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Learning and Growing
December 17, 2024“You need to write a blog. It can be about anything.”
Those were the infamous words spoken, yet I still didn’t know what to write. I went through many examples and tried to come up with ideas, but nothing.
So as I stared at a blank page, the emptiness of it haunting me, an idea finally came: I decided to write about my experience and the environment here at Busybird.
It has not been what I had expected.
From the moment I walked in on the first day, being greeted by Oscar the Labrador at the door to walking through the shelves of books aligned on the walls, it is a chill and inviting environment.
And of course, how could I forget about the iconic 80s tunes playing in the background? Every now and then Les would ask me, “Who sings this?” to which sometimes I would respond with the right answer, but other times I would undoubtedly get it wrong and respond with, “Oh yeah I’ve heard this song before, but I’m unsure who sings this”, much to the horror of Les and Kev.
I didn’t know that studying 80s music was a requirement of the internship. Even though I have heard my parents listen to many of these songs, some of the names just never come to me.
Oscar the blond Labrador is a calm dog and very friendly, although Les constantly proceeds to call him a “doofus” and a “fiend”. It’s just his way of expressing his love for the dog, I guess. Oscar doesn’t seem phased by it. Most of the time Oscar just sits around and wants food.
The place is very bright with light coming in through the windows. There are many different items around, different plushies, pictures of Kev’s past travels, pictures of Oscar, Hawthorn footy memorabilia. (Kev is a big Hawthorn supporter), published books and posters.
Kev and Les always offer everyone a tea, coffee and maybe even a sweet treat. Everyone at Busybird is friendly and chatty.
I have learnt a lot so far here as an intern. My knowledge of editing, proofing, design and the publishing industry have expanded. I know that there is still much to learn and as I continue to learn and grow, I know that this is an experience that I will not forget.
Many thanks to Les and Kev.
Cristina Sirianni
Editing Intern
Nerd vs Academic
December 12, 2024If you are a reader, more often than not you are judged.
Judged by society.
Judged by those close to you.
Judged by yourself.
As a young reader discovering the beauty of the written word, it is difficult to navigate the world of books, especially when flying solo into the readership community. This can often lead to misunderstanding of personal likes and dislikes, and difficulty finding and choosing the right authors and books to read.
As we get older, this daunting process eases in its difficulty, as we’re more aware of our reading habits, favoured genres and writing styles. And by this point in our life, we don’t allow the judgement of others to affect our hobbies.
But it is the judgement we receive as young people, as primary schoolers, that impact our development in personal, academic and social situations.
When we are young and not surrounded by passionate readers (as we might be today), we are made to feel different. To stand out from the crowd for liking something many others do not like. We are made to feel like nerds because who else, apart from a nerd, would genuinely like books and reading? So when I was younger, like many other young people who didn’t know any better back then, I labelled myself a nerd. Especially because my love of the fantasy genre started from a young age.
But why should I put a label on myself just for liking something?
As we enter the high school era, a similar thing happens to us. By this point, we’ve come into our own and accept our love for reading. But those habits start to bleed into our academic life and once again, we’re labelled something based on our habits; not only are we nerds, but we’re teacher’s pets because we take our education seriously.
When will this judgement end?
By the time we reach university, if that is the path we take, we’ve become resilient enough to allow labels not to define us. But they always haunt the back of our minds, reminding us that once upon a time, our reading journey was frowned upon because it didn’t fit in with the norm of the other kids.
We shouldn’t have to hide our passions.
Creativity and a love of writing often go hand in hand with a love of reading. When I was young and someone asked me what I wanted to do in the future, I told them I wanted to become an author. I didn’t let the judgement and misunderstanding of my passion get in the way of people being unable to comprehend what I wanted to do.
So I took it further. Now, with a Bachelor’s Degree and Masters Degree in Writing and Publishing, I continue to advocate for passionate readers and writers by helping them bring their stories to life.
An internship at Busybird Publishing has been but one step in my journey. The team accept you in as one of their own, showing you all the facets of self-publishing and allowing you to hone your diverse skills. And not to mention, Oscar’s constant furry, stress-relieving and playful presence tops the experience off.
So I leave you with this: don’t let the words of others change who you are.
Whether you are nerd, academic, avid reader, aspiring writer or editor, run with your passions and let them fly.
Rebecca Cannizzaro
Thursday intern
What does a final draft look like?
December 5, 2024Artists often remark that the skill of a good artist is knowing when you are done. The same applies to a book. Regardless of whether it is a novel or a work of non-fiction, knowing when a manuscript is done is part of the skill of both good writing and editing. In both cases it can be tempting to keep tweaking the language – maybe changing the name of a character or updating the statistics, but at some stage you need to say, ‘I am done.’
