Written by Jeanette Cameron The PEN Institute is the educational division of Christian Editor Network and the premier online educational institute for Christian editors. TPI’s mission statement is “equipping Christian editors with education.” The PEN Institute started in 2004 as a part of The Christian PEN: Proofreaders and Editors Network, which began with founder Kathy […]
by Karin Beery It’s not enough to call yourself a fiction editor. “Fiction” can be broken into numerous genres, each with its own guidelines and expectations. If you want to be a successful, in-demand editor, you need to understand those guidelines and expectations so you can provide the best service to your authors. What is […]
by Iola Goulton Making decisions is a major aspect of editing. Do we use the Oxford comma or not? Do we use Mr. or Mister? OK, ok, or okay? T-shirt, t-shirt, or tee-shirt? All right or alright? Any more or anymore? These decisions are hard enough when the manuscript we’re working on is written in […]
By Ken Walker This year marked two personal milestones. In addition to reaching age seventy, I started drawing my full retirement benefit from Social Security. Since the monthly amount that now appears in our bank account is much higher than it would have been four years ago, I’m glad I waited. I realize that not […]
By Denise Loock Hyphens wear me out. I don’t calculate how much time I invest in hurdling hyphens, but they consume several hours of every editing project I tackle. Open compounds, closed compounds, hyphenated compounds. Adjective, adverb, noun, and verb—each comes with a truckload of hyphenated possibilities. To exemplify the kind of hyphen hurdles every […]
By PEN Director, Jeanette Cameron How well do you know the organization behind PEN Tips, our blog about freelance Christian editing? Christian Editor Network, also known as CEN, is the parent organization of The Christian PEN (PEN), Christian Editor Connection (CEC), The PEN Institute (TPI), and PENCON. CEN’s motto is “equipping and empowering Christian editors,” and all of its divisions are committed to […]
By Karin Beery Once upon a time I was hired to edit a bad manuscript—wrong formatting, no plot structure, and no character development (to name a few issues). I had a choice regarding how I could handle that situation: Be nice.* Be honest. The nice approach would have been to reformat the story for the […]
By Iola Goulton US vs UK English: Regional Differences In my last few posts, I have looked at some of the differences between US and British English. These have included vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation. Today we’re going to look at two questions around taking regional differences into account in a global publishing market. Should […]
This Excellence in Editing Award spotlight is on Refresh Your Faith: Uncommon Devotions from Every Book of the Bible by Lori Hatcher, edited by Rachel Kirsch and published by Our Daily Bread. It takes a team! Irene Chambers, the director of Christian Editor Connection (CEC), interviewed author Lori Hatcher and editor Rachel Kirsch about working […]
By Ken Walker Whether you label it client fees or a retainer, ongoing projects that produce steady monthly income are the mother’s milk of freelancing. Yet, an eagerness to put such relationships into writing can also backfire. I learned this the hard way after landing a gig editing weekly online blogs for a columnist midway through 2016. We […]
