Writers and Editors

Updated 12-26-22

MAKING THE MOST OF ZOOM: THE PRACTICAL BITS

assembled by Pat McNees
• For 92 years my father buried his feelings. Then he started Zooming. (Laura Fraser, WaPo 2-5-21) Forced by a pandemic to live by video, a once distant dad unlocks his memories and emotions.
• A free Zoom webinar. See also Zoom's security tips (bottom right) and their live training webinars (get your questions answered).

• You can use a smartphone to start a meeting but one drawback of zooming on a smartphone is that the gallery view seems to be 4 people max (one of them being you). "So for a function with more than 5-6 people you would be scrolling scrolling scrolling to see everyone." Another problem: the members who do not have internet service are also likely not to have a smartphone.
• How Do I Join a Zoom Meeting? (YouTube, Geeks on Tour)
• How to Join a Zoom Video Conference Using Your Phone (YouTube, Evgenii Permiakov)
• Live Zoom training webinars (Zoom support)
• Your Zoom Camera Is Not a Mirror "Authors Fidget Online," an illustrated consideration of book-talks by Michael Dahlie (Electric Lit). Do not pick your teeth while zooming.

• You can save money by buying a year's subscription ($149 as of 6-8-21)
• Remote Interviewing Resources (Oral History Association, 8-27-2020) Many many useful pages. Remarkable and very helpful. See, for example, among many pages: Advice on oral history interviewing during the Covid-19 pandemic , or this decision tree or Considerations for Choosing an In-Person vs. Remote Interview. With useful sections on equipment, such as Recording platforms.
• Four reasons you’re tired of Zoom calls — and what to do about it (Paulina Firozi and Allyson Chiu, WashPost, 3-3-21) A researcher from Stanford University found that the amount of close-up eye contact, the tendency to stare at our own faces (the constant self-evaluation), the lack of movement during the conversations, and the required mental effort increase the burdensome feeling now known as “Zoom fatigue.” Video chats also cut down on your ability to be mobile. On top of all that, participating in video calls may increase cognitive load, meaning more mental effort is needed.
• A Memorial Service Celebrating Dr. Sandy Bienen (YouTube, 5-1-21) Sandy was one of my favorite writing students (in a workshop called  My Life, One Story at a Time) and getting to know him so recently made his Zoom memorial service important to all of us in that writing group. It gave us a glimpse into the parts of his life he hadn't written about, and a chance to say goodbye.
• The Big Advantage of a Zoom Thanksgiving (Debbie Brodsky, 11-2020, of DMB Pictures) DMB "works with families to capture the stories of their loved ones on video so they will be remembered for generations to come." Read her Zoom Tips and Best Practices.

• Video biographer Stefani Twyford's checklist of some things to consider when recording someone for a video biography:
---"Make sure to check in settings that dual audio is checked. It will give you two sound files that are separated which is easier for editing.
---You can Pin her video prior to recording so the recording doesn’t switch back and forth if you ask a question. You basically right click on the client’s video and pin is an option.
---Turn off any ceiling fans and air conditioner so that there’s no background noise popping up during recording
---Make sure that the client has a light behind their monitor so that their face is well lit. You can buy there nice soft ring lights to provide good lighting. If the light is behind the person, their face will be shadowed. If they need to read anything, rather than have it sit on their desk, I have learned to have them use a Word doc that is on screen so that they are looking at the camera while they read. Most interviews it’s not necessary but I just did one where we had to have the client give a speech and we wrote it out for her. It wasn’t ideal but it’s what we had to do."

