The Self-Publishing War, illustrated with sarcasm.

In the self-publishing blog-o-sphere, I’ve noticed a somewhat invisible (or perhaps not so invisible) war raging between self-publishers that use an assisted publishing service and those that take the DIY approach. I personally am in the DIY camp and will gladly explain why this is the best choice for me. I repeat, for me. However, I’ve received fire from the other camp in blog comments or conversations that go something like this:

Well, good for you miss technologic-mc-technology fingers. I don’t even know how to tri-fold a piece of paper into an envelope, you think I can figure out where margins go?? What should I do, just quit my life and get a PhD in graphic design? Have fun making really bad covers while I have professionals work on my book. Because I am an AUTHOR. I WRITE. My readers care about the STORY and that’s my job, the STORY part. I can’t just waste my time learning about indents when I have all these STORIES. And just like any good writer I get an editor. I do IDEAS not COMMAS. Besides, I get up at four A.M. eight days a week just to get all my writing done, where will I find time to format a 200,000 word book? Real authors ain’t got time for that! You’re the reason self-publishing sucks because you think you can do it all by yourself and publish horrible covers and badly put together Frankenbooks. Hope you can sleep at night knowing you are turning self-publishing into a laughing stock while I get people who actually know what they’re doing to package all my awesome authorly ideas! It’s your fault books like mine don’t get a chance.

On the flipside, I’ve read blog posts outlining why using a publishing service has been the right choice for an author. Inevitably there are comments below the post that read like this:

Ooh, it looks like somebody has money! I’d like to bring you down to the real world. I’ll only ever have fifty, maybe, MAYBE, seventy-five cents to put toward my book, but I’m glad you had fistfuls of cash handed to you to burn on publishing. You know you can publish a book for free, right? Sure I don’t have any money to spend on marketing, advertising, giveaway copies, promotional materials, book events or business cards, but at least I don’t have five grand to make up for just getting an ISBN and some cute impersonal stock photos for my cover. Because guess what? I’m a MICRO-PUBLISHER and it says so on my facebook page. I’m like a CEO. I do way more than write. I have to think about things instead of handing out some greenbacks for someone else to do the not-fun parts of self-publishing. It’s all your fault for turning self-publishing into a vanity fair! You just need thousands of dollars and ta-da, author! How about some blood, sweat, and tears, huh? You’re the reason books like mine get a bad reputation.

All right.
I don’t care what side you’re on, if you’re so defensive about how you’re doing publishing, you just make yourself look dumb. Because both the tirades above are right: either route done badly is a great blow to the “self-pub image.” But either route done well is likely going to be the best choice for that particular author. Time, money, and management skills are necessary in self-publishing, regardless of the means. And what matters most is the book. If you aren’t writing the best book you can, it doesn’t matter how you publish or how that guy over there is publishing. If the book isn’t the center of your focus and falls short in execution, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.

6 ways to be "that" annoying author on Facebook

With all the talk of author brands, online platforms, and finding more outlets to promote work, Facebook seems like an ideal place for an author to connect and advertise. In many ways it is, but if you're not careful you will quickly turn into that annoying person on Facebook, who gets blocked or removed from your friend's news feeds. As an author that uses Facebook with other authorly friends, here are the six most annoying things (in my opinion) an author can do on Facebook.

1. Creating too many pages, and wanting your friends to like ALL of them.

Having multiple pages for pen names or keeping your personal page separate from your author page is often necessary. But don't go overboard. I know authors that on top of having a personal page and multiple pen name pages, they make pages for each book published. Way too much, especially when the author sends like/friend invites to their entire friend's list each time they make a new page. There are only so many things friends will like before you start getting ignored.

2. Word for word multiple postings and shares.

Posting things on your author page AND your personal page word for word will show up as repetitive clutter in friend's feeds that are linked to both your pages. I am guilty of doing this from time to time and I should stop, because it is annoying. Not to mention it doesn't give anyone a reason to like/friend an author page if you post everything to your personal page as well. If you want to promote works via other pen names or your personal page, spread it out and don't copy paste. It's easy: Post. Wait a day. Post with different wordage. But only on really important things like a new book or maybe a promo.

