Writers and Editors

I'VE BEEN TOLD I AM BEING CONSIDERED FOR LISTING IN WHO'S WHO. HOW CAN I TELL IF THIS IS LEGITIMATE OR A SCAM?

There is a legitimate Who's Who, the one found on many library shelves, published by Marquis in the United States and A&C Black in the U.K. There are also many "vanity press" knock-offs, which make money by selling memberships or books. (Somewhere in the process you are invited to send a check. Names that come up in discussion groups online include Emerald, Empire, Madison, Manchester/Cambridge, Metropolitan, and Premier.)

Victoria Strauss has a column about this racket (Beware Who's Who Schemes) on Writer Beware.

In a 1999 issue of Forbes Magazine, in a story called "The Hall of Lame," Tucker Carlson points out that even the Marquis Who's Who is susceptible to manipulation and careless fact-checking.

Wikipedia has an entry about the Who's Who published by Marquis in the United States and by Black in the U.K.



WHAT'S UP WITH THE ORPHAN WORKS LEGISLATION I'VE BEEN HEARING ABOUT?

Under current copyright law, any work of art you create is protected by copyright from the moment you create it, whether you register it with the Copyright Office or not. (You may not be able to collect statutory damages for infringement unless register it with the copyright office.) But under pending Orphan Works legislation, sketches and photos and movies and bits of music and boxes of old photos, slides, negatives, etc., that you have not registered would not be protected unless they were registered with a commercial registry, as I understand it (and no such registry currently exists). It's the little guy who stands to lose most from this legislation, so pay attention. See useful links in the section on Copyright and fair use.

And check the link below to Lawrence Lessig's opinion piece on the subject in the New York Times.

WHEN PCs HAVE TROUBLE READING FILES FROM MACS

MAC users:
Okay, okay, so Macs are infinitely superior computers to PCs, but have pity on us. When you are sending an electronic file to a computer with Microsoft software, you have to talk babytalk or it won't understand you.
Make sure the files you send to Windows users have a three letter extension --e.g.,

documentname.doc
or
excelspreadsheet.xls

Whenever possible do not use spaces or special characters (such as & or "" or ' or ' or colon or semicolon or back or forward slashes. With a date don't write 3/4/08 but instead 3-4-08, using underscores or hyphens instead. For example:

This_is_a_long_file_name.doc

If you include spaces instead of hyphens or underscores, the email systems might strip off the part after the first space, so on that example the filename would come as "This" and there would be no ".doc" to indicate it's a Word document.

I get this advice from my computer tutor, Claude Kerno.

Linda Coffin, of HistoryCrafters, writes:

"The simplest solution of all is to buy a utility called 'Conversions Plus' ($50) and install it on your PC. You never have to think about the issue again. The program will read any file, created on any system, even from programs you don't have. You can open them without wondering where they came from or how they were created. I've used Conversions Plus for years and I couldn't do without it.

If you buy the 'Conversions Plus/MacOpener' bundle ($80), you can read and open files created on any computer system, whether Mac, PC, Linux, or anything else. I never worry about whether my client's CDs were created on the same operating system as mine because the program will read anything they send.

Conversions Plus is a product of DataViz."

[But I assume you will still not get the full original filename, because it will have been stripped off.]



DO PUBLISHING HOUSES NOT EDIT ANY MORE?

Less and less, in the experience of many colleagues. They typically farm out the copyediting, and the editor who goes through making substantive edits and suggestions is a rare bird. Morever, the publishing editor's traditional role of making sure obvious errors are eliminated seems to be in danger. Click on the link below, "First, don't kill all the editors," for a cautionary tale.

PROBLEM WITH PRINT-0N-DEMAND FROM LULU.COM

A colleague writes:
I tried printing one copy of a 196-page book on lulu.com. I was pleased with the results and the price, so I ordered five more copies sent to three different addresses. All of them were flawed, with between 2 and 40 missing pages.

She asks, What has been your experience with lulu.com? Can you recommend any other print-on-demand companies that work from PDFs rather than requiring you to upload text and images into their own layout program?

Considering how many things can go wrong in traditional printing -- which is why we check proofs before issuing the print order -- I would be surprised if this kind of problem didn't come up regularly with print-on-demand publishing. Can we hear from someone who has a lot of experience with Lulu.com and similar firms?

