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By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

(Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of The Frugal Editor, offers these tips for writers who want to polish and publish their work.)

1. Agents can tell when they are being “buttered up...We know you’re impressed with our ‘wonderful publishing credentials and vast experience’ as agents. But, ya know? We’ve only been agents for a short time so who are we kidding here?”
2. Don’t trust your spell checker. “…copy-and-paste remnants hang in your copy until you, the author, an editor or a careful reader (embarrassing!) ream them out. That’s because spell checkers don’t recognize one or two letters like a or an as typos. They also don’t know the difference for the spelling of many homonyms.
3. What’s the most destructive and common error about book covers? Putting the author’s name in small font at the bottom of the cover design.
4. It’s important to keep up with the latest trends in “politically correct” language. Yes. Even if you don’t intend to abide by it. Sometimes it isn’t about politics at all. It’s about avoiding reviewer’s critiques or, worse, rejections from agents, publishers and the journalists who might otherwise give you some free ink.
5. Even humorists who do not plan to write a book need to brush up on the niceties of dialogue. The media uses anecdotes (with or without dialogue) more than ever before.

— Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the multi-award-winning author of the HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the Survive and Thrive series of books for retailers. These tips can be found in the newly released third edition of The Frugal Editor from Modern History Press.