Needless to say, then, that my recent move from Connecticut to Chicago came after months of sober deliberation. I tallied all the pros and cons. On the plus side? Deep dish pizza; the Bears; and the vibrant city my partner Jenne calls home. The cons? Deep dish pizza; the Bears; and the vast, dizzying unknown, especially where work was concerned.

After interviewing with several organizations, I had accepted a job with Avatar HR Solutions, a talent management consulting firm with offices downtown, just a block from Millennium Park. The first time I visited my prospective colleagues, I was dazzled by the organization and environs but still felt haunted by unknowns.

To take this new job, I would be leaving the publishing industry to work in marketing, a new field for me. Would I miss playing with books every day? Would I be any good at marketing? With choices downtown abounding, how would I choose a spot for lunch?

Three busy months have passed since I first asked myself those questions. During that time, many similarly important problems have arisen, usually as I sit before a menu in a restaurant downtown, while Jenne frowns, belly grumbling.

Meanwhile, my aforementioned career questions have for the most part worked themselves out. My organization is lively; my coworkers are bright; and I’m paid well to write and create—all very happy circumstances.

Sometimes I miss publishing, but I’ve found no lack of opportunities to keep my hand in the editing game. As a freelance writer and editor, I’m fortunate to contribute to fantastic organizations like Dragonfly Editorial. I also recently discovered the website Chicago Publishes, where I’ve learned about the city’s inclusive publishing industry programs.

I look forward to getting involved: attending events, building my freelance network, and learning more about how I can support Chicago’s publishing industry in my spare time.

With so much excitement on the horizon, my only question now is what to have for dinner. Grab a bread stick: This may take some time.

Greg Hyman is an marketing project manager at Avatar HR Solutions and a freelance writer and editor.

You probably saw it on Facebook—a Christmas tree constructed out of classic hardcovers. Our librarian told me this was a theme repeated at bookstores around our city and around the country.

In this increasingly digital world in which we live, work, and read, bibliophiles are looking for creative ways to demonstrate our love and appreciation for books. Even if we have to get a little crafty.

Books have always been part of my identity.

As a teenager reading on a boat, I was instructed, “Amy, wave!” and I waved my hand, nose still stuck in my book, and got drenched.

Probably one-quarter of all my earthly possessions are books—at least in weight. There are books I’ve edited, books passed down from my grandmothers, books I haven’t had time to read yet, books I will probably want to read again…

I not only love to read, I love the packaging of a well-designed book. I open French flaps, I run my fingers over spot gloss, and I absolutely must check to see if some creative use was made of the endpapers.

What does this mean in the age of the e-reader? Can we make new friends with the convenience of the electronic word and keep the charm and beauty of a well-made book?

Here’s where we get crafty

Poking around the library while my daughter was in her pre-teen book group watching “book trailers” on YouTube, I made quite a find: The Repurposed Library: 33 Craft Projects That Give Old Books New Life by Lisa Occhipinti (Abrams, 2011).

“Look,” I gushed, on the way out to the car, “You can take an old hardcover cookbook, take out the insides, and turn it into a tool bin for cooking utensils.”

“Those poor, poor books,” my daughter said.

Well, yes, the books are deconstructed. But they are re-imagined in creative paper-based literary heritage. They are made into things that will be loved and used.

Some projects repurpose the hardcover exterior—transformed into a Hanging Mirror, a Birdhouse, a Story Time Clock, or a Two-Book Luminary.

Others make use of the innards—transformed into a Bookmobile, a Pagework Quilt, or a Biographical Bracelet.

Or you can use the whole book and make a Best-Seller Bookshelf, a Literary Lamp, or a Book Ledge.

My favorite project in the book marries the old and the new. With an old hardcover, some Velcro, some decorative paper, and a bookplate, you can make … a Kindle Keeper.

Amy Paradysz wants a book-themed room with a Pagework Quilt, a Literary Lampshade, and an Illuminated Switch Plate. She does not yet own an e-reader. But she’s thinking about it.

As I morphed from poet to editor, my fascination with punctuation came full circle. I learned to wield its power for function to accentuate form… handled deftly, punctuation works almost invisibly, allowing a reader to drift into a story and forget that its transformative world was created entirely of abstract symbols on paper.

I recently thought my fellow Dragonfly editors might feel a similar kinship to punctuation. I asked a simple question: What’s your favorite punctuation mark, and why?* Here’s what I got.