FINDING HELP FOR A BOOK PROPOSAL

A reader writes:
I need help with the editing of my book propasal

Response:
You can usually find a professional writer to help you with such a task, but you need to be clear what kind of help you want. Do you just want "copyediting," correcting all misspelling (such as "proposal") and fixing ungrammatical sentences? Or do you want the proposal to be more enticing and persuasive? I suggest you try the Writer's Referral Service of the American Society of Journalists & Authors, unless your book proposal is specialized, in which case the writers referral service of a more specialized writers organization (say, the National Association of Science Writers) may help you find a writer-editor. There are also organizations of editors, if you truly just need editing. But for a proposal, correctness is probably not so important as dynamic writing, good ideas and material, and the ability to persuade an agent and publisher that an audience of at least several thousand people will be willing to plunk down $20+ for this book, that you are the right person to write it, and that you can deliver an acceptable manuscript.

Writing a successful book proposal is not easy. In the days when I was willing to help someone write a book proposal, I never charged less than $5,000, because to write a solid book proposal you have to think through the structure and contents of the book, analyze the market and its competitors, think about the best way to market the book, explain what your "platform" is, and so on. If you have an already decent book proposal and it truly needs just editing, you won't need to spend nearly that much. But be aware that having in someone "edit" your proposal you should be prepared to ask for and listen to comments about why and how it needs beefing up, or a stronger voice, or more passion, or any of a number of qualities that will help it stand out from the crowd of proposals sent to agents and publishers every week.

Hachette takes stand against Amazon.com

The publisher Hachette UK sent a letter to its authors explaining its position in a dispute with Amazon over wholesale prices that has led to the e-tailer pulling buy buttons from some prominent recent releases.

From that letter: "Larger British book retailers already receive the most generous terms in the English-language world from publishers including ourselves. Of the 'cake' represented by the recommended retail price of a general book, major retailers including Amazon already receive on average well over
50%. Despite these advantageous terms, Amazon seems each year to go from one publisher to another making increasing demands in order to achieve richer terms at our expense and sometimes at yours... If this continued, it would not be long before Amazon got virtually all of the revenue that is presently shared between author, publisher, retailer, printer and other parties... We are politely but firmly saying that these encroachments need to stop now."

"...We are concerned that more and more traditional booksellers are having to close their doors, with skilled individual booksellers losing their jobs, and this is due in part to Amazon's aggressively low pricing on prominent titles. Therefore, despite our limited role in respect of these changes in the retail landscape, we are determined not to provide Amazon with further ammunition with which it could damage booksellers who offer a personal service, browsing facilities and other valuable benefits to the reading public."

Questions asked and answered:
• Are there any writers' groups near me?
• Are there discussion groups for mysteries? Can you point me to them?
• How can I get started writing the story of my life and what is the difference between a memoir and an autobiography?
• How does one get started writing children's books?
• I have a great idea for cookbook. Can I copyright the title to protect my idea?
• What are the steps to registering copyright on a manuscript?

• How does a first-time author get funding for publishing?
• Do I need a college degree to become a writer?
• What's the difference between a query and a proposal?
• How do I find a literary agent?
• How do I approach an editor an agent has recommended?
• Trade publisher or university press?
• How can I avoid being sued for libel?

• What's the best software for preparing endnotes or a bibliography?
• Why don't some sites use "smart" quotes and apostrophes (the ones that curl left and right)?
• Shouldn't I type two spaces after the period?
• How do I deal with a problem I have e-transferring audio-files from my digital recorder?

• Where can I buy your book, DYING: A Book of Comfort?

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Are there discussion groups for mysteries? Someone mentioned a new discussion group about mysteries. Can you point me to it?

Are you thinking of Mystery Readers International, which seems to have local mystery reading groups all over the country?

Or do you mean a group for mystery writers. Among online discussion groups for writers are the following: Murder Must Advertise, an active Yahoo discussion list about how to promote new mysteries, and CrimeThruTime, a discussion group about historical mysteries. Are there others anyone can recommend? See also a host of organizations for writers in various fiction genres.

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Are there any writers' groups near me?

There probably are. Check the listings under Local and regional organizations and under Writers Meetups, a site I was unfamiliar with but which, if you type in your zip code, does list groups that meet near you. I'd like to hear from those of you who have tried these local "meetup" groups how well they work, and for what type of writer. I've met several women who found good critiquing groups through the International Women's Writing Guild (IWWG).

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Do you have any tips on how I can get started writing the story of my life? What's the difference between a memoir and an autobiography?

