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Interview with an Editor Part I

Editors be kinda important. Ahem… I mean, Editors are important.

As I’ve been blogging on the topic of Self-Publishing, I’ve had the privilege of rubbing digital shoulders with a few editors and I thought it would be helpful for self-publishers to read a little bit from an editor’s perspective. Because of this, I’m looking to post three interviews with three different editors. These interviews will hopefully give you an idea of what to look for in a good editor as well as how to get the most out of your experience with an editor.

The first interview is with Eric Shay Howard. Eric is an easy person to chat with. He has a great sense of humor (which I appreciate) and I think you’ll find the answers to the questions below to be helpful. I have three editors lined up to interview and I have asked all three of them the same questions so you can get three different perspectives. These different perspectives will hopefully help you understand how to write and publish in a more professional manner.

Eric is both a writer and editor. This is a good thing, in my opinion. Each of the editors I am interviewing are writers as well as editors. Eric lives in Louisville, KY and is the editor of Likely Red Magazine at www.likelyred.com. His blog is at www.ericshayhoward.com.

So, let’s get at it:

1. What are the most common grammar/story-line/character issues you catch as you edit a book?

I mostly read and edit short fiction. In a lot of the short fiction that I go through, I see a lot of non-concrete details in stories that make it hard to determine exactly what’s going on in the story. I’d rather see what the character is doing rather than read about what the character is thinking. It’s the physical, concrete details that are important me when I read for the lit mag. Whatโ€™s there, in the scene? What are the characters doing? What are the characters saying? There are exceptions, of course, but too much time in the characters’ heads, or too much time spent in hypothetical-land tends to make it difficult to determine what’s actually happening in the story.

2. As an editor, if you could give one piece of advice to a new author, what would it be?

I think a lot of newly published authors hide behind extreme social media professionalism: social media accounts with little or no personality, out of fear of rejection from readers. Donโ€™t be afraid to continue to be yourself when promoting your work and donโ€™t be afraid to be active on social media. Your publishers worked hard to get your story out there, and you as the author are a part of that. Tell everyone on everything: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, your blog, and any other platforms youโ€™re a part of.

3. As an editor, if you could give one piece of advice to a seasoned author, what would it be?

I would encourage seasoned authors to not be afraid to write shorter stories. Novels are great, but not everything can be a novel. Stretching shorter work into longer work to meet word count minimums only encourages the rest of the writing community to not take shorter pieces seriously. That helps persuade readers to not read them in the first place. As a result, writers who write short work have a hard time finding a home for it, purely for financial and marketing reasons. Itโ€™s a very unfortunate situation.

4. As an editor, what advice would you give to an author when it comes to receiving feedback from an editor?

It’s like dating. It’s not you, it’s me.

5. As an editor, what kind of questions do authors ask that let you know they are really looking for your input?

Since I mostly edit shorter work, most of stories I accept for publication are pretty close to being finished and donโ€™t require a lot of editing, if any. Because of that, I donโ€™t get a lot of specific questions. Iโ€™ve had a few people reply to rejection letters asking for more detail about why a story was not accepted for publication. Iโ€™ve responded to a few, within reason. It’s almost always a personal thing: me not connecting to the story in some way. When itโ€™s not that, itโ€™s usually a problem with details and plot not being concrete enough. Iโ€™d say based on that, if youโ€™re asking about or calling attention to your details in some way in your feedback questions, youโ€™re definitely in the right track.

6. Is there a question you wish authors would ask you and what is the answer to it?

There still seems to be a divide between genre-fiction writers and literary fiction writers. Based on a lot of cover letters, writers who submit to Likely Red Magazine often identify themselves from within one or the other. If someone were to ask me if I thought there were any difference between the two, I would say that no, neither one have a guarantee of surviving after the author is gone. Work often identified as genre-fiction has the advantage of sales and numbers. Work deemed as literary fiction has the advantage of literary journals. Weโ€™re all in this together, just looking for a place for our stories. In 100 years, you never know which stories will end up in university textbooks, whether they be considered genre-fiction or literary fiction by the masses at the time of their original publication or not.

Eric Shay Howard

We’re all in this together, ya’ll.

Again, here’s some info about Eric: Eric Shay Howard is a writer and editor. He lives in Louisville, KY and is the editor of Likely Red Magazine. His blog is at www.ericshayhoward.com.

So there you have it! Interview with an Editor Part I. I hope you have found this helpful.ย  Make sure you check out Interview with an Editor Part II where I interview Deborah A. Bowman.

Comment below with your experiences with editors.

Shawn


11 responses to “Interview with an Editor Part I”

  1. [โ€ฆ] https://www.shawnpbrobinson.com/interview-with-an-editor-part-i/ โ€œAs Iโ€™ve been blogging on the topic of Self-Publishing, Iโ€™ve had the privilege of rubbing digital shoulders with a few editors and I thought it would be helpful for self-publishers to read a little bit from an editorโ€™s perspective.โ€ I can see short stories being a big thing in the future. Thatโ€™s why Iโ€™m trying to write some. I started with short stories a long time ago. [โ€ฆ]

  2. Hi Shawn, I was going to reblog this to my blog, but I don’t see a reblog button. It’s usually in front of the like button. Phyllis

      • Okay. I tried it. I followed all the instructions, I highlighted, I clicked, I right clicked, but I’m not getting it. This is taking too long and I have stuff to do. I need to set down with someone to help figure this out. I’ll get back to you on it.

        • Hey Phyllis, I just checked out Chris’ blog to see what was up. He has a WordPress.com site (mine’s self-hosted). The difference is that a self-hosted site has a little more freedom in some ways, but there are a couple things like the re-blog/sharing options that are lost. I did find one more way to do it, though. If you view my site through the wordpress.com reader (instead of the full site), you can do it without the press this button. Here’s what you do: go into the wordpress.com reader, search for my site (self publishing on a budget–should show up top of the list on the right hand side of the screen). Click on my site, scroll down to the blog you want to reblog and you can either click on the sharing button with that blog summary or go into it and click on the sharing button. When I click on it, I get three options: Facebook, Twitter and the option to reblog it to my site.
          Hope that helps! Let me know if it does.
          If you’re reblogging a lot, the Press This option (in the blog I pointed out to you) is the way to go (if you can get it all figured out) as you can reblog pretty much anything.
          Shawn