3. No content other than "buy my book."

Not only will you get boring to your friends, new people that check out your page (who may have already bought your book) won't want to subscribe to you on FB unless you provide more content. There are plenty of LOL cats relating to books, writing, or topics you write about (zombies, cooking, rodeos).
If you want to be more serious, do book reviews, post smart things people from history have said, or cats doing serious things. Linking other social networking accounts to automatically post to your FB can be good to up content but not if you post the same things on twitter that you post on FB. (I personally like the goodreads app. For FB, as it updates automatically and I post things there I don't post anywhere else.)

4. Abusing tagging and messaging

Just because someone liked your page/friends you doesn't mean they've signed up for the mailer too. Private messages are a little better, as these are private, but tagging means it'll show up on the tagged friend's wall.

Which, yeah, then people that aren't friends with you will see you have a new book! Awesome!

No, more like annoying because it feels like you're stealing the friend's opinion and using their space for advertising. Bad.

If a friend chooses to post: "New book by Authorly Awesome, read it!" Then great. But when you say "New book by Authorly Awesome, read it!" and stick it on their wall with the clever use of tags... ouch. Sure, people can untag themselves or remove themselves from messages, but really, do you want to wave something in front of their face and annoy them to a point of taking action? They probably won't check out what you're telling them about if that's the case. Especially if you just posted it on your author page. And again on your personal page. Oy.

5. Being too casual.

Personally, I would love to post naughty words and angry self-righteous rants on my personal page, but I don't. I'm super PC, because I'm paranoid. So I'm usually extra paranoid on my author pages. Keep in mind that strangers will be looking at your page even if they don't friend/like your page. So personal, heated drama should probably stay out of your updates. Life updates like moving or kidney failure are probably good if you can tie it into why your next book is late, but daily wallowing is bad. Also, keep it professional. Have a cleaner layout, use complete sentences. No pixilated pictures for your cover photo and do not make your Schnauzer your profile picture. Using profanity is up to you. Of course if it's in your book or your book has adult themes you don't want to present yourself as having a book full of gee-whiz and sexuality that goes as far as the midriff. Just use your best judgment.

6. Calling FB "advertising" or using it as your primary marketing tool.

Having an author page is not advertising. Maybe if you pay lots-o-money for those side ads, but there are debates as to how effective those actually are. And if you think just making a FB page for the book is a good enough marketing plan... um. It's not. And if you think all 437 friends on your personal page will buy your book, you are dreaming. From the local authors I know, and from my experience, only about 10% of your friends will actually buy. A little bit more will read/download free stuff like short stories or blog posts. And less than 10% will come to a live event. Facebook only goes so far and you will soon exhaust your pool of fans and annoy them into blocking you from their feeds/unliking your page if your only advertising is done there. Which defeats the purpose when you have a new book or an event to share.


In my experience FB is best when you have NEWS which is very rare. A new book is news. The first book signing is news. An award is news. Reminding friends to buy the book you published 8 months ago is not news. Reminders are okay, if you get an influx of likes/friends from say a blog post being featured or a book event you went to. But posting every week (or every month) about old books is a good way to turn off your audience. Constant posting is good to stay updated with content, but keep it minimal. A quote here, a link there, an lol cat once a week. That way when you have NEWS you can have a cluster of postings and not be annoying/actually have people pay attention.

FB is a double edged sword, and I will return to the topic to further depress authors in a post I have in the works: why FB will disappoint you as an author. Cheers.

My response to "that" Sue Grafton quote, and self-pub philosophy in general.

So, I'm a little late on this topic, but I feel it's time that I sat down and assembled my philosophy of self-publishing in wordage. And the topic/quote is a springboard for just that.

So, bestselling author Sue Grafton made a lot of independent and self-published authors angry when she basically called self-publishers lazy wannabes. I originally saw the quote in this Forbes article by David Vinjamuri, and soon after on writer's blogs. Grafton has since issued some damage control and explanations about her quote, but the embers still burn.

Here is the quote, I found here:

"The hard work is taking the rejection, learning the lessons, and mastering the craft over a period of time. I see way too many writers who complete one novel and start looking for the fame and fortune they’re sure they’re entitled to. To me, it seems disrespectful…that a ‘wannabe’ assumes it’s all so easy s/he can put out a ‘published novel’ without bothering to read, study, or do the research. Learning to construct a narrative and create character, learning to balance pace, description, exposition, and dialogue takes a long time. This is not an quick do-it-yourself home project. Self-publishing is a short cut and I don’t believe in short cuts when it comes to the arts. I compare self-publishing to a student managing to conquer Five Easy Pieces on the piano and then wondering if s/he’s ready to be booked into Carnegie Hall."