Equally, at what point is a book ready for editing?
If it is your first book or you are finding it hard to keep on track, having an editor involved from the beginning can be useful. Some editors will offer developmental editing or coaching and they can help you keep on track or make sure your writing accurately reflects what you want to say. There is nothing worse than finishing what you hope is the last draft of your 80,000-word novel only to realise it would have been better written in a different point of view, or one of the key characters is very flat and boring so needs re-writing.
It happens.
Developmental editing means you are spending more time working with your editor so you should develop a strong working relationship with them. They will have a very clear understanding of what you are capable of as a writer and the book you are working on. The extra cost of working with a highly experienced editor should be recouped by reducing the amount of time it takes to write your book and in the quality of your writing (and hopefully increased sales as a result). Any misspellings or incorrect use of grammar are usually picked up in the process so your manuscript will spend less time being copy-edited and proofread.
If you are writing in a language other than your mother tongue, it is worth asking a language teacher to look over your work, or at least someone who is proficient in the language you have written in. They can help explain why some of your word choices may need to be amended. While an editor’s role is to review your language use, their primary focus is on the efficiency of that language to deliver the story or information you are conveying. If they struggle to understand what you are trying to say because your command of that language is not strong it is frustrating and very time consuming for the editor. As a result, you may not get the best edit, or it will cost you a great deal of money in editing. Why not workshop your manuscript first with a writing group or in a language class?
Read your final draft out loud. It may not be a screenplay but when we read aloud our brain is not filling in the gaps that sometimes happens when you read in your head. Reading your work aloud or having someone read it to you (think AI) may help you pick up where you can improve the clarity of your language or where something is missing in your story. Maybe you have written a manual; listening to instructions often picks up a missing step in a process. It helps!
When you have typed what you hope is the last word, put the manuscript away for a few days. Forget about it for a day or two, maybe even a week or more. Then come back with fresh eyes. You may find you are more critical of what you have written and start crafting an even better draft. You may even surprise yourself and think, Hey, this is good!
It is also essential to ask someone else to read it, but preferably not one of your friends. They are usually reluctant to be too critical, you are their friend and that friendship will always take precedence over being your critic. Don’t be shy! You are writing a book – people will read it someday. Reach out to your network. Alternatively, you could ask your local Writer’s Centre, (Writers’ Victoria, Writing NSW, TasWriters, etc.) will help you, they can also connect you with a writers’ group or Beta Readers.
Once you have finished your final draft there are a number of additional steps that need to happen before you can add your book to your bookshelf.
After editing has been completed your manuscript needs to be typeset, usually using InDesign. This is graphic design software and not only lays out the text in a way that is unique to a book and allows for the insertion of design elements such as graphics or photos. The cover is also designed in InDesign as well.
To allow for smooth typesetting it is useful to have an idea of what you want your book to look like. However, your final draft should contain text only, any images to be inserted need to be in a separate file with the insertion point indicated in the manuscript and cross referenced in the name of the image. It is okay to give your typesetter a copy of what you are hoping the final design will look like. As with editing, if you want a professional outcome, typesetting and design are specialised skills, you will need help.
Your final draft may be your third draft, it may even be your twentieth, you will know when you have come to the point when you are just procrastinating.
Hopefully you will know when you are done – it should be the best you think it can be.
Amanda McMahon
Monday Intern
Amanda McMahon Editing
Show, Don’t Tell
November 27, 2024My first thought is that what I’m about to say is a rather universal experience, or at least universal for those of us who cling so tightly to the identity of “writer”. Maybe I’m hoping the experience is universal so I feel less alone in my white-knuckled grip.
I think sometimes I’m haunted by the image of a blank page. I read a really good line in a book, I stare off into the distance like some character in a single-camera mockumentary who’s just heard something ridiculous or foreshadowing, I picture what it would be like to have written something that invokes such feeling. I see myself opening a fresh Word document on my laptop, I feel the potential, I get butterflies thinking of marring the white space with Calibri letters.
I flick my eyes back to the book in my hands and keep reading.
The blinking cursor on the page alerting me of where to begin, telling me to just start, sometimes feels like the ever-present proverbial devil and angel weighing on me, whether they’re clipping my wings or stabilising my feet on the ground depends on the day. The consistent flashing feels a bit like desperation, like the blank space’s need to have words etched across it rivals my unflinching need to do the etching.
I see the white page on days when there’s nothing to watch on any of the 90 streaming services I pay for just in case, when none of those books on my to-read shelf are talking to me. I swear to God there are times I can hear it whispering, having outsourced its convincing to those aforementioned celestial shoulder-dwelling creatures.
