How to Be the Kind of Editor Writers Love

Last night, I had the opportunity to speak to members of the Peterborough twig (chapter-to-be) of the Editors' Association of Canada on the topic of writer-editor relations. (Thanks for the great topic suggestion, Jane Davidson.)

I offered the following bits of advice to my audience of editors on how to be the kind of editor writers love.

Introduce yourself to the writer and give the writer a sense of who you are as a person and a writer. Many writers are terrified of editors. If you can show the writer your human side and give the writer a sense of how you like to work, the writer will be more at ease and better able to do her best work for you. 

In the case of a magazine assignment, be as specific as possible about your vision for the story. What key questions should the writer be addressing? What types of sources are preferred? What are the unwritten do's and don'ts at your publication?

Give the writer enough time to write the best possible story for you. Allow her to make contact with those hard-to-pin-down story sources, to think through the best way to tell the story, and to benefit from the changes you suggest during the editing process. 

Help the writer to understand that you both share the same goal: making the story sparkle. Provide feedback about what is working as well as what isn't working. Provide encouragement as well as constructive criticism.

Respect the sanctity of the author-editor relationship. The relationship is based on mutual trust. A writer needs to feel supported by her editor on crucial editorial and contract matters.

If a writer has done an amazing job on a story, let her know. She'll be inspired to want to work with you on an ongoing basis. You'll get first dibs on her best ideas and she'll do that extra bit of research that makes a story great as opposed to merely good because she knows you notice and you care.

Related: 

Respect and Remuneration: Attitudes About Working Conditions in the Canadian Magazine Industry (2009) (.pdf)

Artpreneur - The Business Side of the Art World - Peterborough, Ontario - February 7, 2012

I am very excited to be part of Artrepreneur, a day-long workshop series exploring the business side of the art world and featuring presentations from Peterborough and area artists who have "found success through their creativity."

Artrepreneur is being organized by

• Greater Peterborough Area Economic Development, 
• Kawartha Lakes Small Business Enterprise Centre, and 
• Business Advisory Centre Northumberland.

The event takes place at MarketHall, Peterborough, Ontario, on February 7, 2012.

More details: Brochure | Details about all workshops + how to register.

Here are the details about the workshop I will be presenting.

The Savvy Entrepreneur: How to Grow Your Business

The arts sector is hot! It's also extremely competitive. To make your mark, you need to know how to identify your ideal customer, showcase what you have to offer, and form alliances with other arts entrepreneurs. This hands-on workshop will inspire you to come up with creative strategies for marketing your arts business throughout 2012 and beyond. 

Other workshops that will be offered the day include

• Intersections: Where Art Meets Business: Jeffrey Macklin, Jackson Creek Press
• Create Experience with Your Art: Paul Portelli
• Market Readiness: Paul Portelli
• Interactive Lunch: Linda Kash and Paul O'Sullivan

For more information, please call 705-743-0777.

The Parental is Political

"I started this job believing its main job is to challenge power."

That was Mohamed Abdelfattah, winner of the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression 2011 Press Freedom Award, being interviewed on The Current on CBC Radio this morning. 

"We have to honour courage in reporting," he continued. "[In Egypt] we don't feel journalism is about entertainment, lifestyle, gossip news."

* * *

I grew up being strongly influenced by a certain type of journalist -- journalists who were fuelled by a strong sense of social justice and who didn't think their responsibility to the community ended the moment they filed their stories.

I read Michele Landsberg's columns in The Toronto Star; and her book Women and Children first was one of the books I treasured most as a young mother because it combined from-the-trenches essays about what motherhood is really like and a call to action to make the world better for all mothers and all children. A collection of Michele Landsberg's columns (Writings from the Revolution) was recently published by Second Storey Press. I can't wait to read it. (Gloria Steinem has said of Michele Landsberg, "Those who make a revolution and those who write about it are usually two different people. Michele Landsberg is one of the few on earth who is trusted and effective at both. There is no one I respect more in the trenches -- or on the page.")

I was inspired (and in awe) of journalist and author June Callwood and the various causes she championed. Her writing was honest and compassionate and she was passionate about causes ranging from freedom of expression to women's issues to AIDS. At one point, she was arrested for supporting the cause of young activists in Yorkville. She was also passionate about children and babies, once stating in a radio interview: "Most people will do anything to help a child and that's the way the human race is meant to be. We're meant to be a tribe. And when it works, it just makes your heart leap."

* * *

By the time I entered my twenties, I knew I wanted to become a writer. I just didn't know what I wanted to write about. That all changed once I had children. I had a motherlode of material overnight. There was so much I had to say.

My need to communicate with other mothers intensified after I experienced the stillbirth of my second daughter, in 1996. As a grieving mother, I felt betrayed by what mainstream pregnancy books of the day had to say about stillbirth. ("Don't worry, it probably won't happen to you." "It's very rare.") I felt a powerful need to write a new kind of pregnancy book, one that would be honest about all kinds of issues. And once I adopted that tone in my writing (and started having conversations with other parents), my writing career took on a life of its own.