Essentially, the autobiography is an account of an entire life, often but not always in more or less chronological order, A memoir tends to focus on a slice or portion of a life, a theme in that life, or a particular aspect of it. The link below will take you to a fuller explanation of the difference, and if you scroll down the page you will find a list of books to get you started, if you aren't lucky enough to live near a place that offers courses in memoir writing.

Joining a group of people who are all working on their life stories is really a good way to get you started and to keep the work flowing. The men and women who take my Life Story and Legacy Writing class at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland, say one of the things they like about it is the discipline of having to show up every week with something. They don't have to but usually do read aloud what they wrote for the week, and hearing each other's stories is both interesting and inspiring, because each of them is taking on a different slice of a theme or time of life, or writing in a different tone, or otherwise suggesting possibilities that may or may not resonate for them but usually start them thinking about possibilities for themselves. A friend has had similar success in a memoir-writing group she joined through her church. Another advantage of writing with a group is that they will ask questions about what you've written, questions you might not have thought of but realize that you should address to make your story complete.

One thing you should do right from the start is create a timeline both of critical events (and turning points) in your life and minor events and incidents. The one I am doing for a family history is typed in Word, because it is many pages long (with copy inserted), but you could also create a long line on a very long piece of paper, break the line into decades, and after jotting down major events in your life, add notes as you think of them of minor but memorable events, anecdotes, even character sketches that belong in a certain year. At the same create a timeline on what was going on in the world that had an effect on you--or a timeline of what was going on in the rest of your family or professional world, etc. The timeline will help you shape your narrative and find connections, but it may also help elicit memories. Just juxtaposing events and people may stimulate memories.

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My daughter wants to try writing children's books. Where can she find out how to get started?

The children's book departments in book publishing operate differently from the adult trade editorial departments, and there are agents who specialize in children's literature. Tell your daughter to check out the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and to try attending local chapter meetings if there are any near her. Or find out what resources are available through them, and how that special subworld of publishing works. If others have suggestions, feel free to add to this advice.

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A reader asks: I have a great idea for a cookbook, but the best thing about it is the title. Can I copyright my manuscript so that while agents and publishers are looking at it, nobody will steal it?

Response:. The bad news is that copyright does not protect names or titles. (In some cases the title may be protected as a trademark.) Nor does copyright protect ideas, concepts, or ways of doing something, the whole idea being to encourage creativity but also the free exchange of ideas. (Copyright does protect the idea itself as you express it--but it is protecting that expression, not the idea.)

Copyright also does not protect recipes to the extent that they are just a listing of ingredients. A cookbook may be protected by copyright because it is a collection, and because the directions in the recipes contain substantial literary expression, but not for the "formulas" in a recipe (1 cup this plus 2 teaspoons of that).

Question: What are the steps to copyrighting a manuscript?

To register copyright on a manuscript, you must submit a completed application form, a nonrefundable filing fee of $30, and a nonreturnable copy of the manuscript (printed, on paper--not on disk) of the work to be registered.

In the United States, as soon as you create a work and fix it in tangible form, copyright law protects it. You don't need to register copyright. In the past, U.S. law required authors to affix a copyright notice to their works; Congress eliminated that requirement in 1989. But if you want to collect damages for copyright infringement, you must register copyright.

To find answers to other copyright questions, click here.

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How does a first-time author get funding for publishing?

This question might as well be how does any author get funding for publishing, except that once you have a track record it is somewhat easier. Essentially, for a magazine piece, you write a query, and you either get an assignment or you don't, but you don't get paid until you have written the piece--so you need another source of cash flow if you need something to live on while writing (which is why beginners are often advised to keep their day job while launching a freelance career).

For a nonfiction book, you write a book proposal, and the publisher either offers a contract or doesn't, but again, although you may be paid part of the advance against royalties on signing, for a first-time author this will usually be a fairly small sum, and hard to live on during the time it takes to write the book (which almost always takes longer than you think it will). And the advance seldom covers your cost of living for the entire time you are writing, unless you are smart or lucky enough to come up with a book that provides a big advance.

For fiction most writers have to submit the entire work before getting a book contract, which is why many fiction writers have day jobs (or lead frugal lives).

There are grants for literary or scholarly writers, and there are books that list sources of grants and fellowships, but these are for specific types of books -- not for the average mystery novel or how-to book.

