To name your plants ... or not to name your plants?

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And other extremely important questions that actually pertain to book writing. But of course, you name them — so you bond with them 😉

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As a copyeditor, I receive ALL of the questions:

• Is punctuation placed inside quotation marks or outside quotation marks?
• Is there once space or two at the end of a sentence again?
• Where is the em dash located on my keyboard?
• Oxford comma! What?!

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And list goes on, which leads me to this . . .

When I edit books, I put together what is called a style sheet. Editors use this to keep track of their changes to ensure consistency. I learned over time that many corrections seem to be universal with most of my clients. I decided to start sharing some of my most corrected grammar, formatting, spelling, (and anything else I see when I edit!) mistakes on Instagram.

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Another favorite share of mine on IG is photos of my plant babies. One day I wanted to share a photo of Luna, my money tree, and I also just typed up some editing guidance, so I combined the two in a post, and my series #editingtipswiththeplantfam was born. I recently met someone that wasn’t on social media and never has been, and it made me realize that many of my newsletter friends wouldn’t get to have these valuable reminders. So this is me dropping into your email to hand deliver them to you with my new blog series of the same name. Below are two that received my most "aha ha" moments. These two introduce you to Luna and Jude.

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​🍃Say hello to sweet Luna, and lean in for a word about the em dash. ​​

​🍃Say hello to my sweet Jada, and let me tell you about a common mistake with quotation marks.​

Many comment that these little nuggets are helpful because they are snippets and not overwhelming. Remember, these are gentle reminders. I promise that you can't remember them all, so for the ones that are extra tricky, do what the pros do and create a cheat sheet for yourself in a Google doc, or as an Evernote page. It's a time saver and when you begin your professional editing it will save you a lot of back and forth.

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Ready to start taking your book dreams to the next level and need a partner? I'd love to discuss my custom author coaching with you. I walk along side authors at any stage: self-publishing and almost finished to just starting and still unsure of how you want to publish — self or traditional. I also guide authors with the very detailed task of locating (and landing!) a book agent if your dream is to be published with a traditional publisher. Reply to this email and let's chat!

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Until next time,

Andrea

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