I thought I had found my one-and-only source of material: pregnancy and parenting. I used to worry, in fact, about what I would write about once the children were grown. Would I suffer the writer's equivalent of empty nest syndrome? But then, in 2006, I received a gift (if you want to call it that), courtesy of the Canadian electoral system. I will never lack for writing material again. 

It took me by surprise, at first, this new-found passion for social justice and democracy. I had zoned out politically for much of the 1990s, when I was busy giving birth to a large number of young children in rapid succession. But, now that I think about it, it all makes sense. The parental is political. Who has a greater stake in advocating for the next generation and trying to fix the world than the mothers and the fathers?

Becoming a Social Media Savvy Writer

Having a social media presence is no longer an option, if you're a writer.

If you want to publish a book, potential publishers want you to talk about how active you are on Twitter and Facebook in your book proposal. And promoting your stories via social media sites is becoming every bit as crticial to the success of your career as a journalist as researching and writing those stories in the first place.

Unfortunately, we only have so many hours in the day to devote to the growing number of tasks that fall into the job description of writer. So how can we use our social media time as wisely as possible, as opposed to getting sucked into the vortex of permanent chit-chat and never actually getting any writing done? Here are a few tips, based on what I've learned through the social media school of hard knocks.

Weigh the pros and cons of allowing any of your social media accounts to notify you in real time about messages and posts from friends and followers. Instead, plan to log in to your various social media accounts at certain times of the day. If you're having a great morning writing, the last thing you need is to disrupt that flow because of a Facebook or Twitter alert.

Be honest with yourself when it comes to deciding which types of social media activities are business-building and which types of activities are just for fun. And decide how much time you can afford to spend on either/both.

Don't interpret an increase in follower numbers as evidence that your social media efforts are working. Unless you're been cleaning out your Twitter account on a regular basis with a tool like Twitblock, which looks for spam followers, and/or Just Unfollow, which helps you to identify accounts that have been created and abandoned, there's likely a sizeable gap between your total follower count and your number of truly engaged followers (the number of people you interact with on a regular basis).

Develop a social media style that feels natural to you, that encourages people to interact with you, and that isn't all about spreading content about yourself. The number one mistake that authors (and far too many journalists) make when they first sign up for social media is constantly broadcasting information about themselves. Place information about yourself in your bio and occasionally mention something related to your books/articles, but don't constantly bombard your followers with updates from Amazon.com reader reviews. You will drive your social media audience around the bend -- and away. Repeat after me: it's not all about you....

Find out how you are doing, really. If you'd like to get an objective sense of how you are doing with this social media thing (a more honest opinion than any of your friends will ever give you), you may find a social media metrics tool like Crowdbooster useful. Crowdbooster analyzes data from your Twitter account and your Facebook Pages to let you know which types of tweets and updates are the most effective at engaging your audience. (Data about the number of retweets or shares and the number of people reached is provided for each tweet or update over the past week or month -- or for all time.) As you analyze and think about this data, you can challenge yourself to create even more compelling content. After all, you're a writer.

What you shouldn't do is become obsessed by the numbers. The stats are there to serve a purpose, not to become the sole focus of your energy and your activity. And no social media stat can measure the pleasure your writing just gave to a reader who is enjoying your book on a park bench or the converation your article just sparked at breakfast tables across the country.

The online world still only reaches so far. And no tool can measure everything. It's important to keep that in mind.

Related:

Dempsey Marketing Blog: This is Why I Disabled My Klout Account

You Can't Be All Things to All People

I've been thinking a lot about a conversation that took place on a panel that I hosted last month at Blissdom Canada: the "To Publish or Not To Publish" panel. The session - which featured Jen Reynolds (editor-in-chief of Canadian Family), Nadine Silverthorne (online editor, TodaysParent.com and CanadianParents.com) and Theresa Albert (YourFriendinFood.com) - talked about taking writing beyond the blog.

At one point during the discussion, Jen Reynolds made what I think was a very important point: writers can't be all things to all people.

If, for example, you want to pursue the corporate spokesperson side of things (a very lucrative way to make a living as a mom blogger), you can't expect to be an editorial contributor to publications such as hers. You have to decide which part of the content creation business has the greatest appeal for you: the advertising side or the editorial side.

It was the first time in a long time I'd heard an editor speak publicly about the once clearly defined boundaries between church (editorial) and state (advertising). And, frankly, it was pretty inspiring. Jen Reynolds is clearly an editor who values the quality of the content that ends up in her magazine and who is willing to safeguard that turf.

That discussion has had me reflecting a lot on my own career as a writer: who I would like to work with and the types of projects I would most like to undertake. One thing I know for sure is that I'll continue to seek out editors like Jen Reynolds who are passionate about the content that finds its way on to the pages of their magazines.