In short, for the first-time author, you'd better have a back-up plan, a day job, a solid bank account, or a life partner who can support you while you get started. It's tough times even for regular writers, if you're talking just about "getting published," and not about writing for income. There are writing jobs that are not particularly glamorous, but pay the rent--writing press releases, writing advertising inserts, writing technical copy (computer and how-to manuals, for example), writing catalog copy, answering letters for a senator. I assume that's not the kind of "first-time author" you are asking about.

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Question: Do I need a college degree to become a writer?

This question comes from a student.
No, you do not need a college degree to be a writer, although you might need one to get some of the jobs that sustain writers who can't make a living selling their material freelance. If you are trying to sell short pieces to a magazine or newspaper, they are not going to ask if you have a college degree -- they are going to pay you to run a piece if they think it is well-written. To assign a piece (agree that you will write a piece, which you have proposed), they will have received from you a really well-written query letter or they may assign it because you have a track record as writer (they know you can deliver the goods) and the credentials in a certain subject area (which may be just good general-assignment writing, after doing interviews). My guess is that most writers do have either a college degree or some college studies. But I would guess that plenty of novels have been written by people who do not have college degrees, and probably a fair number of nonfiction books, too. It helps if you know good grammar and style, but you don't need a college degree to get these. And college degrees probably do NOT convey a good sense of storytelling, or the ability to explain things clearly, two of the chief skills a writer needs.

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What's the difference between a query and a proposal?

Generally, when you're submitting a story idea to a magazine publisher, you write a one-page "query." Whole books have been written about the art of query writing, but basically your writing style is almost as important as the story you are proposing, which must be way beyond "I'd like to write a piece about portobello mushrooms." Besides suggesting a "story" (not a "subject") or an angle on a story, your query is like an audition, showing that you are competent, have flair, a voice, and so on. You may want in a few words to suggest why you would be the right person to write this piece.

When you want to submit a book manuscript or book idea to a book publisher, you write a book proposal, which is much longer than a query. In fact, you might send a query to the book publisher asking if they want to see your nonfiction book proposal. Staffs in book publishing being as overworked as they are, in general they want such a book proposal to come through an agent (agents now serving as the "readers" publishers used to have on their staff, screening out the clearly unpublishable projects and writers and finding the few and unexpected gems). Even if you have already written an entire manuscript, they would rather see a proposal than the whole manuscript, partly because the proposal is a marketing device -- if they want to do the book, they have to sell it to their editorial committee, which won't have time to read a full book manuscript (in most cases). This goes for nonfiction. With fiction they need to see the whole manuscript, although you might start by sending a partial manuscript and a plot outline and asking them if they want to see the whole thing.

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How do I find a literary agent?
A reader asks: Can someone help me? I am looking for a literary agent. I have a book that I would like published, but it has a few topics, but the main one is how I became a paraplegic.

There's way too little information here on which to base helpful advice. Generally, you aren't going to be able to attract an agent even to read your material unless you have a solid book proposal written, or a very good sample of the kind of thing you are going to write (or have already written). And for a book proposal you will have to write a persuasive section on the nature and potential size of the audience for the book. If it is a fascinating narrative, you will need to provide a sample showing that you can write a compelling account of your story -- and even then, they're going to have to think there is a big enough market for the book to take it on.

If by "can someone help me" you mean that you need help writing the book, that's a whole OTHER question: How do I find a collaborator (a professional writer) to work with me on first, the proposal, and then, the book. And generally that's going to involve paying some money up front, unless your story is so unusual that you can find a writer to write it "on speculation," which most of the writers I know will only rarely do.

I'm not sure what you mean in saying it is about "several topics," but to some extent you will want to focus on one or two, although you might cover subtopics in passing. The book needs a clear main focus and a clear market. Essentially, you need a working title and a "pitch" (a brief "elevator-speech" type sentence or two about what your book is about--the sort you can make quickly, that will register on the imagination quickly, and will linger in memory), the sentence or two that will be important both for marketing your manuscript and later marketing your book. With that, you can set out to find an agent, a collaborator, and so on. See the section on this website on Agents, book proposals, and collaborations.

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I have a manuscript. How do I approach an editor who has been recommended by an agent who is interested in my manuscript?

