Celebrating Newsletters as Resources, Perseverance, and Great Networking

Dawn Colclasure and Carolyn Celebrate Three Years of SPARREW

with the newsletter’s  Gift Sample Collection.

Celebrating Four Years of Tricky Edits

 

Celebrating Newsletters as Resources for Indie-Minded Authors

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

If you’re reading this because you subscribed after following my “Tricky Edits” column in Dawn Colclasure’s SPARREW Newsletter, you might find it familiar. Well, here’s the thing. Birthday celebrations are forever. You might have last read about this helpful book in 2025 when Dawn and I celebrated our third year together. Here is that story: 

 When Dawn and I realized she had been doing her SPARREW newsletter for three years and I had been writing a column for it from the get-go, we decided to celebrate. The “we” part disappeared in the difficulties presented by Los Angeles’ fires and the mandatory evacuation from my husband’s and my home. That required tearing apart my office to get all essentials into our trunk to get them out of danger. As it happens, our home survived with a little wind damage, but my office is still suffering a bit. 

 Dawn proceeded to work on our plans using past columns for her newsletter and one of my booklets now published in its second edition by Modern History Press to glean our material most needed by authors.  By the time the smoke cleared, she had The SPARREW Newsletter Gift Sample Collection up and ready for you to benefit from the best-of-the-best from those years in 2025. Help us celebrate. Gift it to a fellow author. Find it on Amazon. 

So, it’s birthday time again. And here is a little something I promised in SPARREW’s April newsletter as part of a short list of important edits to consider in final edits, the ones that too many authors don’t know about or bother with.  We’re concentrating on only the last suggestion--number eight on the 2025 list that promises a list of  "What you might be missing if you don’t read Appendices in books that have them:"

Read appendices--mostly found in nonfiction books but not always. And when you read them, don’t skim. Think about the details, the ones you can begin to apply for the needs of your own books.  

1. Sometimes you’ll find near-equivalents to appendices in other genres masquerading under other names, glossaries for instance. It’s a mistake not to take that observation as a lesson. You might use this same approach to helping your reader. 

2. Don’t just read for information. Watch the way segments are worded and the layout for the sections. Is there anything there that can be used to help your readers for your next book? 

2. Does recommended reading offer something that will help you delve deeper into topics you now realize you know too little about? 

3. Watch for examples or samples--sometimes set out visually--that will support what you learned in the book you just read, some that you can use as templates.

4. You might find a summary or organizational chart of the book you just read that will make you think twice about what you just read.

5. A list of experts the author interviewed or were otherwise instrumental for quotes or information--even beyond acknowledgements which will probably be used elsewhere.  My The Frugal Editor includes a list of agents who offered their query letter pet peeves and permission to print them. 

6. Sometimes you’ll find a whole new how-to section written by the author or some other expert for something the author knows you’ll need but doesn’t quite fit in the book.  

7. You might find resources other than recommended readers (like those agents mentioned above!) 

 

MORE ABOUT CAROLYN

Once a month Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares something writer-related she hopes might save some author from embarrassment (or make the task of writing more fun or creative.) The third edition of The Frugal Editor from Modern History Press includes a chapter on some of the words most misused by the very people whose business it is to know them. It is the second multi award-winning book in her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. The Frugal Editor has been fully updated including a chapter on how backmatter can be extended to help readers and nudge book sales.

 Carolyn blogs sporadically on editing here at http://www.thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com and at her SharingwithWriters blog on other aspects of the publishing world and welcomes guest posts with ample author credit lines and links. She also tweets writers' resources and tips at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo using the #FrugalBookPromoterTips hashtag.

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG and Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits literary fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also a marketing consultant, editor, and author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers including the award-winning second edition of "The Frugal Book Promoter" and "The Frugal Editor." Her "How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically" will soon be published by Modern History Press in its second edition. Learn more on her Amazon profile page, http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile. "Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers" is one of her booklets--perfect for inexpensive gift giving--and "The Great First Impression Book Proposal, another booklet, helps writers who want to be traditionally published.” 

 Carolyn has three FRUGAL books for retailers including one she encourages authors to read because it will help them convince retailers to host their workshops, presentations, and signings. The first in that series is "A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques.” 

She helps writers extend the exposure of their favorite reviews at TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com absolutely free along with her associate Lois W. Stern. She also blogs at all things editing--grammar, formatting and more--at right here "The Frugal, Smart, and Tuned-In Editor" (http://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com) and plans to work on it harder in 2025.  