Samantha Enslen:

My favorite punctuation mark is the comma. I use it too frequently, even when it’s not grammatically correct. Two years of texting have conditioned me to pen constructions such as these:

Going to grocery, need anything?

Me go Chipotle, what you want?

Me home 3pm, where kids?

I see now that my casual writing style has been reduced to Tarzan-level. Me want text. Me no care ‘bout proper grammar. As a copyeditor, it’s hard for me to admit this, but it’s true.

Amy Paradysz:

I love em dashes—my thoughts are full of digressions.

Jess Haberman:

Em dash. It’s so controlling! It likes to interrupt and make you wait. It’s the punctuation mark with balls—just not literally.

Ellen Henrie:

My initial reaction was the em dash. I like the graphic quality of it—it opens up a space and allows a thought to drop in, adding a layer or emphasis. It also comes in handy for transcribing, when speakers get to wandering around in what they want to say. Then I said, “Wait a minute—what about the period?” That lowly little dot that is like a fist**… hmmm… No, I admire the period, but it’s not my favorite. I feel sorry for the comma—the most used and abused of all marks. The poor thing gets sprinkled in thither and yon or else left out with no respect to the proprieties. Then there’s the semicolon; no, it’s too complicated. The parenthesis? (Things set in parentheses often seem distracting.) Ellipsis? The dreamy cousin of punctuation marks… yes, I have a certain fondness for this one. But I’ll stick with the em dash as my favorite—at least for today.

Diana Ceres:

Ellipses all the way… Love me some mystery… Email smiley is a close second. Exclamation marks skid into third with me. I love how exciting and celebratory they are!!

Clair Allen:

The semicolon is the most versatile of punctuation marks and ranks at the top of the list. It is like a traffic cop. It neatly separates important sentence segments, which is absolutely necessary to the proper understanding of complex sentences. The semicolon facilitates and permits the serial comma to do its job. Without the semicolon in more meaty sentences, the poor serial comma would be absolutely adrift, lost—leading to all sorts of confusion. The semicolon is so powerful; it can easily replace a sentence-ending period whenever it wants (like it did in this sentence). Perhaps the only thing to add is that the semicolon continues to patiently wait for the greater respect due it by writers of all stripes.

Magi Walker (that’s me):

I confess, I am dazzled by the flare of an exclamation mark—and who can resist the deliciously onomatopoetic interrobang?! But the apostrophe wins my heart as punctuation’s unsung hero. It’s a beautiful word: apostrophe. It is the lofty cousin of the common comma and the multi-faceted twin of the single quotation mark. An apostrophe holds a place in line. It stands in for others, silently doing their job. It fuses two into one, slicing syllables without sacrificing sense. It implies a manner of speaking and lends a conversational tone. It softens the blow of the nots in this life. And it announces a belonging.

* Of course, if we have our punctuation pets, we have our pet peeves, too. I’ll uncover the annoying side of punctuation in a future post.

** Punctuation Kung Fu was created in Suffolk, England, to teach the mechanics of sentence structure to kids. It pairs fighting moves (such as the Full Stop Fist Punch) and sounds (HA!) with the rules of applying punctuation symbols.

Margaret Walker edits, writes, and reads—and thrives on the evolution of language.

I was not always a perfect copyeditor.

I lay the evidence before you: a 10th-grade book report on Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five.

In case you can’t read my teacher Mr. Vaughn’s comments, here they are in all their harsh glory.

“Wow! The subject matter here is excellent. Your writing is insightful and unusually readable. You might review some grammar rules, as you have several major, and careless, errors. Grade: A+ for content, D for grammar.”

Ouch!

Major, careless errors? What gives?

Apparently, I wasn’t always great with grammar. And sometime between 10th grade and now, I improved. And let me be frank: It didn’t happen in college.

Instead, when I decided to be a copyeditor, I sought out the professional training I needed.

Here’s what I did.

Study. I started by spending hours reading and taking notes. I studied books like the Chicago Manual of Style, the Associated Press Stylebook, and the New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage. I didn’t understand everything I was reading, but I knew that it would someday be relevant to my work.

Practice. Next I picked up two workbooks: Mark My Words and Substance and Style. (Both are out of print but can be found on Amazon.) I worked my way through each one, end to end, dutifully filling out each exercise and grading myself according to the key in the back of the book.