• Renee Garrick adds: If possible, raise the camera to eve level and angle it slightly downward to avoid a view under the chin and inside the nostrils. This angle also points the camera toward the wall instead of the ceiling. My large two-volume dictionary makes a sturdy base to hold my laptop. Also, if the interviewee is using a phone, a myriad of phone holders is available--but remember to set it high enough. A slight downward angle works best.
• My video camera is not working (Zoom support)
• My audio is not working on iOS or Android (Zoom)
• Remote Interviewing for Zoom (Oral History Center, University of California at Berkeley)
• Best practices for securing your virtual classroom (Ryan Gallagher, Zoom, 3-27-2020)
• How to keep uninvited guests out of your Zoom event (Zoom, 3-20-2020)
• Zoom Security (PDF, a Zoom white paper)
• Zoom Encryption (PDF, a Zoom white paper)
• How to Look Better on Zoom (YouTube, Goa Goodrich, 4-30-2020). How to light and angle your screen to look your best. (It's hard to hear at first, then suddenly gets more audible. Click on "skip ads" if ad persists.) See also How to light for glasses and How to Pose in Pictures (how to look taller and leaner), among other how-to-zoom videos.
• Zoom Support How-to instructions during the coronavirus: video tutorials, on-demand training sessions, live daily demos, etc.)
• Using Zoom? Take these steps to protect your privacy.(Charlie Sorrel, Cult of Mac, 3-31-2020)
• Resources and Tips for Creating Virtual Events: Video Conferencing, Virtual Meeting, and Video Sharing Applications (American Booksellers Association, 3-25-2020) Invaluable, partly for links to downloadable PDFs for Virtual Story Time Guidelines from various publishing houses.
• Zoom Help Center
• Claude Kerno's excellent instructions for using Zoom: Installing it, Using it
• Best Practices for Hosting a Digital Event (Zoom)
• How to Be an Inclusive Leader (Ruchika Tulshyan, Harvard Business Review, 4-10-2020) "Begin meetings with acknowledging everyone in the room, not just those with high status or privilege....When I do these check-ins, I notice that more students speak up during the rest of the class, whether it’s virtual or in person."
• How we organized one of the largest virtual U.S. journalism events to date(Stefanie Murray and Joe Amditis, Center for Cooperative Media, Medium, 5-20-2020) We wanted to make sure we kept some of the Collaborative Journalism Summit’s personal hallmarks without turning it into a one-way broadcast. We alerted our sponsors, speakers and participants as soon as we could — then we made registration free. And once we announced we would host in place instead of in person, registrations shot through the roof; we ended up with just under 750 registrations by the time the conference began. (Typically, the Summit attracts 150–175 people.) Zoom was the leading early contender for a platform choice, because it was the program most people were using for video conferencing and because it was the one the Center used. But we also explored other options, including Twitch, Google Hangouts, and YouTube Live. We didn’t look too closely at Blue Jeans, GoToMeeting, Livestream, or Microsoft Teams, which are a few of the more popular options out there.
• Virtual Book Launch Events: 8 Ideas from Authors (Diana Urban, BookBub, 4-30-2020) Here are 8 popular platforms (mostly social media sites: Instagram Live, YouTube Live, Facebook Live, Zoom Webinar, Twitch Livestream, Prerecorded Videos, Twitter Chat, Reddit AMA) where you can host a virtual book event, with examples.
• New to Working from Home? Here Are Some Tips to Help You Meet Like a Pro (Esther Yoon, Zoom, 3-9-2020)

•  7 Tactics for Building Presence and Connection via Zoom (Mark Bowden)
• Embracing and Securing a Remote Workforce (CrowdStrike) Cybersecurity resources.
• Every Type of Zoom Call Participant, Illustrated by Cats (Jack Shepherd, Tenderly/Medium, 5-18-2020) Which one are you? The one who's too close to the camera? The one who refuses to use video but has the most glamorous headshot? The one with the wacky background? The one who's busy with something else? The one who can't get the camera placement right?
• An Introduction to Zoom for Teachers (Nicole Rose Whitaker and Susan Shapiro, New Yorker, 4-10-2020) Hosting it, and so on.
• Zoom: Live Stream to YouTube or a Custom Streaming Service
• Getting Started on Windows and Mac (Zoom Help Center)
• Now that everyone's using Zoom, here are some privacy risks you need to watch out for (Rae Hodge, CNet, 1-1-2020)

• We live in Zoom now. Zoom is where we go to school, party, and socialize (Taylor Lorenz, Erin Griffith and Mike Isaac, NY Times, 3-17-2020)
• A virtual funeral changes perspective (Jack ElHai, Medium, 4-13-2020) "I recently attended a virtual funeral broadcast with Zoom, and the result was that I felt distant from the deceased but close to my fellow mourners."
• The Great Zoom-School Experiment (Lizzie Widdicombe, New Yorker, 4-2-2020) With schools closed, some students are transitioning to remote learning, and some parents to home-school instruction and technical assistance. “The teachers were afraid that the kids were not going to coöperate, and they wouldn’t be able to manage a virtual classroom.” But Micaela Bracamonte, the founder and head of the Lang School, insisted that they try it. All across the world, students and parents are involved in a vast cyber-education experiment.

• A friend who is a fiber artist praised Zoom hand spinning workshops hosted by the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. " I learned two skills that had eluded me in both in-person and online workshops. I think the teachers have been teaching online now for so long that they have worked out ways to use the camera and words that made this possible."
• Four reasons you’re tired of Zoom calls — and what to do about it (Paulina Firozi and Allyson Chiu, WashPost, 3-3-21) A researcher from Stanford University found that the amount of close-up eye contact, the tendency to stare at our own faces (the constant self-evaluation), the lack of movement during the conversations, and the required mental effort increase the burdensome feeling now known as “Zoom fatigue.” Video chats also cut down on your ability to be mobile. On top of all that, participating in video calls may increase cognitive load, meaning more mental effort is needed.

