As part of this interview series I wanted to talk to more than authors. I wanted to talk to book reviewers. I wanted to talk to editors. Well, Neal Hock is both. He's also another person I met through Twitter. Are you noticing a pattern here? I think I got his name through Misty Baker, but I'm not sure. Take a few minutes and get to know Neal and what makes someone want to be an editor or book reviewer tick.
On your blog you are
a book reviewer, yet there's a link to your editing services on there also. So
which came first, the editing or the reviewing? And is that one your first
love?
Well, I guess it depends on your perspective. When I worked
in the corporate world, I was the informal editor of performance reviews and
business-related materials. However, I didn’t consider pursuing editing at that
time. I started a book-review blog because I have a consuming passion for good
books. So with regards to sharing my views on the Internet, the reviewing came
first. As to what my first love is, I’d have to say I have a love of
well-written, good stories. That’s my motivating passion for both editing and
reviewing. However, real life has a way of funneling you in certain directions,
and due to time constraints, my book reviewing is taking a backseat right now.
What makes someone
decide that they want to review books?
A love for good stories. At least that’s what motivates me.
I love the exhilaration I get when I finish a good story, and I can’t wait to
find the next one.
What about editing?
Were you the one weird kid in class who looked forward to diagramming
sentences?
It’s funny, but I wasn’t that interested in grammar-related
topics in school. Hell, I didn’t read a lot books throughout high school. I
just didn’t get excited about The Scarlet
Letter, The Good Earth, and The Great Gatsby. However, when I went
to college, I had a professor for freshman English that encouraged us to
discover modern authors, and from that moment on, my passion for interesting stories
was ignited.
As to being a weird kid, I had my quirks. I’m probably a
much weirder adult. My wife still gives me a strange look when I bring my Chicago Manual of Style to bed for
bedtime reading.
Seriously, though,
what kind of editing services do you provide? Do you work primarily with
independent authors/self-publishers?
I provide proofreading, copyediting, and concept editing.
The vast majority of my clients are independent authors, but I’ve also worked
with publishers and websites.
What's the biggest
error you find yourself correcting? Do you have a most infuriating mistake you
find?
Wow, I’m not sure there is one that stands out. Each author
has personal tendencies, so that kind of evens everything out. There are always
wayward commas and misspelled or missing words. I guess the most common mistake
I find across the board is missing hyphens in compound modifiers. I’ve never
been infuriated when I find mistakes. It’s really quite the opposite, because
mistakes mean I’ll continue to have work.
For years I did
newspaper copy editing work. My favorite Associated Press style rule was for
under way. It's two words except when it's used in a nautical sense. Do you
have a favorite style or grammar rule? Please say you do. It will make me feel
much less like a language loser.
Anyone who can appreciate such a nuance is not a language
loser in my book. I’m a sucker for a hyphen in a compound modifier, and I love
apostrophes of omission. When to use everyday
and every day always gives me the
warm fuzzies, too. See, now I look like the language dork.
Since you review
books, it stands to reason that you've read a lot of them. What are three books
that came across your desk that surprised you? And they don't need to be
surprisingly good books. We all know that something can be unexpectedly bad.
Well, I’ll stick with the good. The whole point of my
book-review site is to share good books. If I read something that I’m not crazy
about, I usually just set it aside and keep my mouth shut. You know, the whole
“if you can’t say something nice” thing. The biggest thing that has surprised
me since I started reviewing books is the number of quality works being
self-published. There are a lot of talented writers out there that are
relatively unknown.
Three books that blew me away when I read them: As I Embrace My Jagged Edges by Lee
Thompson, The Pack: Winter Kill by
Mike Oliveri, and Identity Crisis by
Debbi Mack.
I'm sure there are a
few indie authors reading this. How can they contact you if they wanted to?
The website for my editing services is http://www.hockseditingservices.com.
The website for my book-review site is http://bookhoundsden.blogspot.com.
An e-mail address to contact me directly is on each site.
Can you give us a
recommended reading list? What books do we need to read if we haven't yet?
Sheesh, you’re trying to get me in trouble here. I’m afraid
I might leave someone out. Here’s a few authors everybody needs to try: Guido
Henkel, Stephen James Price, Debbi Mack, Mike Oliveri, Lee Thompson, Anthony
Neil Smith, Scott Nicholson, R.E. McDermott, Willie Meikle, David T. Wilbanks,
and Jeff Bennington.
What's the biggest
piece of advice you have for authors as a reviewer? What about as an editor?
From a reviewer’s standpoint, I’d advise authors to not
argue with a reviewer about the reviewer’s review. Especially if you solicited
the reviewer. Recently I’ve seen a couple of authors say all kinds of things
about reviews they didn’t agree with. If you get a review that’s bad, see what
you can learn from it and then move on.
From an editor’s standpoint, I’d advise authors to always
continue to learn more about their craft. Continue to put tools in your
writer’s toolbox. If there are things that you struggle with, pinpoint them and
try to improve. In this new digital age a writer can’t afford to put out a
subpar product.
