D. J. Herda

Someone asked a question that's often asked and rarelu answered correctly.It was "Should an author hire an outside editor before sending a novel off to a publisher or agent?" This was my response.

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Okay, here's the deal. Maybe yes and maybe no, but probably.

Sound like a cop out? Here's what I mean. If you're a professionally trained editor as well as an author, and you're extremely good at doing both (as in the best there is), you don't need to hire an outside editor who, in his or her attempt to earn back the thousands of dollars he's charging, would likely make things worse and not better. I've seen that happen personally, not with outside editors but with in-house editors provided by a publisher as standard pre-publication procedure. In my more than 250 books and tens of thousands of short pieces conventionally published over the last five decades, I never used an outside editor.

Heresy, you say? Hardly. I'm not only a professionally trained book, magazine, and newspaper editor but also a perfectionist. I taught both writing and editing at the college level numerous times. I help other professional editors out of a jam when they're stumped on how to fix something. I'd be crazy to hire someone to review my own book simply because I can. Read More 

Sitting around the ol' campfire the other night as the temperature hovered just north of zero, the inevitable question arose: Who wrote the first American crime novel? Having spent much of my life in hot pursuit of a response to just that very inquiry, I promptly perked up my ears and spilled out my brains.

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Now, this response isn't 100 percent guaranteed accurate, but all smoking guns seem to point to an author named Charles Brockden Brown for having written the first true American crime novel. Many literary historians consider his 1798 tome, Edgar Huntly, or Memoirs of a Sleepwalker, to be the primary, if not the most exemplary, suspect. According to the Website CrimeReads:

"The story is written in a quasi-epistolary form, mostly in letters from its titular hero to the sister of his murdered friend, Waldegrave."

The tale concerns a murderer, a murdered man, the murdered man's sister, and a friend of the deceased (our hero) determined to find and bring to justice the blaggard who did the dirty deed for the sister's peace of mind. The plot also involves a great deal of sleepwalking, both on behalf of the murderer and the sleuth on his tail. Sounds promising, doesn't it?

Hold on, though. Before you run out and search for a copy for your next winter's night read, here's an example from the book's very first chapter of what you can expect: Read More 

A writer new to the world of book publishing asked me the other day if an agent does anything beyond finding a publisher for an author-client's book. Even I was surprisecd when I stopped to think about my answser. Here's what I said.

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You mean as if that weren't enough? Actually, a literary agent does quite a bit beyond matching her clients with appropriate publishers. An agent will advise her clients against accepting offers from publishers who are "suspect." That means publishers with a bad reputation or who have created bad experiences for at least some of the authors they sign on. You don't need those types of publishers in your corner. Believe me!

Also, an agent will negotiate with reputable, conventional publishers for various contractual rights and percentages. If a publisher initially offers a standard contract at a 12% royalty rate with a $3,000 advance and 25% of all subsidiary rights, a savvy agent may come back and get that boosted to 15% royalties with a $5,000 advance (or more) and 50% of all subsidiary rights. We're talking here about seasoned, ethical, professional agents, not those who shoot from the hip just to make a quick buck. A reputable agent has done her homework, seen what the publisher has offered to other writers, and knows the bargaining power she has. She also knows when and how to use it.

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