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How To Assess the Quality of Editorial Feedback

Feedback from external eyes is a vital part of the process for any writer working towards publication. It doesn't matter if you are new to writing or have been writing for decades with multiple publications to your name. Any writer on the road to publication will get feedback about their writing at some point during a book's life cycle.

It might be from critique partners, beta readers, editors, or friends. Those external eyes help us to see what is really on the page.

Let's face reality here: What we thought was on the page might not actually be there. We know our stories so well that what we thought was obvious might be confusing to another person who doesn't know what is inside our heads. They won't see things the way we do. But until we get that vital external feedback, we have no idea if something reads how we imagined it.

While I have written about how to handle feedback before, in today's post, I want to address editorial feedback specifically. I'm talking about the feedback that comes back from editors, either freelance editors that we've hired or editors assigned to our books by the publishing house. While it is still feedback, because it comes from a source that is seen as authoritative, it does carry a different feel.

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When Do You Become An Author?

The debate about whether a person is an author or a writer seems to come up frequently. And it is often in the context of whether a person has the right to call themselves an author or a writer.

It seems like a silly argument to be having, but when the self-doubt monster is involved, those words carry significance.

In today’s post, I want to explore the subtle differences between what it means to be a writer vs an author. And I want to explore when a person makes the transition from one to the other.

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Initial Communications Say More Than You Know

Don't delude yourself: first impressions matter. We judge people by those first few seconds, and it is incredibly difficult to change someone's opinion after that judgment has already been made.

"Don't judge a book by its cover." Yet we do it ALL THE TIME.

There are countless examples where first impressions matter. But the one arena that people tend to forget about is digital communications (email and social media). It has become way too easy to send off emails, treating it like a text message with a friend, rather than a business or formal method of communication.

I can rant until I'm blue in the face about social media interactions, but today, I want to focus on email communications and the hidden messages that exist in those lines of email.

I will be taking examples from some of my communications with prospective clients, paraphrasing and hiding the identity of those email writers. But I want to give you some insight into the subtext I gleaned from those emails.

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Writing that Healed

In a recent class with my students taking The Writer in You course, we had a session about the metaphorical drawer. During that class, I referred to many of the projects that I have in the drawer, and I discussed the various reasons why a manuscript might be put in there.

During that discussion, I hinted at one project I have totally lost the desire to pull out and finish. I didn't go into any details about why I have no desire to finish that project, and I didn't go into any details about the project itself, because those details were irrelevant for the class.

But a few days later, my subconscious brain decided that I needed to "dream" about that story. Not the reasons behind the story, but the story itself—the writing, the journey, and the growth.

I still don't have any desire to finish the story, but to deny that the story exists would be to deny a portion of my journey and the growth that I had within my writing skills.

So, I've decided that I need to share snippets of that writing with the world. From a writing and editing perspective, those pieces are gold.

If I am honest with myself, they are really good. Sure, that writing came from a time in my life when I was living in fear of a particular person, consciously aware that I had inadvertently given this person the power to destroy my writing career before it had even begun. It took a long time to regain my power, cutting that person out of my life. But I refuse to let a voice that has no consequence or power over me anymore make me silent going forward.

In today's post, I'm going to give you a little insight into a really bad time in my life. And I'm going to share with you what was meant to be the opening scene from a thriller novel that I had started but will never finish.

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To AI covers or not to AI covers? What a loaded question.

It's something that has been on my mind for a variety of reasons lately.

Is it acceptable to use an AI cover on a human-generated book or not?

Many of us will likely have an instinctive answer that will go one way or the other, but the question is not clear-cut.

First, we have AI-generative tools being embedded in photoshopping programs, making it difficult for graphic designers to avoid AI when designing our book covers. Then we have book awards saying that books will be discounted from consideration if any component of the book was AI-generated, including the cover, even though the competition is for the content; and the cover is technically not part of the content, especially when you consider that the change of a book cover does not require a new ISBN to be issued for that book.

And let's not forget any ethical concerns that might arise.

Cost is often a factor here. Though there is no guarantee that an AI-generated cover would be cheaper than a human-created one.

But putting all of this aside, it is still a valid question. Is it okay for a human-generated book to use an AI-generated cover?

In today's post, I want to explore the consequences of such an action, addressing questions that some self-publishing authors might have regarding AI covers.

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