Are you considering bypassing an agent who is interested in your manuscript and going straight to the editor he's recommended, cutting out the agent? Apart from whether it's right or wrong to use the agent's suggestion without using the agent, be aware that most editors want a manuscript to come in through an agent, who (in effect) serves as a screening agent, to filter out the lousy manuscripts -- serving the function "readers" used to serve, when publishing houses could afford them. One of the things an agent will tell you, if your manuscript is nonfiction, is that the editor will probably want to see a book proposal. If your manuscript is fiction, editors are all the more eager not to have to deal directly with the authors. And if you do go to the editor on your own and get rejected, you will certainly have ruled out any chance of working with that agent. We expect agents and editors to behave in honorable ways; we as writers should do the same. You can find most editors through Literary Marketplace, a reference work many public libraries stock in their reference section (not to be checked out).

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Trade publisher or university press?

Is it better to publish with a university press (my biography was accepted) or go with a popular press even though it means getting an agent?

Response: Personally I would never let the step of getting an agent keep me from going with a trade publisher (the ones that sell mostly through bookstores), but there are definite differences between trade publishers and university presses.

Trade publishers (and agents) pay more attention to the bottom line, and if your book has commercial potential, you could end up getting wider distribution and making more money. You could also have the bad luck of getting a publisher who doesn’t do a good job editing, publishing, or promoting the book and doesn't keep it in print very long. Getting a trade publisher is no guarantee of success, financial or otherwise. I suspect university presses are geared to keeping a book in print longer, though not forever, but they are having to pay more attention to the bottom line these days, too. I could be mistaken, but I believe university presses offer less favorable discounts to bookstores,and I think but am not sure that they do not welcome "returns"—— so bookstores don't welcome their titles, except as special orders for customers.

I asked a friend who has been happy with her university press experiences to weigh in here: “I wish I had kept the article that appeared in the Washington Post Book World several years ago about trade v. university presses. The author was a novelist who, after publishing with trade houses, had turned to university presses and liked them better.

"I have been very happy with my u presses, although, since I have never had a trade publisher, I have no basis for comparison. The first press kept my book (on archival paper) in print for 8 years. They did a second printing when the first ran out because I was still selling them at various events. When it was finally discontinued they gave me back the rights (very important) and the remaining books - I only paid the shipping. Eventually I sold them all and just had the book reprinted in paperback because I am still selling it.

"I published my second book with another university press. It is still in print three years after publication. It went into paperback, but one customer wanted hard covers, so they did a third hardcover printing. I am not sure trade publishers would be so amenable to suggestion.

"I think Pat's point about stocking the books is interesting. My books appeal to regional groups, and I have sold them at parks and other locales, as well as in gift shops associated with places where the subjects lived, and to groups with interests in the subjects. Each book has sold between 3000 and 4000 copies so far.

"One last thought about agents. I did try with my first book to go with a trade publisher and managed to get a good agent. But the various publishers she tried all said it was a university press subject. So it depends on your subject. I think Pat's remark about the commercial value is very true.

"And then there is the horror story of our colleague whose publisher went through radical reorganization just as his book came out. Another friend has had similar experiences. University presses are pretty stable."

A third biographer, whose first biography sold more than 20,000 copies in hardcover, adds to the discussion: “It would be very unusual to have a choice of trade vs. U press. As Pat said, everything depends on your topic. To be published is nearly a miracle these days by anyone. The agent issue is less important than deciding whether or not your book has the sort of name recognition that a trade press would pay for. If it does, an agent will think so too and you'll find one. I believe it’s all subject-driven, unless you have a reputation to ride on. In the new narrative nonfiction world (whatever that term really means) trade houses won't consider anything that doesn't have instant name recognition or political association (unless you have a huge reputation and your name sells anything).

"The trade world in books, ebooks, returnables ibooks is very dicey, and the market is very jittery. [The trade publisher for this author, despite huge sales for a book about a person whose name almost everyone is familiar with, is letting her book go out of print after 10 years.] It is true, university presses keep books in print longer. "In addition to low sums up front to authors, with the U press the vetting process can be arduous, with “reader reports” and the many hoops one has to jump through. I had trouble with reader reports that went on and on and on. I've been a reader for U presses and I think it is, or can be, a very flawed process, and it takes much longer. In trade, if you are lucky enough to get a good editor, your editor says ok, yes no, you confer, you edit, and it goes to copy editing—deadlines are much stricter because there's money on the table.

"Incidentally, biography sells better in hardcover than in paperback, and not every hardcover gets republished in paper."

