Tag: author tactics

And the Publishing Process Survey Says: Part 2

Book Production Process SurveyEarlier this month, I wrote about overall publishing costs among respondents to our Book Production Process Survey. I included an extensive disclaimer which you should read first if you haven’t already. (It wouldn’t be a bad idea to read it again, even if you did the first time.) Also, for this or any of the posts in this series, it could be worthwhile to review the definitions given for the different roles and functions on the original post if there is some question about the terminology used.

In this installment, I’m going to look at the overall process used by survey respondents in moving their books from the first draft through publication, with a focus on which of the potential steps are used most often. In future posts I’ll drill down, going into more detail on some of the steps, as well as how and when they are used. Continue reading “And the Publishing Process Survey Says: Part 2”

Name Droppers

I was talking the other day with E.L. James and Hugh Howey about what a bunch of name-droppers we writers are.

Okay, maybe that part didn’t happen, and I don’t mean name-dropper in the conventional sense. I mean that as writers, we have actually dropped certain names from literature.

When we choose our characters’ names, we use the opportunity to enhance the reader’s mental image of the character. Certain names just don’t seem to do that as well, so we drop them from the lexicon. They may not be totally gone, but to the extent they are used at all, they are given to minor characters. Continue reading “Name Droppers”