Attend. I also sought out training from experts in the field. I attended several classes offered by EEI Communications, including their Intensive Introduction to Copyediting, Substantive Editing, and Style Summit courses.

Continue. And I haven’t stopped. I regularly attend conferences, classes, and webinars offered by groups like IABC, Ragan, and Copyediting.com. I also read newsletters published by Ann Wylie, Daphne Gray-Grant, and Michael Stelzner, just to name a few.

In fact, despite all my training, I’m still afraid of falling behind. Maybe that’s because technology is changing the way we work so dramatically. Or maybe it’s because I want our company to be a leader in the communications industry, not a laggard.

So if you can’t find me some afternoon, look in the easy chair in the corner. I’ll probably be curled up studying the latest edition of Copyediting. I’m just reading it on my laptop these days, instead of paper.

Samantha Enslen runs Dragonfly Editorial.

There seemed to be some simple brilliance in Jill’s words, so I asked her to elaborate.

Sam: So, Jill, you need answers to just three questions to write a marketing piece. Tell me more!

Jill: On the way to crafting a marketing message, a client’s first inclination is often to declare superiority in service or product. But shouting, “We’re the best!” “We’re the right choice!” actually isn’t persuasive. It takes a combination of information and empathy to be persuasive.

As a copywriting apprentice, I’d often come away from a kickoff meeting with weak direction that resulted in weak ads. I realized the onus was on me to direct the client’s thinking.

And as a student of dramatic structure and playwriting, I tend to imagine conversations and interactions between people. I’m not just putting words on a page, I’m adopting the character of my client and talking to someone about something important to them. Who is that person? What’s important to them? What do they think?

And the natural follow-on question: What do we want them to think?

I also dug into texts of notable copywriters who had developed their own versions of the same questions, so I knew I was on the right track.

Sam: You also mentioned that you take these three questions and “build on them” during an interview. Can you a talk about how that happens?

Jill: The “who” question prompts the marketing team to tell stories about recent encounters and challenges with customers.

My follow-up questions come naturally, such as, “Why did that customer come to you? What were they expecting from you?” “How did you address their problem?”I usually get some great anecdotes to draw from. The stories help me understand their target customer and how we should speak to their pain points.

Sam: As great as these questions are, is it ever hard to get your interviewees to answer them?

Jill: It usually isn’t difficult. One tough part can be getting them to talk about their competitive strategy. They might have hired the writer without having created one.

In that case, you need to find out what makes your client truly unique in their market. Or, they may be in parity with everyone else. In that case, you have to help them say something the competition isn’t saying, and say it in a unique voice.

Sam: Final question. Do you ever get stuck having to write without all the information you’d like to have? If so, what do you do?

Jill: Very frequently, clients hire a writer simply to make them “sound like Apple” or to imitate the voice of the “it” company of the moment. And that’s all the direction you get. Your work is rated on how well you do that, not how well you address customer needs.
Clients rarely have the luxury of time to look into their hearts to see what their own brand is really all about. And your contact probably doesn’t have the authority to push back on that. It has to come from the corner office.

So you do your best for the client. Your writing can make a tired brand sound fresh. But of course ideally you want to sound authentic, empathetic, really connected — all that good stuff that writing has the power to do.

Sam: Thanks, Jill. It seems to me your advice can be applied to any type of persuasive writing — case studies, web content, white papers — not just ads. In fact, I think I’ll use it on a project this week!

Jill: Thanks, Sam. Go for it and good luck.

Jill Davis is a copywriter with extensive experience in marketing, branding, and retail sales.

Think again.

A friend from high school recently posted this on Facebook:

Lauren’s grammar homework:

Choose the correct way to rewrite the end of this sentence: “A string quartet has two violins a viola and a cello.”

a. two violins, a viola, and a cello.
b. two violins, a viola, and, a cello.
c. two, violins a, viola and a, cello.
d. no change is needed.

Maybe I’ve spent too much time with my AP Style Book, but none of these are correct!!!

Thus began a heated debate over commas, with 81 comments posted by a variety of people over less than two hours—and more comments to come.

The original post was by a career newspaper journalist. Journalists use Associated Press (AP) style and are firm in the belief that the serial comma is superfluous and must be expunged.

I was once a newspaper reporter and editor, so I remember my distaste for that “extra” comma.

But then I started editing for an assessment test publishing company. Educational publishers favor the serial comma.