I find an interesting statement in a story Peter Givler wrote about University Press publishing in the United States, posted on the AAUP website: "...a 1979 Supreme Court ruling about the way manufacturers would be allowed to value inventory for tax purposes created a windfall for university presses. "The Thor decision, as it is known, caused many commercial publishers to put their slow-moving backlist titles out of print, including many of high editorial quality. The availability of these titles created a wave of new publishing opportunities because, as nonprofit enterprises, university presses are not taxed on the value of their inventories, and they saw this as creating an easy, low-cost entry into trade publishing. By keeping in print many of these titles that would otherwise have disappeared, university presses have provided an invaluable cultural service. Yet while general trade publishing by university presses has certainly increased, it has not proved to be the road to financial salvation, nor, given the high-risk nature of most general trade publishing, is it likely that it will." Others who have stories to tell, weigh in here!

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How can I avoid being sued for libel?

Question: I've written a book that I would like a lawyer to review for libel, but I am not being paid much at all, so I can't spend a lot. What do you recommend?

Answer: A friend who writes true crime books tells me this: "All the lawyers in the world can't protect you from being sued. Have it read by a lawyer by all means, but the writer would be better served by truly understanding invasion of privacy etc. (maybe joining Mystery Writers of America, which, though largely for fiction writers, does in its newsletter provide some factual legal info). Best of all, get some libel insurance. (It is well nigh impossible for "book authors" to buy on their own libel insurance; if you do look for it, libel or media perils insurance is often called “Errors and Omissions Insurance.” True crime, investigative journalism, and pornography are all considered high-risk.) I don't think I would now undertake a true crime book, except for a historical case, without being specifically covered by a publisher's libel insurance. Any character in the story can come out of the woodwork. I get lots of release forms from interviewees, disguise some characters, change some names. It helps to have a solid journalistic background, and know what you can and cannot do.

Of course, we can't give legal advice and this is not that. By all means, consult a lawyer. And protect your assets. I believe Joseph Wambaugh has been sued several times. He said at a writers conference that most writers don’t realize that such insurance can have its limits. Once final appeals have been exhausted, said Wambaugh, “If the court still finds against you for defamation, the insurance company is not obliged to cover. The writer can lose everything. But no one has ever prevailed against me.”"

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What's the best software for preparing endnotes or a bibliography?

What can readers tell me about Endnote, Reference Manager, ProCite, and RefWorks as software programs to manage the preparation of bibliographies? I understand that if I google "review X" I will find some online reviews, but those of you who have tried these programs (and others?), what do you think? See complaint about Endnote below.

The trouble with Endnote

A member of the Washington Biography Group explains why she calls Endnote "the program from hell"

ENDNOTE is not very intuitive and is cumbersome at best. That said, there isn't much else out there. I am hardware and software savvy, but this program has completely beaten me. A gracious person from my Mac users group, who works with ENDNOTE daily, volunteered to help me. Even she found Endnote hard to customize for the Chicago Manual of Style, which my publisher requires. The program has a "style" for CMA, but it is wrong.

I took online training, have been in touch with the U.S. distributor, and am on Endnote listservs. None of that helped me.

It seems that if you can get a style established and your templates formatted, you're good. Until I get there, I am simply creating an ENDNOTE database, and I am using the Word footnote function as I create my manuscript. I am using a coding system to avoid typing in each reference and my assistant will convert my Word footnotes to ENDNOTE using the database. Bless her. Word makes sense to me and has a wonderful function unavailable in ENDNOTE that allows you to jump from your footnote directly to its place in your manuscript. However, with Word, you have to type in everything each time and it does not save data to generate a bibliography, that I know of.

I am hoping that Endnote will eventually do the magic I'm told only it can do: take my database of references and generate endnotes for each chapter and a bibliography for the end of the book.

During my hours of complete desperation, I Googled "I hate ENDNOTE" and "ENDNOTE sucks." I got so many hits. LOL I know a couple of authors who swear by it, but so far, its charm is lost to me. I read online that the new Word has a revise function to rival ENDNOTE and ENDNOTE users are hoping that will force ENDNOTE to improve and become more user friendly.

My advice is to understand how the program works completely before you begin. Especially true if you want to use its "Cite While You Write" feature. Learning ENDNOTE while trying to write can be an absolute disaster.

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How do I deal with a problem I have e-transferring audio-files from my Olympus digital recorder?