ZOOM'S PRIVACY PROBLEM
• Why Zoom became so popular (Ashley Carman, The Verge, 4-3-2020) Its selling points also introduce privacy and security risks
• Forget Facebook: Zoom is the tech industry’s newest problem child (Ainsley Harris, Fast Company, 3-31-20) " But there is a dark underside to this company. It has a child abuse problem. And a porn problem. And a privacy problem. Does anyone care? Federal prosecutor Austin Berry referred to Zoom as “the Netflix of child pornography” in his closing remarks, according to The New York Times....“Zoom really has no serious value if it doesn’t protect personal privacy,” Doc Searls, an author and research director at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, wrote in a blog post. “That’s why they need to fix this.”
• New York Attorney General Looks Into Zoom’s Privacy Practices (Danny Hakim and Natasha Singer, NY Times, 3-30-2020) As the videoconferencing platform’s popularity has surged, Zoom has scrambled to address a series of data privacy and security problems.
• ‘Zoom is malware’: why experts worry about the video conferencing platform (Kari Paul, The Guardian, 4-2-2020) The company has seen a 535% rise in daily traffic in the past month, but security researchers say the app is a ‘privacy disaster’

Check out

ALTERNATIVES FOR HOSTING VIRTUAL VIDEO GATHERINGS
---Web Conferencing Pricing Comparison (Trust Radius, 10-5-2020) Prices compared for Zoom, GoToMeeting, JoinMe, Webex Meetings, Microsoft Teams.
---Blue Jeans Host and manage live interactive events, town halls and webcasts for large audiences around the world.
---Cisco Webex Meetings
---Crowdcast
---Duo (Google's consumer version of video calling)
---Facebook Live
---GlobalMeet Collaboration (1-866-755-4878)
---GoToMeeting (LogMeIn)
---Hangouts Meet (aka Google Meet, geared toward business use)
---Houseparty (a face to face social network: “Where being together is as easy as showing up” — a cross-platform video chat app)
---LifeSize (high definition videoconferencing)
---Livestream Deliver unforgettable virtual events and conferences. Securely engage your workforce remotely. Monetize your global audience.
---Microsoft Teams
---Skype (Microsoft) Host a video meeting in one click. Video chat and voice calls between computers, tablets, mobile devices, the Xbox One console, and smartwatches over the Internet. Requires third party recording software to stream.
---Twitch Not just for gamers.
---Wet InkAsynchronous classes, online, with written participation
---WhatsApp (Facebook, the default messaging service in Europe for small groups--four people max)
---YouTube Live (Google owns YouTube)
---Zoho Meeting
• Zoom: Live Stream to YouTube or a Custom Streaming Service (IT, University of Minnesota)
• Zoom Sharply Reduces Its Content Restrictions for Academic Institutions (Eugene Volokh, The Volokh Conspiracy, 4-14-21)

WEIGHING THE ALTERNATIVES to Zoom
• How to Keep Your Zoom Chats Private and Secure (David Nield, Wired, 4-5-2020) Trolls. Prying bosses. Zoom's a great video chat platform, but a few simple steps also make it a safe one. Nield also explains pros and cons of alternative video chat platforms Google Duo, Facetime (for Apple devices only), Webex (Cisco), GoToMeeting, plus software without full end-to-end encryption. Skype, Slack, and Facebook Messenger. These instructions may help us relax about Zoom's insecurities. (H/T Jeanne Bohlen)
• Youtube Live vs Facebook Live Compared to Online Video Platforms How do the various systems compare?
• Not sold on Zoom? Here are the 8 best Zoom alternatives to consider.. (Mitja Rutnik @MRutnik, The Best, Android Authority, 3-26-2020)
• 5 Zoom alternatives to keep you connected during COVID-19 crisis (Charlie Sorrel, Cult of Mac, 4-2-2020)
• Video Conferencing Software Showdown: Zoom vs. GoToMeeting.(Heather Mandel, Zapier, 2-01-19) "If you're just starting out or are a small-to-medium-sized business that only needs to accommodate up to 100 participants, Zoom can provide you with a fully-featured video conferencing solution for a lower price—or even no price depending on your needs. But if you're a larger organization that regularly needs to accommodate 150 to 250 attendees and can benefit from unlimited cloud storage and a no-minimum-host requirement, GoToMeeting may end up being a better value for you."
• Microsoft Teams vs Zoom: Which Platform is Better for Your Organization.(Unify Square)
• Zoom vs. Microsoft Teams vs. Google Meet: Which Top Videoconferencing App Is Best? (Gadjo Sevilla, PC Mag, 4-15-2020) How three of the top contenders stack up.
• Google Puts Zoom in Its Crosshairs (Michael Figueroa, Marker/Medium, 4-30-2020) As security issues plague Zoom, Google’s rapid response threatens to topple Zoom’s position as the king of videoconferencing apps. Zoom’s popularity exploded as people around the world were forced to shelter in place and sought solutions to virtually engage with co-workers, classrooms, families, and friends. By offering a free plan that anyone can sign up for and a group-friendly, high-definition interface that has proven resilient despite its sudden growth in usage, daily active users on Zoom leaped from 10 million to over 300 million in just five months. But Google is now hot on its heels. See