So, here we go.

Honestly, getting mad about "wannabe" writers is the third in the Big Three, as I like to call them, of Things Every New Writer Thinks. One is needing to put a © symbol on everything they submit/don't submit for fear of having their work stolen. Two is honestly believing that their book's themes are universal themes, so everyone will want to read it. Third, I reiterate, "Omg, I bleed ink better/harder/longer that that guy. I'm mad now." (And I'm speaking from experience as well as observation.)

I ran into the same thing in college. I was a lit major, and I took lit classes. I had peers who never read the books assigned. (That's all lit classes are. Reading books. And they didn't. Why. No idea.) Or the scope of their literary criticism/critical thinking was, "Yeah, I didn't really like that book. That wasn't a good book." Well, guess what. I loathed "Cry, the Beloved Country" but that thing is underlined and noted on every other page, and I learned a lot from reading it. At the end of the day, it didn't really matter that they just read Sparknotes and got C's or B's, when I stayed up every night reading 300 pages and got A's. We graduated with the same degree. And since it doesn't really matter if you can list Dante's circles of hell when applying for jobs in telecommunications or customer service, I guess everyone wins. (I mentioned writing literary criticism as a hobby at my interview for the grocery store. Express cashier, baby.)

But it's everywhere. In every job I've had, in every hobby I've seen, there are people standing around lamenting over the wannabes. Fearing they may be thought of as a wannabe. Pointing the finger at the wannabe, haha, wannabe! But let's not dwell on the wannabes. Wannabe's gonna wan..na.

The main point that has ruffled so many feathers is "Self-publishing is a short cut and I don’t believe in short cuts when it comes to the arts." Like many of the angered self-pubbers out there, I do not see self-publishing as a shortcut. I have spent hours (Blood! Tears!) teaching myself formatting. I have honed my skills as an editor, because, honestly, good editors are very hard to find. I've read graphic design and art books to learn about cover design and have actively been trying to sharpen my skills in photography. Not to mention that I spend hours in between my three jobs reading fiction, non-fiction, blogs and articles. I take notebooks with me everywhere I go. I write on napkins, in texts, on my breaks, late at night. And many self-publishers do that. They work diligently to polish their product and get better at their craft. But it doesn't matter to anyone else that I'm sitting at my patio feverishly trying to get a page written before I have to go to work. No one's life is changed by me staying up too late again to write this blog post. We're all doing our own thing, to cope, to live, to survive, to escape, to whatever. And we get great books out of it all, that we all enjoy and share. We also get bad books.

Because, yes. The stereotypes can be true. Self-publishing can be a shortcut. Authors are people and people come up with a million annoying marketing schemes and will always feel entitlement for attention and praise. Many out there believe their 30,000-word piece can change souls and minds and make them rich without even taking off their slippers. And some don't edit. I read a self-published book… where the narrator kept making… dramatic… pauses. And one ellipses… had 14 periods. Fourteen. Not, "Oh, typo, there's four," or even "Um, didn't anyone tell you five dots is too many?" Fourteen. It begged to question if the author had ever even read a book, let alone why this person thought s/he had the qualifications to write one.

But that's not to mean a junky self-published book was put together hastily under visions of grandeur. I worked as a tutor in lit when I was in college and I worked with some students who loved literature, wanted to write and critique. But they had a hard time. Even when they read and read and discussed and we went over themes and symbols and everything, on tests they were lucky to pull B's and their writing took several rounds of editing to get to something workable. But they were bleeding more ink into it than students who easily read something once and wrote decent essays. So even if you do work really hard for years and years, your execution might be off, or you just might not be able to tell a story in a way that readers can palate. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm on the brink of taking the plunge with my first book, and could very well not have executed the way seven years of work should have. But I'll publish again. And again. Which, in my world is exactly "taking the rejection, learning the lessons, and mastering the craft over a period of time."

I want to rally around good self-published books, because I like them, because they're well done, and because I respect the work it takes. But I will be honest, I don't want to give 5-star reviews to books I think are badly written, and don't want to review books in a positive light just because they're self-published. I want to read good books. And that starts with us, as writers.