And then I started editing proposals for tech companies that have corporate style guides based on Government Printing Office (GPO) style, which calls for serial commas.

And then for five years I was immersed in book publishing. Book publishers have corporate style guides based on Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), which also calls for serial commas.

Today, for nearly everything that goes through Dragonfly Editorial, we use serial commas. That’s because most of our clients use styles based on GPO (for tech editing) or the AMA Manual of Style (for medical editing). Both dictate use of the serial comma.

After five years of deleting those commas and 10 years of putting them back in, the serial comma and I have become friends. I appreciate its ability to clarify where one item in a list ends and another begins—which can be difficult to discern in the technical material that we edit.

But whether I like the serial comma or not isn’t important. What is important is knowing what the client wants.

In the latest edition of The Copyeditor’s Handbook, author Amy Einsohn touches on the debate:

The other issue concerns the so-called serial comma, which is the comma before the and or or that precedes the last item in a list. Chicago, WIT, APA, and CSE all either require or strongly recommend the serial comma, but most newspapers and magazines use the serial comma only when needed to avoid ambiguity. Ask your editorial coordinator about house policy.

And so, we can agree to disagree. And any time I go back to newspaper or magazine writing, I better be ready to check my “extra” commas at the door.

Dragonfly Editorial project manager Amy Paradysz thanks her Facebook friends for reminding her that details do indeed matter to people who are not editors—even if we disagree on the specifics.

The New York Times reported last week that Amazon has continued its push into publishing. The company recently acquired more than 450 titles from Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books, a niche publisher best known for its educational titles.

There seems to be no stopping this giant in its quest to take a larger share of both the bookselling business and the book publishing business. Seems unfair, doesn’t it?

Personally, I don’t know much about the children’s book publishing industry, which is quite different from the trade book publishing world in which I live. Nonetheless, I don’t feel too worried about this move.

Undoubtedly, some authors will flock to Amazon because (from what I understand) they offer very competitive royalty rates. And as Amazon will most likely hire the best editors and designers they can find — and there are many without work these days — I expect they will operate as well as any publisher.

But each publisher is different, and each offers a different experience. I’d like to believe that even with Amazon’s continuing forays into creating books — not just selling them — there will still be a place for many other publishers. Not ones that are necessarily more discerning — but ones that have a more specialized focus, offer more personalized services, or see the potential in bringing unique voices to market.

In any case, I have to admit that I much prefer that authors flock to Amazon’s publishing arm than to self-publishing tools (and tools offered by others, including some actual publishers!).

Self-publishing is growing fast, and despite the endless hype about successful authors who’ve turned to self-publishing after being ignored by mainstream publishers, the backlash against poorly edited, poorly designed e-books has already begun.

I am definitely curious — both as a reader and acquisitions editor — about how this will all play out. My guess is that by this time next year, the landscape will already be dramatically different.

Stay tuned, readers …

Jess Haberman is a full-time acquisitions editor at the Globe Pequot Press/FalconGuides and a part-time Dragonfly editor.

I’ve extended his advice somewhat; I think one of the best ways to end a story is with anything great. A zinger; a twist; a joke; anything that causes you to catch your breath, smile, laugh, nod your head, or think.

I believe this advice applies not just to feature stories, which Maurice meant, but also to case studies, web content … even brochure copy. Any place you want to hook a reader.

In my original post, I highlighted Maurice’s point using “New York Notes,” a poem I heard on The Writer’s Almanac.

I’ll do the same today, this time using Julie Kane’s poem “Used Book.” I heard this in the car today, driving back to my office from an appointment.

Used Book

What luck—an open bookstore up ahead
as rain lashed awnings over Royal Street,
and then to find the books were secondhand,
with one whole wall assigned to poetry;
and then, as if that wasn’t luck enough,
to find, between Jarrell and Weldon Kees,
the blue-on-cream, familiar backbone of
my chapbook, out of print since ‘83—
its cover very slightly coffee-stained,
but aging (all in all) no worse than flesh
though all those cycles of the seasons since
its publication by a London press.
Then, out of luck, I read the name inside:
The man I thought would love me till I died.

If that ending doesn’t take your breath away, I don’t know what will.

If you wish, listen to the poem here.

Network Roulette.

One of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk, starts up new companies as often as Britney Spears gets married. Penelope’s third startup, Brazen Careerist, has an interesting new way to network online with professionals in your general career area.