ZOOM THE INVESTMENT
• Social Distancing Is Helping This Billionaire Ride Out the Market Rout (Devon Pendleton, Bloomberg, 3-16-2020) Eric Yuan, the founder of Zoom Video Communications Inc., added $20 million to his net worth Monday while the S&P 500 plunged 12% -- worst day for stocks since 1987. See also Zoom, Zoom, Zoom! The Exclusive Inside Story off the New Billionaire Behind Tech’s Hottest IPO (Alex Konrad, Forbes, 4-19-19)
• Zoom’s Fatal Flaw (Sameer Singh, Marker/Medium, 4-20-2020) In exchange for viral growth, the video conferencing startup left itself open to copycat competitors. Zoom’s business model is often conflated with Slack even though they are distinct products.

• What is the Authors Alliance? May 15 note from Authors Guild board member T.J. Stiles to the San Francisco Writers Grotto, criticizing the Authors Alliance. "However, if you are an academic, or scorn the idea of making a living from writing as a quest for “fame and fortune,” the Authors Alliance may be the organization for you. If you think, in our digital age, that the biggest problem facing authors is how hard it is to give your work away for free, it’s for you. If you think you’ve got too much power over people who copy and distribute your work without your permission, by all means sign up....

     "It’s an astroturf organization. It was not organized by authors, nor is it governed by them. The four directors are Berkeley academics. The executive director and her right-hand-woman are law professors who have made many proposals to reduce copyright protections for authors and restrict remedies for infringement. (I take that wording from the writings of Prof. Samuelson.) As Samuelson stated in Publishers Weekly, the organization is intended to represent the interests of authors who don’t write for a living—academics and hobbyists. See my comments below on the financial interests they represent, and how they are at odds with those of authors who write for a living."
      The Authors Guild sent out a note later that week: "Some of our academic authors have written to make clear they don’t share the radical copyright views this organization espouses....Far too often, copyright is used to separate scholars and scientists from their intellectual property. Scientific and scholarly journals frequently insist on seizing the author’s copyright as part of the price of publication. For scientists in particular this can be galling: their work is usually publicly funded, yet privately locked up."
• Why Authors Alliance Supports a Broader View of Fair Use Than the Authors Guild (Authors Alliance co-founder Pamela Samuelson, 2-22-2016) "When the Authors Alliance filed a brief in support of Google’s fair use defense, it emphasized that Google Books helps authors because it allows prospective readers to discover that their books exist and contain relevant information....Google Books also allows authors to discover other authors’ works that are relevant to their own research....If the Supreme Court decides to review the Google decision, the Authors Alliance will file a brief to explain why Google’s different purpose use is much fairer to authors than the Guild has so far been willing to admit."
• Author vs. Author: The Authors Guild and the Authors Alliance Set to Duke It Out? (Rick Anderson, Scholarly Kitchen, 6-4-14) "The natural constituency of the Alliance is academic writers who make their living primarily through salaried work (which includes writing for publication) and who benefit more from building their brands than from selling their copyrights. The Guild, on the other hand, is, as its name suggests, a trade organization that exists to help its members make a living as professional writers—a mission that implies a much greater dependence on traditional publishing, and thus a greater investment in the publishing system that currently exists." The "Alliance has very explicitly set itself up as an organization in support of authors who are primarily concerned with the broadest possible sharing of their work and with new approaches to rights management and to the signaling of scholarly quality." Stiles asserts that the Alliance “exists to make it appear that there is a grassroots authors’ organization in favor of loosening copyright protections and limiting remedies for copyright infringement.”