I think self-publishers have to be on their best game to do well, or even all right. Because traditional publishers have a whole team of people and ideas crafting a product, not to mention money and resources that will far overshadow the capabilities of a softcover POD book as far as physical product goes. But with ebook and even better print technology, it still comes down to what's inside the book.

A wannabe is always going to shine through. Annoying people with self-centered selling strategies are only going to get so far. So, let's be honest. The fact that 50 Shades has allegedly sold more copies than the Harry Potter series makes me want to drink mustard and milk mixed together to induce vomiting. (A guy did that in my high school biology class once. It worked.) Not because of the sex (I want a sociology degree. I have many a sex book.) Nor because I don't think she didn't spend hours working on the book. I think she did. I just think it has the structure of a malformed plastic sack at the bottom of the stack we throw away at the grocery. But that's my opinion. It's a book. Let's look at books and quit worrying over who bleeds more, or who needs to fill a void in their life for whatever reason by writing books. I'm sure we all have one, deep and dark.

If you think a book is bad, say it's bad. If you're a self-pubbed author, for everything lovely and nice, don't solicit reviews or try guerilla tactics by shoving your book/business card in someone's face just because they're in a library. Don't try to force readers to be into something they just aren't interested in.

If you think a book is good, say it's good. Does it irk me that I stay up until 2 a.m. formatting an ebook and someone else is all, "Yeah, I paid my computer friend to format my ebook, she'll get it back to me next week and I'll be published!" Yes. It does. But if it's a good book, well-written and fresh, I will gladly say so.

So, this is where I stand. Research the writing world, but don't get too caught up in it. Work hard, read books, write, and edit every day. A pot always fills one drop at time.

"Hollowland" collab review

My first genuine Apology to John Keats, a review of Amanda Hocking’s “Hollowland.” But wait, there’s more! My first ever collab, with Kris from over at Catacomb’s Bookshelf!

So, let’s get started with Kris’s take:

"Hey folks, this is Kris of the Catacomb’s Bookshelf. A while ago, AJ read through Hollowland and she hated it. Curious, I downloaded the book for free on my Kindle Fire and I hate it too. It’s amazing how much a free book by a best-selling ebook author can turn me from a hopeful indie-authors-kick-ass reader to a how-the-hell-did-this-get-uploaded reader. How much do I hate it?

Hollowland is like eating a medium rare burger gone stale. It has all the ingredients, flavors, and condiments of a zombie book, novel, and film. But the main problem is that the meat is too damn rare and all the ingredients, flavors, and condiments are horrible.


The novel's biggest problem is its plausibility: for example, keeping beds by windows is a BAD IDEA when zombies could break in and GRAB someone from it and pull the poor sap through the window where the zombie and its hungry friends will bloodily devour with ease. I mean, the beginning was good (Even with the random guy’s gun seemingly going off by itself) but then it goes straight downhill from here into zombie cliches, Redbull-induced headaching idiocy in logic and annoying, one-dimensional characters of whom you wished would just get eaten, all written with a plot and prose structure that would best suit a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic.

The characters are very, very irritating to say the least. In one scene where a really annoying character, Harlow, was taken by zombies, I was screaming to the zombies "EAT! EAT! EEEEAAAAATTT!!!" while silently cheering for two really minor, stupid characters to perish. Sad, I know, but then they are characters that appear very briefly, show no purpose in hanging around the main characters, and die two gruesome and awesome deaths. But the characters whine and complain too much about the current situation and a few key characters just don't know how to survive. Even one character is abandoned because zombie blood might have gotten into her system, and the effect of sadness falls flat on its face because we never got to know the character before she is abandoned.

The only character not annoying is the main narrator and heroine, Remy King, only she's pretty much the generic female warrior who can somehow somersault while on the floor and has the personality of a fembot found in the Resident Evil movies. Amanda Hocking, have you never taken a physics class? Or taken an anatomy class to understand that no one can somersault from the floor? That was a huge “What-the-fuck-that-is-so-blatantly-lame” moment that took me out of the paper-thin plot. Does she have some redeeming qualities? She has more good qualities than the other characters at least. She's worried about her brother and that's pretty much it. Her narration is tolerable because she has zero personality and that makes it easy to not want her get the crap kicked out of.