Her SharingwithWriters.blogspot.com blog focuses on the writing life and book marketing and promotion. It is a Writers' Digest 101 Best blogs pick.

 

When the Reader Doesn’t Know What the Write Knows

This is a guest post from ghostwriter Dawn Colclasure’s Substack presentations, with permission to reprint, of course! I found it especially helpful because it pinpoints why sometimes great writing advice isn’t understood or used correctly even by experiences authors. So, please read it hear and then subscribe to Dawn’s Substack series for a wide variety of articles that will help your own careers--in ways you might not have imagine! Find it at  https://dawncolclasure.substack.com/. I think you’ll also find a book or two of her to enjoy just by searching on her name at Amazon; she’s prolific and she writes in many genres. You’re likely to find your favorite among them.  

A Guest Post By Dawn Colclasure

Sometime ago, I started writing the eighth story in my GHOST Group series. This series is about a group of kids who create a ghosthunting club to investigate the many hauntings in their haunted town. Unfortunately, I struggled writing this story, and after I picked it up again just recently to tackle yet again and hopefully finish writing it, I soon learned why. One of the things I wrote in my book 365 Tips for Writers is that the reader doesn’t know what the writer knows. While I was trying to make this tip apply to both the writer of fiction and nonfiction, this tip heavily applies to writing fiction. The writer may know what a character is seeing, thinking, smelling, hearing, doing, tasting and feeling, but unless that’s included in the story, the reader won’t know this. And I discovered, as I reviewed what I’d written for this story, that these elements were missing all over the place. There was A LOT the reader would not be aware of and maybe even confused by. I knew what a character saw when she looked at her drawing and decided it was perfect, but the reader didn’t. I knew what another character saw and smelled when he entered a freshly cleaned kitchen, but the reader didn’t. Why? Because these details were missing from the story! As I realized this mistake, I was reminded of a couple of other stories I once started reading, and why this very thing made me stop reading them. In one story, there were two characters talking. The writer, bless their heart, decided to stop using dialogue tags, leaving readers in the dark on who was speaking. Normally, readers notice the last person talking and just assume the next string of dialogue was coming from the other person talking. That’s how I went with it to get through that scene. But it was when, surprise! A THIRD character entered the conversation and the writer STILL did not use dialogue tags that I lost interest in reading any more of that story. I could not figure out who was talking! (And, yes, it was nothing but dialogue, without anyone doing anything, feeling anything, thinking anything or seeing anything.) In the other story, a ghostly little girl reveals to her father her hidden remains buried in the basement. The father suddenly runs up to the bedroom where his wife is sleeping, awakens her, and yells accusations at her that she had killed their daughter. The wife’s first words? “I told you I didn’t want any children!” That was where the writer lost me. A NORMAL person would want to know why her husband woke her up screaming these accusations at her. And if she was guilty, she would likely deny it at first. Even if her husband had the remains to prove he’d found what was left of a person, the guilty party could still say there is no way to prove it was the remains of their previously missing child. She would deny it to buy herself some time. But instead of readers being made aware of these thoughts or feelings (and there are lots more that would come into play here), the wife instead responded with the claim that she had never wanted children anyway, thereby incriminating herself. While it’s true that writers need to keep certain things from the reader in order to hold interest, failing to share what a character is thinking, seeing, feeling, tasting, hearing and doing should not be one of them. Even if the character is trying to keep a weapon hidden or feeling uneasy that their cover might be blown, there are certain ways you can still write about these things without dropping the ball on your character’s guilt or identity. When I’m reading a story, I want to be COMPLETELY in the story. I want to see what the characters see. I want to know and feel what the characters know and feel. This helps me to stay in a story and it will hold my interest a lot better than some character immediately confessing to a murder that we knew nothing about in the first place.

MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER and EDITOR 

Find the entire HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers at Amazon’s 

new-ish benefit for giving readers a look at a full series on a single page

and letting them order them all as e-books with a single click!

 Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also a marketing consultant, editor, and author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers including the award-winning third edition of "The Frugal Book Promoter" and "The Frugal Editor." Her "How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically” is also available  in its second edition. Learn more on her Amazon profile page, http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile. 

Carolyn’s  "Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers"and "The Great First Impression Book Proposal,” are perfect inexpensive gifts for writers who want to be traditionally published.

 Carolyn has three FRUGAL books for retailers, too, including one she encourages authors to read because it helps them convince retailers to host their workshops, presentations, and signings. It is the first in that series "A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques” and gives authors insight on what will convince retailers to include authors as part of their marketing campaign.

