Mary White
“The publishing experience with my first book was very poor. For my second book, I searched for an editor who could help me self-publish. Michelle came with a glowing recommendation. Throughout the editing process, she kept my vision for my book and always reiterated that I would have the final say on suggested revisions. She consulted with me on the cover image and created one that represented the heart of the message I wanted to convey. It was exactly what I had imagined. And her turnaround on the entire project was quick. When I got the rights to my first book back, I took it straight to Michelle. She is an editor with expertise you can rely on and who will help you fulfill your dreams for your book.”
Mary taught for over thirty years in an elementary and middle school, served as a middle school principal, and functioned as an educational consultant. Now retired, she writes for teens and adults.
Project Overview
This was Mary’s second devotional book but the first she ever self-published. I copyedited the manuscript, formatted it for digital and paperback distribution, designed the front cover and the full front-and-back paperback cover, and coached her in composing a blurb and copy for her sales page. I also walked her through the entire self-publishing process and guided her upload to Amazon via video conference.
My Work
Below is a clip taken from my critique that accompanied Mary’s completed copyedit. It illustrates the types of revisions I suggested. My front-and-back cover image and samples of the paperback’s interior formatting follow.
Hi Mary. This was quite well written. Mostly, I adjusted punctuation, but there were some places where I tried to clarify or cut back wordiness. You’ll see my comments as you go. But I tell all my clients to remember who gets the final say on any suggestion I make—YOU. I won’t be offended if you reject any.
As I worked through this, I brought consistency to the way things like AM and PM are written out and especially to the different kinds of dashes. There are a lot of dashes with all those Bible references. I also wrote out numbers 1-100, according to the Chicago style manual, but if you’d prefer just 1-9, that isn’t wrong. It’s totally up to you. Just be consistent as you accept and reject them. I kept them numeric in the Bible references, of course.
Another thing I mention in the manuscript concerns your long italicized sections. It’s common to italicize contrasting sections of text, and illustrations in the form of a story definitely qualify. However, some of your stories come off more like narrations, and italicizing them feels odd because they don’t really contrast with the rest of your narrative text. To create a more stand-out effect worthy of italics, I’d encourage you to tell them more like stories, especially by naming your “characters” and avoiding narration (like “I heard a story about a man from Tennessee…”). Just jump right into them as stories (“A man named Jacob lived in Tennessee…”). You’ll see tweaks and suggestions in those instances…
In Addition
When Mary received back the rights to her first devotional, she hired me to reassemble the publisher’s files, which were incomplete and a bit of a mess. I converted them to an editable format, completed a full copyedit, reformatted the interior for both digital and paperback, recreated the original front cover image by using the original background image and adding new text to match, and recreated the full front-and-back cover for her new edition.