• The Authors Alliance vs. The Authors Guild (Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution, 6-3-14) An interesting exchange of opinions, and in the comments a good example of how Google snippets make it unnecessary for writers to buy books (because they can get what they need from the snippets).
• Founder of Just-Launched Authors Alliance Talks to PW (Peter Brantley's interview with law professor Pamela Samuelson, Publishers Weekly 5-15-14)
• Authors Alliance launches, to the chagrin of the Authors Guild (Kirsten Reach, Melville House, 5-28-14). The problem: "the Authors Alliance—founded by Berkeley academics interested in providing support for authors interested in sharing their content for free—is causing some disruption at the Authors Guild, an advocacy group for published writers...focused on copyright and fair contract terms." Find a way to work together, writes Reach.
• Authors Guild, Authors Alliance Battle Over Speaking for Writers (Mercy Pilkington, goodEreader, 5-18-14) Open access is the slippery slope T.J. Stiles was attacking. "AG’s feelings about a group that supports access to information by the masses should come as no surprise given its lawsuits against both Google and the Hathi Trust for scanning and digitizing rare works that have been locked away in academic libraries all this time....Authors Alliance co-founder Pamela Samuelson gave an interview to Publisher’s Weekly that very clearly illustrates how the [Authors Alliance] isn’t even on the same radar as the Authors Guild, instead planning to advocate for authors who are interested in making their works available on a widespread, no cost basis [that is, free]." See Fair Use Has a Posse (Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, 5-14-14)
• What is the "Authors Alliance?" (Authors Guild, 5-16-14) Authors Guild warning against the Authors Alliance (from T.J. Stiles to the San Francisco Writers Grotto) "If any of you earn a living as a writer, or hope to, I strongly urge you not to join the Authors Alliance....As Samuelson stated in Publishers Weekly, the organization is intended to represent the interests of authors who don’t write for a living—academics and hobbyists. See my comments ... on the financial interests they represent, and how they are at odds with those of authors who write for a living."
• BIO's Fair Use: A Statement on Best Practices for Biographers (Biographers International Organization) is clearly influenced by Authors Allliance -- perhaps because so many of its board members are in academia? I hesitate to link to it in the section on Codes of Best Practices and Fair Use Guidelines because, among other things, it fails even to refer to the "four factors" at the center of fair use decisions under current copyright law:
1) The Transformative Factor: The Purpose and Character of Your Use 
2) The Nature of the Copyrighted Work
3) The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken
4) The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market.
Surely BIO does not believe that all writers start with a clear understanding of the principles spelled out in copyright law. This fair use statement seems to have been developed mostly as an argument with book publishers who require authors to clear permissions for any material quoted from other works -- and leans on the Authors Alliance argument that quoting from someone else's work not only doesn't harm the market for their work but improves it by mentioning them. It's more a case for weakening fair use than a clear guide for authors on the framework for determining what's fair use in biography. Perhaps it's because the Alliance comes from academia, where so much of their writing is hidden behind paywalls for scholarly journals, that they are for expanding "fair use," and I don't disagree with them there, but please:  what practical examples from real life and the rest of the publishing world can we talk about here, and in what ways do the Guild and the Alliance truly differ?

