Editors are like doctors.
People entrust their precious baby to them. Their beautiful, chubby, and well-loved child. Doctors must examine the infant to find every pimple, wart, and imperfection. Some babies have a few blemishes while others have the chicken pox.
What’s a doctor to do?
Tell the parent of course and give the advice to cure the ailing child. The parent leaves, script in hand, determined to nurture the child until every spot is gone.
Proposals are our babies. We find it difficult to hand our precious to someone we barely know, let alone allow them to pick it apart! We know the checkup is necessary to ward off serious ailments, but some disorders can be cured prior to the visit.
During my examination of many proposals, I found the top three glaring blemishes that can be remedied at home.
The top three blemishes:
Format: The standard format is 1″ margins, double-spaced in New Courier 12 or Times New Roman 12 font.
I’ve seen proposals with cursive fonts, bold fonts, and centered on the page. It looks artistic and captures my eye but the agent or publisher will reject it. Always check the submission guidelines just in case the agent or publisher uses a different format.
Editing: Weed words are choking your message. Weed Words are unnecessary words and slow the reader. Here is a link to a list of these invaders.
Weed words are the major problem I encounter when editing a proposal. Take the time to pull them before you hit send. The agent and publisher will be thankful.
Marketing: Nike-Just Do it!
Agents and publishers want action. The words they dread: I will. I will get a website, I will call churches, I will tell my friend, I will get a Facebook page. NIKE! Do it before you send your proposal. It shows initiative and is mandatory to most publishers before they will sign you. Invest time into marketing like a parent invests time into the health of their child.
Just like babies need a regular checkup, our proposals need an examination.
If the editor finds something you didn’t, listen and learn.
We don’t hit the doctor if our child is sick, so please don’t slap the editor if your proposal needs work.
Your success is our success.
What blemishes do you encounter while writing or reading a proposal? What’s the remedy?
Cherrilynn Bisbano is the founder of The Write Proposal book proposal services.
As managing editor of Almost an Author, she helped the website earn the #6 spot on the Top 100 best writing websites for 2018 by The Write Life and Top 101 Websites for writers with Writers Digest.
Cherrilynn is a speaker with Women Speakers. Her topics include leadership, book proposals, and the Bible and a member of American Christian Fiction Writers ACFW.
She is a two-time winner of Flash Fiction Weekly. You can find her published in Southern Writers, More to Life (MTL), Christian Rep, Christian Voice, Refresh and other online magazines. Cherrilynn is a contributor to Selah nominated, Breaking the Chains, Heart Reno, and Chicken Soup for the Soul-Miracles books.
Cherrilynn proudly served in the Navy and Air National Guard, earning the John Levitow Military leadership award. She lives with her sixteen-year-old son, Michael, Jr., and husband of 19 years.
Cherrilynn loves Christ, Chocolate, coffee, and Cats.
www.truthtoshine.blogspot.com Fulfilled Prophecy Friday
www.thewriteproposal.com The Write Proposal
https://www.womenspeakers.com/united-states/east-greenwich/speaker/cherrilynn-bisbanoSpeaker
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