A Closer Look: The Publishing Pros

At the end of last year I was reaching out to potential advertisers for Freelance-Zone.com and one of the groups I came across was The Publishing Pros (formerly RMPPG). When I checked the group out as we were discussing ad space on the site, I thought readers might be interested in learning more about them–they are an active, well-established group that I think is a great resource for the freelance writing community–and a valued advertiser on Freelance-Zone.com.

Here’s a closer look.                  – Catherine

1. How did The Publishing Pros (RMPPG) get started?

Founded in 1991 to promote and enhance the professional skills of its members, the organization increases dialogue among colleagues and clients through meetings and social events and fosters effective, ethical business practices. Its members are editors, indexers, proofreaders, designers, writers, researchers, and others who offer a range of skills and specialties.

2. Who makes up the organization?

The Publishing Pros is composed of a professional network of publishing specialists, with most of our members based in the Rocky Mountain region, including experienced writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, graphic designers, desktop publishing experts, researchers, fact-checkers, trainers, writing coaches, translators, and other publishing specialists.

3. Who should consider becoming a member of the group?

If you’re an experienced editor, proofreader, graphic designer, desktop publishing expert, indexer, writer, fact-checker, writing or editing coach, or other publishing professional, we invite you to join The Publishing Pros (RMPPG). We offer some great networking opportunities; further, when prospective clients contact the organization looking for a specialist we post their requests on our active ListServ.

4. What services are offered by The Publishing Pros?

Members of The Publishing Pros (RMPPG) serve a variety of clients in publishing, business, research, education and academic institutions, and nonprofit and governmental organizations. Prospective clients can access the services of our members by easily searching the website directory for a particular subject area and/or publishing service needed. Clients can also arrange for The Publishing Pros to post job requests on our ListServ. Members can develop the look, sound, and feel of any print or electronic/online publication or project, including manuscript editing, copywriting, website development, novel critiquing and evaluation, book design and typesetting, e-publication conversion, indexing, logo and brand development, and much more. With the multi-varied talents of The Publishing Pros membership, clients can tap into one of the country’s greatest networks of freelance publishing experts.

5. What is unique about The Publishing Pros?

We know of no other site that contains members whose expertise ranges through all areas of publication, from cover to index. Many of our members have deep roots in Rocky Mountain publishing and can be a great resource for newer members who are learning the trade. Our newly revamped website gives members a chance to list their specialties on the directory, enabling potential clients to find them, and clients can post to our site when they have a position to fill or a job to be accomplished.

For more information on membership or services visit The Publishing Pros.

Talk Tech-y To Me

By Amanda Smyth Connor

January 19th brought a wave of excitement as Apple announced their latest and greatest technology. Not only will they be selling iTextbooks (at $15 a pop) but they will be offering iBooks Author, a new self-publishing app that essentially allows authors to upload PDF’s, edit, complete layout and upload to the iBookstore.

This is clearly not the first self-publishing platform to emerge and it won’t be the last, but as an editor, I find myself a traitor to the cause for selfish reasons and not-so-selfish reasons.

Obvious questions arise that Apple has yet to address. How will they approve these new iBooks? Will they offer editing services? What requirements are there for content, layout, etc? What kind of reimbursement can writers expect from offering their books in this fashion and will Apple offer various packages that would include marketing or promotion?

Furthermore, will this lead to an increase or a decline in the quality of self-published books? I like to think that by enabling authors with better tools and resources, the quality will increase, but you have to wonder –  if the increase in the volume of new self-published uploads increases, will quality remain top priority, or will these self-published books look as messy as my Freelance-Zone posts? I shudder to think.

What are your thoughts on this buzz story?

Amanda Smyth Connor is a social media manager for a major publishing company, owns her own wedding planning business and has managed online communities and content development for many start-up and Fortune 500 companies.  She has been a professional editor for more years than she can remember.

5 Strange (But Helpful) Tips for Writing A Great Novel

Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery by Diane Holmes, Chief Alchemist of Pitch University

#1 Learn to recognize a really great idea.

Most writers have lots of good ideas.  Workable ideas.  Ideas that seem interesting and full of promise.  But most writers have very few GREAT ideas. Showstoppers. Strokes of pure genius.

Learning to recognize the difference between a good idea that is probably publishable and a great idea that could launch a bestselling career is a pretty neat skill to have.

So start training yourself to rate ideas, plot points, twists, and all the ways that plot conveys story.

Try using a 10 point scale, where 10 is HOLY COW, and 5 is what you see in most published books.

Shoot for a 10.

Now do the same when you build your characters.

#2  Learn to wow 2 people on every page.

You and your reader.  You haven’t hit wow until you are amazed at what you wrote… and so is your reader.

#3 Write to devastate your characters (and your reader).

Don’t be neutral.  Don’t be small.  Don’t pull your punches.  Don’t relegate trauma to off-stage.

Show us the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical blood of your story, right on the page.

Let us know that this story matters.  Not just in this sentence or paragraph, but in the nuclear fallout of every scene after that.

#4 Don’t do the work for the reader.

One of the greatest joys as a reader is…

• piecing together the subtext of what your characters are scheming,
• following the threads of meaning to the awful truth,
• understanding (or speculating about) the repercussions of ever single action, every word spoken, and
• drawing awful conclusions about what is to come.

There is tendency for writers to rob readers of this joy by spelling out every motivation, every piece of backstory, every conflict, every thought as if the character has spent years in therapy and now understands “the universe” with startling clarity and clinical detachment.

Stop that.  It sucks the fun out of reading.

