Linda Chaffee Taylor's Blog

If you’ve never worked with a publisher before, the next steps that will happen after you sign the contract may come as a bit of a surprise. However, your first task is to deliver the manuscript on or before the due date that was specified in your contract. So do it and send it on […]

I want to celebrate you writers who have received a YES from a publisher who wants to publish your book. (I’m focusing on the traditional publishers here; please be careful of a YES from publishing scammers. If you want to read my warnings, check out this post about publishing predators.) But joy oh joy when […]

The last person who works on the words in the manuscript is the proofreader. This is still part of the editing process, but the proofreader has little say about the manuscript itself. By the time the proofreader gets the manuscript, the designer and typesetter have done their jobs and created a PDF that will look […]

Following along from Part 1 of this little series about becoming an editor, today we’ll talk about the copyediting process. I tell my students that this (or proofreading) will be the entry level job in a publishing house. To break in, they will look for jobs as copyeditors or sometimes they’re labeled as editorial assistants. […]

I’ve had several students take my Editing class and end up saying that it was that class that helped them discover what they wanted to do for a living. They’d been casting around, trying to be writers, and realizing that their love for words did not necessarily translate into becoming the next great American novelist. […]

I honestly never thought much about SEO (search engine optimization) until one of my students. Grant, decided to take on that topic as his final senior project in our Professional Writing major. He had found the topic interesting during our Social Media Strategy class and decided he wanted to learn more. He researched deep into […]

I was asked recently about what God has taught me through my writing career. While I do admit to enjoying writing, really most of my learning has been through my editing career. In both cases, however, the key lesson has been humility. On the one hand, writers need humility to handle the (often many) edits […]

One of the hats I wear is coordinator of the annual Taylor University Professional Writers Conference, held every summer on the university’s beautiful campus. And I am inviting you. Just a little over 10 years ago, we started this conference, wondering, “If we build it, will they come?” Well, came they did, and we’ve been […]

As I noted in this post at the end of December, I was studying ways to teach my students how to use AI (artificial intelligence; in this case, specifically ChatGPT). However, “teaching them how to use” is a misnomer because I quickly discovered that students already are using it. And I was naive to think […]

Lunchtime was a big deal during my elementary school years. I recall spending much energy on exactly which lunchbox would provide my “ethos” for the upcoming year. After all, during every lunchtime, that lunchbox sat in front of me, open, back side available for all to see. Everyone at those long cafeteria tables would set […]