Rebeca Schiller

This past Friday evening I attended an event at our local library on how to sell your book. The panel of experts consisted of two agents and two editors. For the most part much of what they said I knew, but I figured I would attend because they are folks in the industry that live here (actually they have second homes. They all live in Manhattan) and I figured it would be smart to schmooze a bit.

The one thing that stood out was the discussion of Ghost Editors. It seems the two editors on the panel would rather see most of the work polished by the author rather than receive a manuscript that has been doctored. These editors believe that with the agent making her tweaks, then having an editor make more tweaks, the author’s voice is lost.

One of my writing mentors strongly believes

If I could only remember that. The reason this post has this silly title is that I have the terrible habit of not printing my work. I’ve done this for years. Instead of wasting paper on my pulp fiction, press releases, or whatever I write, I edit online. Usually I’m pretty good, but on occasion there might be something that escapes my sharp eyes (well, not so sharp–I’ve recently started wearing reading glasses).

About a month and a half ago, a friend asked me to rework some copy that he had written for an organization that he belongs to. He needed a quick turnaround,and I started as soon as I received the copy. It was a fairly simple editing job.  I  cleaned and tightened some of the sentences and added some new material. An hour later it was good to go, and I emailed it back to him. He liked it and submitted