I could have done without the warrior lion who in REAL LIFE WOULD HAVE EATEN REMY AND HER PARTY ALIVE. The lion pretty much ruined any plausibility of the story and even if this story was written as a satire of the zombie novel genre, which it isn’t, it is still stupid because the lion hangs around as a walking deux ex machina device. The rock star Laszlo did not do much for me as he served as the stupid love interest and eye candy for female and gay readers. Blue the medic, although promising, barely makes a blip on the radar in most scenes. It's like Hocking forgot about him entirely while trying to make a forced, unconvincing romance between Remy and Laszlo and making stupid reasons for both of them to fuck each other. Speaking of fucking, there is a scene like that and it makes the reader question if this is appropriate for Hocking’s target audience, which is teenage girls. With all the blood and guts flying, I forgot this was a young adult book.

The thing that really kills me is that there is not an original bone in Hollowland's body. We get the same zombie apocalypse tropes like rogue groups. But the segment that really slapped my face with stupidity was when Remy and her crew take refuge with the crazed religious cult that completely rips off David Koresh's cult and the Waco, Texas tragedy. Hocking, just because his name is "Korech" instead of "Koresh" does not make him an original figure.

In short of content, Hollowland is, well, HOLLOW. There's no originality, there's no real reason to care about the characters, and there is no real reason to read it. The only good parts are some of the gory zombie details and zombie mythology: the zombies don't just move fast like the rage-infected humans do in 28 Days Later, they also evolve and use tactics to take the humans down. And Hocking's writing style, when it does not delve into idiocies, is laden with flawed clauses and a few typos that stick out. This book needed several more levels of editing as many instances of broken clauses pop up like “I’d only made it down a few steps when the gun went off behind me, and I ducked.” It makes it hard to swallow several details presented in the book. Overall, the text structure and editing is broken and at times, confusing. For a woman who somehow became a best selling ebook author, this is inexcusable.

I'm not sure how I'm going to like Amanda Hocking, but reading through Hocking's book was like forcing myself to be a zombie: not really feeling anything as I just walk along until I'm finally shot dead by the ending. Which completely and utterly sucks to where it does not feel like an ending, but it feels like the story is going on and on. So yeah, Hollowland did not do much for me and I'm afraid it did not do much for me for wanting to check out more of Hocking's bibliography."

Now it’s my turn!

First off, I’d just like to point out the first line of “Hollowland,” that is used in her promotion of the book in many summaries I’ve seen:

"This is the way the world ends - not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door."

This is an allusion to the final lines in the (gorgeous) poem “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot,

“This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.”(Go read it now!)

I understand this is a widely referenced quote, and Hocking was deliberate in the usage. However, I feel, after Eliot’s poem, any time the line is used, the work referencing it just feels flat and collapses, as Eddie Izzard might say, “like a flan in a cupboard.” Unfortunately it was the best line in the whole book.

And I honestly don’t know how I managed to get through this one.

Kris reflected my sentiments about the characters and the plot. (I don’t understand how all the characters manage to be under an upside down car with broken glass and not be poisoned by zombie blood which, in Hocking’s world, is just as deadly as a bite.) Having covered this, I’ll follow with some other thoughts.

I thought this book was poorly written and not just because the description was strictly action and the narration was painfully oblivious to any structure. I had a huge problem when I found out the main character was 19. When I first started reading the book I pegged the reading level to be for 12-13 year olds, maybe. Then we learn that Remy is nearly 20? What? I’ve read a lot of good books for young readers, so that’s not my problem. My problem is that apparently, even with a reading level for middle school, throwing in some curse words and a sex scene makes it edgy and young adult. (And no, Hocking isn’t the only author in the world to do this.)

That being established, Hocking uses her character’s age to put in pop culture references including Bon Jovi and Monty Python. But then she explains the jokes. And then she has the 13-year-old character not get the jokes and the older characters roll their eyes at her. I feel that this alienates potential audience, because at that reading level, she is going to have younger readers that don’t get the reference. Plus, why would a writer explain the joke if he or she is making fun of the character that doesn’t get it? Why explain a pop culture reference at all? EXPLAINING THE POP CULTURE REFERENCE DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF THE POP CULTURE REFERENCE SO STOP IT!

Moving along. Her character’s names were also annoying. Remy, Blue, Laszlo and Harlow. I guess all their parents just happened to be creative hippies. Forgivable enough.

