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Your Path to a Successful Book

Our $uccess blog will feature writing, marketing, and publishing tips we continue to learn since writing our 2009 INDIE Finalist workbook $uccess, Your Path to a Successful Book keeping our readers abreast of the everchanging skills required to write, publish and sell a successful book. We will also have guest commentators. Achieving your goals as a writer is what matters. Anything we can do to help you get there is our goal. We welcome your comments and hope you will sign up for our bi-monthly (or whenever we have enough material) newsletter.

Posts Tagged ‘editing’

SLOG – Editing 7

Friday, December 26th, 2008

Partial excerpt from Success, Your Path to a Successful Book by Maralyn D. Hill and Brenda C. Hill.

Both books referenced in our posts of 12/23/08 and 12/21/08 are good reading a little at a time. Like most reference books, we suggest picking them up and reading a little at a time.

If you read an editing book 10 or 15 minutes a week, you will improve your selection of words and habits.

You’ll spot some worn out words and phrases and be able to replace them with concise words.

The more work you do, the less work an editor will have to do. Plus, it will give you great satisfaction to start noticing what you can change and improve.

If you want to go deeper into this area of your writing, Line by Line, by Claire Kehrwald Cook is easy reading with good examples.

SLOG – Editing 6

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

Excerpt from Success, Your Path to a Successful Book

by Maralyn D. Hill and Brenda C. Hill.

Another treasure is the Thesaurus of Alternatives to Worn-Out Words and Phrases, by Robert Hartwell Fiske. An example of this priceless work follows:

As luck would have it by chance; coincidentally; luckily.

Focus attention (concentration) on a dimwitted redundancy (See). Concentrate on; focus on.

Microsoft has always focused its attention on software products and software standards. Use focused on.

It is hardly magic to focus concentration on success instead of failure. Use concentrate on. SEE ALSO focus effort (energy) on.

Be sure to sign up for a copy of our new posts as soon as they happen. We do not sell your names and you can remove yourself from list whenever you want.

Maralyn D. Hill and Brenda C. Hill
Success, Your path to a Successful Book
Books By Hills
GLOG: Global Log
SLOG:$uccess Log

SLOG – Editing 5

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

Excerpt from Success, Your Path to a Successful Book,
by Maralyn D. Hill and Brenda C. Hill.

A favorite of ours is Words that make a difference and how to use them in a masterly way, by Robert Greenman. The examples used in his book are all from the New York Times. We’ve chosen two examples for style and content:

guile gighl
slyness and cunning in dealing with others; craftiness

“The footage of Elvis’s early press conference makes it even more abundantly clear why his fans fell in love with him. In those days, Elvis was so guileless that his every thought registered clearly on his face. When he met the press, he was trusting and sweet. He grew to be more oddly comfortable with all of these inquisitive strangers, in fact, than he may have been in private. In any case, it must have been easy for his fans to imagine that Elvis was someone they really knew.”

poseur po ZAYR
a person who practices an affected manner to impress others or to be noticed by them, a phony

“Nancy LaMott is a model of unaffected sweetness in a cabaret field crowded with poseurs, and her spare, intimate Christmas album projects the same aura of cleancut nostalgia as her live performances…”

Be sure to sign up for a copy of our new posts as soon as they happen. We do not sell your names and you can remove yourself from list whenever you want.

Maralyn D. Hill and Brenda C. Hill
Success, Your path to a Successful Book
Books By Hills
GLOG: Global Log
SLOG:$uccess Log