How to do a virtual book launch

*** A talk with actual content may be more effective than just reading aloud from your book.

• The Virtual Author Talk: How to, and How Not To (David O. Stewart) Samples:“A single talking head gets old/dull pretty quick. A Q&A format is livelier and easier to watch.” and “Because people have less invested in attending the virtual event, not having had to travel or even get out of their sweatpants, they may bail out quickly if the event starts slow, or glitchily. Start strong. Don’t be dull.” Solid practical advice for author talks.
• Online Book Events: A Necessary Pivot in 2020, But How Do You Compete? (Jane Friedman, 9-24-2020) Even if you offer a creative and enticing online event, it’s hard to sell when so much content right now is available for free. Before you decide to run an online event, consider this advice from Jane's Hot Sheet.
• How I'd Do Virtual Author Events/Why Has No One Figured This Out Yet: An Author Roadmap (Cristin Stickles on Kate McKean's site, 8-11-20) To begin: Form a coven.
• Virtual Author Events Are the Next Big Thing (Claire Kirch, PW, 5-1-2020) Booksellers say the format draws big audiences, but sales vary. St. John Mandel has drawn audiences of up to 400 people at each of the dozen virtual events she has done to promote The Glass Hotel, and sales of her 2014 novel Station Eleven, about a flu pandemic, are also way up.
• Pros and Cons of Virtual Events Weighed by Publishers, Booksellers (Claire Kirch, PW, 9-9-20) Subscription required. Quoting Jane Friedman, The Hot Sheet: "One key takeaway: if an author is doing a series of events to promote a book launch, they should either all be ticketed and paid or all free. Otherwise, it’s unfair to those hosting. Also, a bookseller reported that sales don’t always occur at the time of the virtual event, but on the day before and the day after."
• DIY: How to Plan a Virtual Book Tour (Jennifer McCartney, Publishers Weekly, 6-9-14) This particular type of book tour lasts about two weeks, with an author “visiting” a new blog every day, while promoting each stop on social media. An author may choose to hire a publicity professional to book a tour, or decide to go it alone. A blog tour starts with a lot of research. Aim to begin planning at least three months before your book’s publication date. First, make a list of 50 blogs that might be interested in your book—for a book review, a question and answer segment, an excerpt, a book giveaway, a webinar, a guest post, or a combination of these. She offers brief instructions for a successful event.
• How to Throw a Virtual Book Launch Using Facebook Live (K.B. Jensen on Jane Friedman's blog, 5-11-2020) "Practice using Facebook Live prior to the launch and using your third party-app with a split screen, too, if you will use that. When Helen had her launch, she was able to interact beautifully with her friends and fans in an authentic and collected manner, because she’d gotten over the nerves in her practice sessions counting down to her launch." Watch recording of Helen Starbuck’s launch for Legacy of Secrets.
      "If selling books directly, announce the cost of the event ticket on your event pages. The “ticket” includes the cost of your book, tax and media mail shipping. The cost for a signed and shipped copy of Helen’s book was set at $20, for example. Ideally, you’d set up payment options through your author website. You could also create a payment link through Square. Some authors take PayPal or Venmo, as well. Whatever payment method you choose, ask your fans to put their address in the comments or email you their address, so you know where to send the books."
• How to Effectively Use Live Video (Even If You Fear the Camera) to Reach Readers (Amy Collins on Jane Friedman's blog, 10-7-19)
• Resources and Tips for Creating Virtual Events: Video Conferencing, Virtual Meeting, and Video Sharing Applications (American Booksellers Association) Links to information on Zoom, GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar, Crowdcast, Skype, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, YouTube, Be.Live. See downloadable PDFs for guidelines from various publishing houses.
• Welcome to the New Fireside Chat: How to give a virtual book talk (Sara Georgini, Perspectives on History, American Historical Association, 1-6-21) Ready to pivot to video on the book trail? It’s time to shelve the 10-slide PowerPoint, boost your WiFi, and think about how to sell books while building a sense of community.
• Making the Most of Zoom aka Zooming through the pandemic (blog post on this site).
• Virtual Book Launch Events: 8 Ideas from Authors.(Diana Urban, Book Bub Partners, 4-30-2020) How authors did book events from Instagram Live, YouTube Live, Facebook Live, a Zoom webinar, Twitch Livestream, prerecorded videos, Twitter Chat, and Reddit AMA. With links to "how-to" pieces.
• How to use Facebook Live (Sophia Bernazzani, HubSpot)
• Facebook Live tutorial, streaming (YouTube video, Sean, 2-25-17)
• How to go live on Facebook (YouTube)
• Best Practices for Hosting a Digital Event (Kristen Klein, Zoom blog, 3-4-2020) If you expect attendees to mostly just listen, consider a Zoom Video Webinar. When you need more back and forth between the audience and the host, a Zoom Meeting might be the better option.
• Zoom: Live Stream to YouTube or a Custom Streaming Service
• 7 Steps to a Successful Virtual Book Launch Even if You Don't Have an Audience (Yet) (Author Unlimited, 4-23-17) Prepare. Research. Schedule. Invite. Create the Event. Promote. Social Media. Thanks/acknowledge.
• 2020's Virtual Bookish Events (NetGalley, We Are Bookish)
• BookCon's Virtual Author Tour series
• How to Throw the Best Online Party. Ever. (Barnes & Noble, 4-27-15)
• The Big List of Children’s Authors Doing Online Read-Alouds & Activities (We Are Teachers)
• The Quarantine Book Club

Updated 7-5-22. Original post 7-22-13)

If you want to hire (or be) an editor, it is important to know the difference between what different kinds of editors do. There are developmental or substantive editors, assignment editors, story editors, production editors, photo editors, line editors, copyeditors, and proofreaders, among other specialties? Read up on the different functions in these stories (linked to below), so you know what to ask for and what to expect. These articles are sorted roughly by category; Freelance editing

See also
• For editors and publishing professionals (a whole section, full of useful links)
• Copyright, work for hire, and other rights issues
• Publishing (and e-publishing)
• Self-publishing and print-on-demand

 Read More 

The following email exchange started in response to an earlier blog post (Kinds of editors and levels of edit--what every writer and editor should know). It seemed worth its own blog post.