Carolyn also helps writers extend the exposure of their favorite reviews at TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com absolutely free along with her associate Lois W. Stern, and blogs at all things editing--grammar, formatting and more right here at the "The Frugal, Smart, and Tuned-In Editor" (http://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com). (She plans to work on it harder this year including more guest posts like this one!). 

 Her SharingwithWriters.blogspot.com blog focuses on the writing life and book marketing and promotion. It is a Writers' Digest 101 Best blogs pick.

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST BLOGGER

Dawn Colclasure also writes a column for ReaderViews.com’s free e-magazine, “First Chapter Plus” edited by Suzanne Violante. An author of many colors, she writes fiction and nonfiction as well as poetry.  Use Amazon’s great search engine to find all of her work.  Or find her here:

Dawn's links:

Websites: https://www.dmcwriter.com/ and https://dawnsbooks.com/

Blog: http://dawncolclasureblog.blogspot.com/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/dmcwriter.bsky.social

Facebook: 
https://www.facebook.com/authordawncolclasure/

A “Tricky Edit” That Turns Out to Be the Easiest One of All

A New Year Warning

 

A Great Deal of Knowledge Can Be a Dangerous Thing

By Your Blogger Carolyn Howard-Johnson, 
author of the award-winningest book 
in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books,  The Frugal Editor

So you’re a whiz at Latin!  No? Maybe you’re a whiz at words borrowed from Latin because you pay attention to the dictionary when it lists the parts of words English has greedily borrowed from that language (many others?) I’ll admit, I think I am, too. So for this New Year column I’m going to leave you with a very short warning: 

The word Octopus isn’t Latin. It’s Greek. 

And there are lots of other words—especially scientific ones—that seem to be tricksters, too. So when you absolutely must get the plural right—say you’re writing a book where little booboos can live in infamy for a verrrry long time!—it takes but a minute or two to use your fave search engine. For now, the plural for “octopus” is 

Octopodes (Greek)
                Not octopi (Latin)

But for once, English has taken the easy road. We’ve anglicized it and the preferred plural is octopuses.

So your tricky edits tip isn’t so tricky. The word you’re sure of may be rooted in Latin—or maybe German because English—after all is rooted it’s a Germanic language. Or….well, you get the idea. Make it your New Year resolution to “Trust in an English that specializes in our American idiosyncrasies, especially when you think you “know it all.

More About Carolyn

Once a month Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares something writer-related she hopes might save some author from embarrassment (or make the task of writing more fun or creative.) The third edition of The Frugal Editor from Modern History Press includes a chapter on some of the words most misused by the very people whose business it is to know them. It is the second multi award-winning book in her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. Find it on Amazon’s new buy-page offered in paper, hard cover, or as an e-book. (The availability of that new page for book series is another of her #FrugalBookPromoterTips which she liberally posts across Twitter when she isn’t editing a book of her own!) Find her there @frugalbookpromo. 

Until then, The Frugal Editor has been fully updated including a chapter on how backmatter can be extended to help readers and nudge book sales. And an e-copy is available for your reading device for only $8.95. Modern History Press. You’re invited to partake of my most difficult book of all time, primarily because of the necessity for handling artificial intelligence in the new the getting reviews process. It is How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically—hopefully early in the New Year in time for you to start 2025 on a writing-positive note.

Note: This article was originally published in Dawn Colclasure’s SPARREW newsletter where I have had a regular “Tricky Edits” column since its inception. You might want to subscribe. It is full of resources you might find useful for your genre or even your review-getting campaign.  

 

MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER and EDITOR 

       Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is also a marketing consultant, editor, and author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers including the award-winning second editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and The Frugal Editor. Her How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically will soon be published by Modern History Press in its second edition. Learn more on her Amazon profile page, http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile. 

       Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers is one of her booklets--perfect for inexpensive gift giving--and The Great First Impression Book Proposal, another booklet, helps writers who want to be traditionally published. 

      Carolyn has three FRUGAL books for retailers including one she encourages authors to read because it will help them convince retailers to host their workshops, presentations, and signings. The first in that series is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. She helps writers extend the exposure of their favorite reviews at TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com. She also blogs at all things editing--grammar, formatting and more--at right here The Frugal, Smart, and Tuned-In Editor (http://TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com) and plans to work on it harder in 2025.  Her SharingwithWriters.blogspot.com blog focuses on the writing life and book marketing and promotion. It is a Writers' Digest 101 Best blogs pick.