But Kris sums up my sentiments when he states: “there are typos about and for a woman who somehow became a best selling ebook author, this is inexcusable.”

Exactly. The reason I read this book in the first place was because I felt a certain amount of given respect for an author that was successful being self-published, self-directed, pursued her ideas, and gained a loyal readership. But that respect has completely diminished after reading this book. This book doesn’t appear to be edited in any way other than a simple spell-check and misplaced words appear throughout the entire book. For an author that stresses how much she edits, I’m quite unimpressed. Maybe I’m just ravenous for a good, well-written book that other writers can aspire to, learn from, and enjoy. I did not find any of that in “Hollowland.”

I know I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but with this one, when I saw Barbie’s gothic sister lost in Mordor, I should never have clicked the download button.

In the end, I agree with Kris’s inkling about future Hocking books: They’re not what I’m looking for. I understand the value of a thrilling escape with accessible characters in a quick read, but Hocking’s brand does not sync with me. After reading this book, I probably won’t be reading any more of Amanda Hocking’s work.

Editors. (Take a deep breath. Everything's all right.)

Does working with editors turn you into the defensive, angry, self-righteous author? Here are four things to tell your ego when the evil editor complex strikes.

1. They’re editors, not readers.

The editors that you choose to let start cutting into your work are not reading the piece on a beach on their vacation. If the only feedback is “It’s interesting, I like it a lot,” they are not being an editor. An editor doesn’t read a piece to enjoy it was a reader. They’re reading it to find weak spots – to make it better. It can be crushing to hear “Wow this needs a lot of work,” from an editor. You already put in a lot of work, after all. But trust me, it takes a lot of work to get to a point where it needs more, so don’t be discouraged.


2. Being defensive defies the purpose.

I like it when writers get a little defensive, but not when they completely shut out everything the editor suggests. I’ve worked on projects as an editor when the author is so adamant, I just stop making suggestions. So what’s the point of the editor if that happens? It’s a waste of everyone’s time. The great thing about being a self-publisher is that you really do have the last word. You don’t have to take all the suggestions an editor gives. But don’t let the suggestions you aren’t going to use interfere with the suggestions you should!


3. You are the expert and nothing changes that.

As a self-publisher, I don’t have the resources to pay a professional editor, but I do have a team of a select few readers that have editing strengths in different areas. Some have studied literature, some have not. Some have worked in the writing field, some have not. Just because someone has a degree in literature doesn’t mean they know more than you. I witnessed a lot of English degree people that didn’t read the books they were assigned in lit classes. That’s all lit classes are! How do you learn anything about literature if you don’t read? A degree doesn’t make you. A degree is what you make it. I’m going on six years studying literature and writing. I have my degree and I continue to read, edit other people’s work, and practice my own writing. When I get overwhelmed with suggestions I need to remember to trust my own knowledge, skills, and intuition. On the flipside I’ve gotten great advice from people who know what time it is and know way more than me. You know when you get suggestions from someone brilliant, and that’s great. But you should still be the expert when it comes to what’s best for the audience, the story, the characters, and the whole point of the book. It’s up to you to take suggestions, leave suggestions, and do the piece justice.


4. If you were holding the red pen, you’d be doing the same thing.

People have asked me what would happen if I launched my own publishing company and were the chief editor. Well. Everything would have to get past me. And I’m picky, rigid, unforgiving and terribly honest. But as a writer, I can’t always give that terribleness to myself, because I truly can’t see the forest for the trees. So I put my trust in the editors I choose to give it back to me. And when that makes me insecure or discourages me, I have to remember that I would do the same thing. And it isn’t for some power trip, it isn’t to tear an author down, it isn’t to rewrite the piece for them – it’s to make the piece better. It can always be better. I’ve said that as long as there’s a book I haven’t read, there are things about writing I haven’t learned. And as long as there’s an Ursula Le Guin book on my shelf, there’s proof I can be better. I don’t know why I can dish so much of it, but get wobbly and panicky when it’s given back. But knowing my own motives in reading other people’s work makes me feel better about taking suggestions from others. It’s very psychological.

I’ll do another post on editor-philosophy at a later date. Until then I hope this softens a few porcupine quills when it comes to editing. If that metaphor makes any sense at all. Happy new year!