JOE CASEY WROTE: "Thanks so much, Pat. This is a great and helpful explanation of a reasonable hierarchy. It is also supported by the fact that edits get progressively easier to fix as one moves down the list. By metrics I mean this: when the editor is also managing writers (say in a content development context for instance) and has to assess their writing (track performance), how can one translate this hierarchy into something numerical? How do we "weight" a structural problem against other types of errors? Maybe this forum is not the best place for this query as it is not a purely editing question, but I'm just curious if anyone has had to defend an assessment of the relative merits of different writers. It's obviously not an exact science, but sometimes it has to be done, and can have very real consequences (on pay etc.). My question is really about quantifying quality of writing.

PAT McNEES RESPONDS: Well that's a different kettle of fish, and also closer to what a managing editor has to do -- figure out what level of editing to assign to a particular writer or piece of writing. It isn't always easy to assess ahead of time if a piece of writing is a structural mess, without reading or at least skimming it, but if you sense that it probably is, you will assign it to a good developmental editor--someone who can see the big picture as well as handle the nitpicking. And if the writer is sound but a little sloppy on the details, as we all can be when we're in a rush, you'll assign it for a light edit.

      So when you are assigning an edit, why not think in terms of heavy, medium, and light edit. And if you are evaluating their skill, evaluate the same as if you were grading a student: D for structural, B for grammar and spelling, C for style and flow (or whatever), A for typos. (Whatever you can easily measure.) I had a friend in college who wrote brilliant papers, but couldn't spell worth a darn (this was before we knew about dyslexia), and her teachers would give her a split grade: A/D , to show appreciation for the quality of her thinking and writing -- but yes, they did notice she would always need an editor. Which is why exams are worth giving because students don't have time to get a friend or parent to correct all the spelling errors so the teacher doesn't see them.
      And I agree with what you said: Sometimes it's only the typos and obvious grammatical errors that most people notice--they just wonder why a piece of writing is heavy slogging for the reader.I hope others respond with how they do a quick assessment of the writing they're about to hand off to an editor.

JOE RESPONDS: I like your idea, and I have been developing a few tracks.... Another track I have to consider is level of difficulty: some projects are relatively easy, others very difficult!

PAT ADDS: And then there is budget: If you have a small budget, you have to decide which aspects of the ms. you can afford to have edited.

---Editing for structure, organization (not every editor is good at this)
---Editing for clarity
---Editing for grammar and style
---Editing (proofing?) for typos and other mechanical errors

If it's a structural mess, does it make sense to have it edited only for grammatical and spelling errors?

BOOKS THAT CELEBRATE DIVERSITY: RECOMMENDED READING
• 10 Websites to Help You Find the Best Diverse Books Lists (and Other Resources) (Melissa Reif, Book Source Banter blog, 10-15-15) Links to National Education Association, Multicultural Children’s Book Day, Children’s Book Council, Anti-Defamation League, Teaching Tolerance, Jane Addams Peace, Reading Is Fundamental, We Need Diverse Books, Diversity in YA, and PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People).
• 20 Wonderful Children's Books That Celebrate Diversity (Anna Lane, The Bump, 7-18)
• 22 Diverse Book Choices for All Grade Levels (Edutopia, 2-15-19)
• 30 Children’s Books About Diversity That Celebrate Our Differences (Danika Ellis, Book Riot, 9-19-18)
• The Ultimate List of Diverse Children's Books (Here Wee Read, 2018)
• Diverse voices: the 50 best culturally diverse children's books (The Guardian, 10-13-14)
• Books by Theme (NEA, Read Across America and Colorín Colorado)
• Books by Theme (Reading Rockets)
• Notable Children's Book Lists (American Library Association)
• 80 carefully selected lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators. (Social Justice Books, NEA, Read Across America)
• Great Reads Recommended by Authors and Illustrators (The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance)

What children's books that celebrate diversity would you recommend?  Let me know in the comments section (and be sure to leave your name).