It’s annoying to have everything explained in a sanitized “sound bite” before we, the readers, even know we need it.

#5 Build to a staggering conclusion; deliver even more.

Don’t let yourself off easy.  Build a powerful ending, and then blow the doors off that.

Readers have already seen al the powerful endings.  Whatever it is that you’re writing, your reader has read a hundred or so books just like that.

Do more.  Pull it off like no one has done before.  Reach into the guts of your story and rip out all the meaning and power you can.  And then take it all the way home.

—

Diane writes two alternating columns for Freelance-Zone:Fiction-Zone: Leaps in Fiction Mastery and Marketing-Zone:Marketing-Zone: Marketing Yourself and Your Book.

Used-car Salesmen Anonymous

Wanted to follow up on Diane’s post from yesterday, “8 secret reasons you hate marketing your writing.” More important, I wanted to echo her sentiments: It’s incredibly important for writers to break down the self-imposed barriers that can hold us back.

Sales gets a bad rap. Back in my editorial staff days, there was an extra measure of envy for the BMW-driving, expense-account abusing, exotic-traveling schmoozers.

But here’s the fact: They were the ones who paid the bills. Nowadays, that’s me.

So, to amplify Diane’s thoughts from yesterday, I came across an interesting post, “Reps Drop the Hard Sell and Discover How to be More Effective.” Dr. Robert Cialdini, whose site it appears on, is the author of several books about the power of influence and persuasion, all of which are worth reading. And the link to the Wall Street Journal article is a must as well. (It’s about pharmaceutical sales, but the same lessons apply.)

Bottom line, you don’t have to be a used-car salesman or a hard-charging drug rep. In fact, as the WSJ piece notes, it’s all about building relationships; and as the mp3 interview with Cialdini makes clear, that is a matter of establishing trust and authority. And, while we’re at it, a recent study in Nature concluded that overconfidence—not just confidence—has some counterintuitive benefits.

Indeed, we’ve got it much better than a used-car salesman. They’re selling lemons…We’re selling ourselves.

Contributing blogger Jake Poinier offers answers to your freelancing questions at DearDrFreelance.com. His most recent post was “Write like you’re rich.”

Photo courtesy of Hans Thoursie.

8 Secret Reasons You Hate Marketing Your Writing (Part 1)

by Diane Holmes, Marketing-Zone: Marketing Yourself and Your Book, founder of Pitch University.

Let’s rip the bandage off quickly, before you realize this is a form of marketing therapy.

If you hate marketing your own writing, chances are you hate it for one of the 8 following reasons:

1. My ethics will be tarnished the second I open my mouth.

Someone will figure out I’m full of self-interest and actually trying to take their money (gasp).

This train of thought stems from the idea that you can trust someone only if he has nothing to gain by sharing his opinion.

If that’s true, then the implied opposite must also be true.  You can’t trust anyone who actually wants your money.  And now you can’t trust me!

Why, oh why did I try to influence you to buy my writing?  Even I know I’m now scum.

Bad, me. Bad.

MYTH: The presence of money makes you, by default, an untrustworthy liar face.

TRUTH: You can be seen and valued as trustworthy, even if you benefit directly from a conversation.

Truthfulness is a trait belonging to YOU, not to the presence of money….  Which, by the way, everyone needs in order to pay bills.

#2 I’m forcing them to listen to me… against their will!

… Continue Reading

Freelancing in 2012

by Joe Wallace

About 20 days ago, long before 11:59 PM on December 31, a lot of freelancing blogs made predictions about the freelance landscape in 2012.

And the same as every year, a lot of predictions basically read, “more people will start freelancing, more people will quit freelancing, and more companies will hire more freelancers than ever before.”

You don’t have to be Nostradamus, really, to issue predictions like these.

I ignored all that sort of thing this year in favor of looking at the freelance landscape from a completely different perspective, thanks to a blog post by Dave Allen at the Portland-based brand agency North.

Allen was talking about an experiment he started in early January to work with all-mobile tools, namely the iPad2 and the iPhone.

He writes, “Since January 2nd I have been attempting to live without my MacBook Pro to work exclusively on my iPad2. I can honestly say that for 90% of the time the iPad is the perfect tool for my daily work activities. As an added bonus it’s many pounds lighter than the MBP and the battery lasts hours longer. Yet, as to be expected, there are some shortcomings that are holding me back from becoming a 100% mobile user.”

If you want a prediction about the state of freelancing in 2012, you need look no further than mobile–for some of us, it really is going to be the future of the business in terms of the portable office, working from the road, and making the most of every given second when needed.

I was on the fence about the iPad2 as a freelancing tool until reading Dave Allen’s post, and while he points to a few shortcomings, I personally believe–and here’s my prediction for 2012–that these issues can and will be addressed by some savvy developers who know the need to do business on these lightweight, flexible, and highly desirable platforms.

Freelancers, writers and editors in particular, are often stuck in the previous decade when it comes to technology. But the business is evolving as fast as the new toys hit the market. Are you keeping up? Treading water? I’m trying to get out of the wading pool and into the deep end with this stuff…it seems like the best way to survive.

Joe Wallace is an author, professional blogger, and vinyl collector. He blogs about rare and strange vinyl records at Turntabling.net, sells vinyl records at horror and sci fi conventions across the USA and is currently photographing more than 100 record albums for his forthcoming book WTF Records: The Turntabling Guide To Weird And Wonderful Vinyl. He is very busy but does consider freelance writing and editing gigs on a per-project basis. Contact him at jwallace (at) turntabling (dot) net.