I tried it as part of her “Secrets of an A-List Blogger” blogger bootcamp week earlier this month, and I was impressed. And not just because Network Roulette’s version of elevator music—animated stick figures networking at a bar—is stinking cute. Though it is.

Here’s how Network Roulette works. You take a minute or two to fill out a very short “social resume.” Then you are randomly matched with one other networker, see a few facts about each other, and have up to five minutes to instant message together. When you run out of time, there’s a place where you can take notes on the exchange and choose whether or not to become a “Fan” of the person, which makes it possible for you to get back in touch with them on the Brazen Careerist site.

Then you’re whisked back to the animated stick figures for however many seconds it takes for the site to match you with the next networker to become available.

In one hour, I “met” a resort designer, a Menstrual Cycle Advocate, a woman who blogs about how the work environment is morphing, another woman who blogs about great leaders in history, and—bingo—a consultant for one of Dragonfly’s biggest clients.

I’m not just bragging. I’m inviting you to join me. There’s a Network Roulette for Marketing and Communications types (and wanna-be’s) on Thursday, December 1, at 7 p.m. EST. Just go to the link below and sign up. It’s free. If you can type, you can network in your jammies.

Here’s the link:

http://www.brazencareerist.com/network-roulette/nr_marketing_communications

Amy Paradysz is thinking that we might be able to use Network Roulette for our team of remote writers and editors to get to know each other.

There was plenty of ramp-up involved in the assignment: initiation on Google Calendar; orienting myself with the contact sheet of our freelance editors; and using an Excel spreadsheet to log the receipt, distribution, and return of all project files. The project had been carefully set up by my mentors to enable a smooth transition while they were both traveling for business.

But even the best-laid plans can go awry.

Shortly before the project began, our client requested that all Dragonfly staff begin using its secure file transfer system—effective immediately. For my project, estimated to be 100 pages a day for 7 days, we had lined up a number of proposal editors to work at various times. Before files began to roll in, we needed to have these editors connected to the system, assigned new email addresses, and able to receive and send messages and attachments.

As with most technology rollouts, there were a few hiccups.

Technology rollout or technology steamroller?

First, we worked with the client’s system administrator for several hours before we were able to get our editors connected and the editing underway. Then, we realized there were issues with dropped file transfers—attachments that had been sent did not always arrive.

Sam, Dragonfly’s president, quickly suggested that we return to our normal email-based method, putting aside the technology rollout for this project. The client, however, wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel. And I, too, thought that we’d come far enough that we should persevere, if possible.

One full day into the project, the rollout had consumed time and patience and was only marginally effective in its technical intent—we were using the system but still having to reroute some dropped files via our old method. Then the next day, we hit a big wall: memory. The client’s file transfer system had a 110Mb quota for each user. As the project manager, I was receiving and sending files averaging 5Mb throughout the day—and just a day and a half in, I’d almost maxed out my quota.

Bowled over

The system administrator suggested that I offload emails from their system to my local machine for storage. It seemed redundant, but I wanted to give the system a chance to work. I spent hours moving and deleting the files in small increments because of my limited quota.

When I’d moved the Inbox files (but not yet the Sent files), I recalculated my quota usage, which simultaneously emptied the trash on the client system. To my dismay, my quota doubled, and the system automatically disabled my account. On the bright side, I’d discovered part of the problem: the trash was not releasing my deleted files, and it was counting against my quota.

The new file transfer system was down for the count; the towel was finally thrown. We returned to our tried-and-true email system for the duration of the project— and were able to edit double the original estimate of work for the client in the remaining time. My initiation into project management was over, and the project was a success despite the system failure.

Keeping your footing

In retrospect, my advice to anyone facing a technology rollout is this:

1. Never roll a new system out for the first time on a live project.
2. Instead, assess the needs of the system and all of its users beforehand.
3. Install the technology and give everyone a chance to play with it and develop a level of comfort using it.
4. Then do a test run—better yet, multiple test runs—to iron out the inevitable kinks.
5. Finally, roll out the system on a small project with a flexible deadline, rather than a mega-project involving multiple staff and loads of work that must be done in a short timeframe. That way, any hitches can be ironed out in a low-stress environment—rather than in the heat of a panicked production.

If you follow these steps, you can roll with the punches on your next rollout—rather than being bowled over.

Magi Walker is an editor and project manager for Dragonfly. She’s also a patron saint to lost dogs and an exceptional cook.