In some ways, there are worse things to be haunted by than the presence of your yearning dressed up as a cartoon ghost, if that white sheet is actually just a blank page. A constant reminder of your capacity to construct worlds and establish character dynamics and depict humanity feels somewhat freeing, feels like a gentle shove in the direction of doing something just because, just because you can, just because you love it. At the very least, it brings a whole new meaning to ghostwriter.
The irony of writing about how hard I find it to write, to take the words from my head and let them take up space, to put words to paper, is not lost on me. Is writing this the gateway I’ve been searching for, the avenue that is set to break through the dam walls that are preventing me from writing? If I keep writing about not writing, that still counts, right?
Maybe the next step is to change the language. Less “I want to be a writer”, more “I want to write”. Maybe the change really is show, don’t tell, and the answer has been right in front of me the whole time.
Maybe next time I write to you, I’ll have something better to say than to wax poetic about the difficulty level of convincing myself to write.
Maybe I’ll just write.
Sheridan Harris
Editing Intern
Writer Beware
November 19, 2024Recently, Ballarat-based self-publisher, Shawline Publishing, collapsed amid rumours of impropriety. Various news outlets, such as the Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC, and the Ballarat Courier, have written stories about it.
It’s a cautionary tale about this side of the industry – that predators are lurking, just waiting to take advantage of prospective authors.
As writers, we share the same dream: we love writing, we have a passion for telling our stories, and we’d be ecstatic if we could get our book into the world.
Unfortunately, at this stage, inexperienced authors who don’t know much about the industry, who are naturally trusting, expect guidance, and freely invest trust, are vulnerable.
This is the briefest overview of how the industry works:
- Traditional publishing: a publisher signs you to a contract. They oversee production and pay for all of it, but get the bulk of the return. You’d typically get about 7% – 10% (per book), and possibly an advance (usually a small sum in Australia). For many, being published traditionally comes with validation and marquee.
- Self-publishing: you pay for all of it and hire an author-service provider to oversee production for the services you need. While self-publishing was heavily stigmatised once upon a time, many inexperienced and experienced authors alike are now pursuing it as a viable alternative.
- Partnership publishing: like self-publishing, but the publisher claims to go 50/50 with you on expenses and royalties. You think, Well, 50% is much better than 7% – what a great deal! It’s doubtful partnership publishers invest a single cent into expenses.
Busybird’s mother hen, Blaise, used to say if you’re paying even just one dollar for publishing, you’re self-publishing, so you should keep 100% of the royalties, and keep 100% of the rights.
She was right.
There are legitimate stakeholders who may cut into your pie later – like distributors or bookstores – but as far as the publishing component goes, if you’re paying, you should keep EVERYTHING.
If the self-publisher is making any claims on royalties and/or rights, run.
Run as fast as you can.
We’ve heard horror stories about various self-publishers from authors who’ve been burned.
The thing is many of these places will talk a good game. They’ll tell you they love your work, that the market needs a book like yours, and that your book will be successful.
Let’s break this down:
- Do they love your work? Well, maybe. But ask salient questions to ensure they’ve read it. Lots of these people will talk in generalities. We had one author come to us two years ago to ask about publishing. We read several chapters and gave him an honest assessment. Another self-publisher waxed lyrical about it, so he went with them. Take a guess who that was.
- The market needs a book like yours. It might, if they’re reading the market correctly. But that doesn’t guarantee sales. Think about just how many books are published – go look in a bookstore, or at an online retailer. Somebody thought the market needed every one of those books. Now, how many of those books would be blowout successful? A handful?
- Your book will be successful. Nobody can guarantee this. The market’s full of books that people thought would be successful, but which sold moderately, under-performed, or outright bombed, or which might’ve went through numerous rejections (e.g. twelve publishers rejected Harry Potter), only to be successful later. It shows you how fallible these evaluations are.
There’s no formula to this. If there was, big multinational publishers with huge marketing teams would orchestrate success after success after success, but they don’t.
They can’t.
We’re at the whim of so many things we have no control over, such as trends, tastes, and timing. You might write a great book about werewolves, but unfortunately something else with werewolves came out a month earlier, so the market’s satiated. Or you might have a campy spy thriller, but a real war has shifted consumer appetites.
Again, as Blaise would say, treat your writing career as a business. There are shysters just looking to take advantage of you. Ask questions. Any legitimate author-service provider will be happy to answer them. The others? They’ll talk slick, and it might sound great superficially, but there won’t be much substance. As much as we love flattery and praise, this is the time to shelve ego and to think ruthlessly.
You deserve the best. Don’t let somebody take that away from you.
We’re also always happy to answer questions.