One of the most frequently asked questions among writers is this: "What type of equipment do you use to record interviews?" I've been pretty happy with an Olympus 2200 digital recorder I bought to do interviews, but I am unhappy with the difficulty I have had sending the audio files to my transcriber, in another state. I can upload their proprietary DSS files to my computer, but if she doesn't have the software she can't use those files. I can upload them as WMA/WAV files, but I then have a heckuva time getting them to her. (I did upload two of them to her X-drive, but she couldn't use them.) She tells me this; "My experience with WMA files has been that they are quite unstable, one time they’ll work, the next time they won’t. That goes for both Windows and Mac. It’s an older Windows media file that I suspect was buggy and the new version (wav) fixes the bugs. So it’d probably be worth checking to see if you can record them in MP3 or aiff from the beginning. MP3 is the most stable format in all platforms so that’s what I recommend.

Converting with Switch
Finally, at her suggestion, I used a downloadable audio file conversion software program (Switch) to convert the WMA/WAV file to an mp3 file. You can find that software at: www.nch.com.au/switch/

But why does Olympus make this so hard for us? I emailed Olympus asking for advice, and they said they don't give customers advice or answer questions, but ask us to go to the dealer we bought the equipment from. What kind of customer service is that? Until I get a satisfactory answer from them, I'm not recommending the Olympus to anyone! I welcome comments and suggestions from others (including anyone at Olympus who cares to spend a little time thinking about customers!).

I am told that Olympus is not the only digital recorder with proprietary software. Which of you have had problems with other recorders? And can you recommend solutions? Where can we go for answers to these questions?

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QUESTIONS ABOUT PUNCTUATION

Question posted on The Slot :
Why don't you use "smart" quotes and apostrophes?(Smart quotes and apostrophes are the ones that curve, “kind of like parentheses,” either left(‘) or right (’). Many computer and email programs show only straight quotation marks and apostrophes so if you use a smart mark they show a blank space.)

Bill McIntyre's response, which I find persuasive:

"I used to. Then I started getting e-mail asking me why someone who claims to know the language is writing without apostrophes. Apparently a small minority of computer systems cannot read the HTML codes that make these characters, so I'm playing it safe."

Question: re Authors Guild: maybe you could explain the reason (there must be one) that the group eschews the apostrophe?

Pat's response:
You include an apostrophe if you want to indicate that the Guild is a possession of the authors, but in this case it is being used as an adjective — the Guild is a Guild of authors (not one that belongs to authors). The choices were:

Author's Guild (belonging to one author)
Authors' Guild (belong to two or more authors)
Authors Guild (a guild of authors).

There is some disagreement on when or why to use an apostrophe. In America there is a Writers Guild and in England a Writers' Guild. Surprisingly, most of the organizations listed here eschew the apostrophe. Note also: Publishers Weekly, the Independent Book Publishers Association, and so on.

I asked a parallel question of the Writer's Center in Bethesda, and was told that they know now either there shouldn't be an apostrophe, or that the apostrophe should come after the s, for the plural form of Writers (as it is, the organization belongs to one writer, although maybe that makes each writer feel good). But once you've filed incorporation papers with an apostrophe in the name, it's way too much trouble to take it out.

(Odd that this was the first question on this website. I vividly remember a graduate seminar in Middle English at Stanford University long ago, when I asked what the purpose of the apostrophe was, and our instructor, Fred C. Robinson, said, "Do you have something against the apostrophe, Ms. McNees?" I assured him that I loved it. And I do. It and its cousins provide ample work for editors!)

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"Someone told me to stop typing two spaces after the period. Are they wrong or am I?"

Many of you who learned to type on typewriters are still automatically typing two spaces after a period, or at the end of a sentence, whatever the punctuation mark. This was an important way to set off sentences in the days before easy proportional spacing. But it's a no-no in the digital world. Those two spaces may expand and create big gaps -- especially with justified text, aligned on both the left and right margins (as opposed to "ragged right"). And you create a headache for the copyeditors. To get rid of those two spaces in a Word document, do a "search and replace," typing in two spaces in "search" and one space in "replace."

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Where can I buy your book, DYING, A Book of Comfort?

The beautiful original hardcover Literary Guild edition is available, because the Guild did a special printing, after the Warner trade paperback edition went out of print. You can order copies through selected bookstores and through my special website for that book, Dying, a Site of Comfort, paying safely and easily through Paypal (or by credit card, if you prefer). You can find used copies of the paperback for sale on Amazon.com. Look for copies for sale by author to get the beautiful little Guild edition and yes, you can order more than one copy.

-- Pat McNees (editor of DYING)