keyboard. Go, Simon! NSFW.

As our British cousins might put it, "The pitch is more than just the 22 yards between the bowler and the batsman." In that they'd be right, especially in the world of writing.

In his must-read blog, "The Book Deal," Alan Rinzler explains the new rules, and new possibilities, for author pitching, now that we're not just pitching to agents and editors, but also to social media, and directly to our readers. Here's Mr. Rinzler:

"Authors today need a whole new attitude toward the all-important pitch.

Until now, the author pitch was defined as a hard-sell verbal punch to persuade agents and editors to take on their book. It was typically brief, high-concept, often hyperbolic and was designed to convince the agent standing there that the book was fabulous and so was the author.

But as with everything else in the book business, pitching too has changed, evolving with the times into something different and actually much more interesting."

Read the rest of this article at: The new author pitch: Show, don’t sell.

From the Seattle Times 14 January 2012 - article written by Eric Lacitis (elacitis@seattletimes.com) 
She's the country's most-beloved librarian, whose book recommendations are avidly sought by her fans.

Nancy Pearl is so famous that tens of thousands of her prim-looking action figures, wagging a shushing finger, have been sold by novelty-seller Archie McPhee.

And overnight, this 67-year-old Seattle grandmother has become ... a greedy betrayer of the small, sometimes-struggling, bookshops that so supported her?

"Yes," says J.B. Dickey, owner of the Seattle Mystery Bookshop about such an assessment. "By aligning herself with Amazon, she's turning her back on independents. Amazon is absolutely antithetical to independent bookselling, and, to many of us, truth, justice and the American way."
...

On Wednesday, Amazon.com announced it was issuing "Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries series, a line of Pearl's favorite, presently out-of-print books to share with readers hungry for her expert recommendations."

About six books a year would be published in versions that include print books and eBooks, says the Seattle-headquartered merchandising 
...
Pearl, a former Seattle librarian who is a regular commentator on NPR, says she did consider the reaction from independent bookshops when signing up with Amazon.

She says she is sympathetic to independents, having managed one in Tulsa, Okla., for nine years, from 1979 to 1988.

"I had hoped, perhaps naively, that they'd see the benefits of this project," Pearl says. "This has been a dream of mine for a decade or more, to have these books back in print. It seemed to make the project very worthwhile."

The reaction from the brick-and-mortar bookshops — which have struggled first against competition from the big-box chains, and then the price-cutting Amazon — was immediate.

By Friday, some 50 store managers and owners had emailed Thom Chambliss, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association in Eugene, Ore.
...
"Some people are calling for action, and others are suggesting we mend our relationship with her as best as we can," says Chambliss.

Something the independents have to consider is that Nancy Pearl helps move books.

"...She is known throughout the country. She's one of the biggest names in the book world right now. Period," says Chambliss.

In the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Dickey isn't much for making peace with Pearl, and his shop will carry nothing issued by Amazon.

He writes:

"She's no longer going to be simply a librarian; she's now a publisher and, as such, cannot be viewed as objective. No publisher is. And, by being affiliated with Amazon, she's lending her 'brand' to them and can no longer be viewed as free agent. No matter what she recommends from now on, the appearance, suspicion or assumption will always be, fair or not, that Amazon is calling — or at least influencing — her shots."

Pearls laughs when told of the accusation.

"I think that anyone who knows me knows that I have always spoken the truth to power. I have always been honest in everything I've done," she says.

Dickey says his store won't stock any print books published by Amazon, as he will have to buy them for the same price as customers ordering online.

He says his shop does sell eBooks through its website, but the Pearl series only will be available on Kindle, a proprietary reading device sold by Amazon.

"There is no way to win, so we don't sit down at the table," says Dickey.
...
Pearl says all she wants to do is give these lost books a new life.

She is donating a portion of the proceeds from the book sales to the Nancy Pearl Endowment for Public Librarianship at the University of Washington's Information School.

"These are not going to be best-sellers. They're not celebrity biographies. They're not celebrity memoirs," Pearl says.

"These are books that I read and cherished. I'm convinced that making these books available was the right thing to do."