ARTICLES ABOUT DIVERSITY IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS
• American Indians in Children's Literature (blog of Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo and Dr. Jean Mendoza)
• An Updated Look at Diversity in Children's Books (School Library Journal, 6-19-19) H/T for many of the links in this section.
• CCBlogC blog. Observations about books for children and teens from the Cooperative Children's Book Center. Statistics from April 2018.
• Children’s Books as a Radical Act Excellent infographics based on the work and philosophy of Maya Gonzalez.
• Diversity in Children’s Books: Check Your Blind Spot (Jennie McDonald, Center for the Collaborative Classroom, Part 1)
• Diversity in Children’s Literature: Check Your Blind Spot, Part 2
• Diversity Resources (Crazy Quilted)
• Is Equality in the Children’s Book Industry Possible? (a post on Maya Gonzalez's blog)
• The Invisible Lesbian in Young Adult Fiction and other blog posts about LGBTQ fiction by Malinda Lo. See also her book review.
• Picture This: Diversity in Children's Books 2018 (Sara Park, sarahpark.com, musings on korean diaspora, children’s literature, and adoption) A shareable infographic.
• Publishing Statistics on Children's/YA Books about People of Color and First/Native Nations and by People of Color and First/Native Nations Authors and Illustrators Documented by the Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Reading While White Workiing for racial diversity and inclusion in books for children and teens. See excellent links to other resources along right side.
• Research on Diversity in Youth Literature A peer-reviewed, online, open-access journal hosted by St. Catherine University’s Master of Library and Information Science Program and University Library. See and download Most Popular Papers.
• We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) Imagine a world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book.
• Zetta Elliott's blog
• Zetta Elliott Discusses the "Difficult Miracle" of Black Girl Poets (School Library Journal, 2-21-2020) and Other Zetta Elliott pieces (SLJ)

Updated 3-18-24

"The opposite of good is not evil; the opposite of good is indifference. In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible."

    ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

• How Non-Western Journalists Enriched Coverage of the Global Pandemic (Mahima Jain and Jennifer Ugwa, The Open Notebook, 6-20-23) Journalists and fact-checkers from India, Kenya, Nigeria, China, Peru, Colombia, and the Philippines offer valuable lessons on earning communities’ trust in a time of crises.
• The importance of accurate, sensitive reporting on long COVID (Tara Haelle, Association of Health Care Journalists, 2-1-24)**** Excellent reporting and first-hand experience, with often surprising information--including long covid's disproportionate impact on women and black and brown people. Must reading, and superb links to more good resources.
• How to cover this year’s worsening respiratory illness season (Tara Haelle, AHCJ, 1-10-24)
• Covering long COVID, the hidden epidemic Tara Haelle, video of one-hour AHCJ webinar, 1-10-24, with transcript) Don't assume that every long-haul experience is the same. Be informed about trauma-informed reporting techniques, as for many long covid patients this is one of the most severe experiences in their life. Learn about trauma-informed techniques for teasing out stories that aren't triggering for those you're interviewing. Do listen to this before you do interviews with long covid patients.
---Tipsheet On Covering Long COVID (Informed by data, records, patient experiences) Valuable links from IRE/NICAR conference, 3-3-23) Excellent  links to additional useful material on long covid
• Why Is One Dose Suddenly Enough for the mRNA COVID Vaccines? (John P. Moore, MedPage Today, 1-3-23) FDA and CDC have made yet another questionable decision. They 'recently announced that previously unvaccinated Americans can now receive only a single dose of the bivalent Moderna or Pfizer mRNA vaccines. To be clear, this is  Read More 

Have you spelled out who inherits your intellectual property? Here are some helpful explanations.This is an update of an earlier blog post (Authors' wills, trusts, and estates), with much new material added.

by Pat McNees
• Estate Planning for Authors (Edward M. McBoyd, YouTube video of Authors Guild webinar, 11-6-19, 1.4 hrs) Pretty thorough legal overview to help you plan for your author's estate.
• Estate Planning For Writers (Matt Knight, Sidebar Saturdays, 12-2-17) The advantages and disadvantages of wills and trusts, whether you need both an executor and a literary trustee, how to structure a literary estate.
• What Happens When An Author Dies. Estate Planning With Kathryn Goldman (Joanna Penn, Creative Penn, 11-23-15) Podcast and text.
• The Death of a Writer (Allison K Williams, Brevity's nonfiction blog, 6-4-19) Who is going to deal with your literary legacy, and what do you want done with your journals, family photos, genealogical research, story notes, complete and unfinished manuscripts, published works (who inherits the copyright?), treasured mementos, social media (wipes? or legacy status?), passwords and account numbers for whoever wraps up your estate? And do you want any old letters or evidence of love affairs preserved or destroyed?
• Death is not the end: the lucrative world of literary estates (Financial Times, 7-25-19) The growth of streaming services, demand for audio books and the globalisation of publishing are a boon for a writer’s descendants.
• Your Literary Estate, Part One: Assigning a Literary Executor (Christopher Klim, The US Review of Books, 2-1-17) "Your heirs will have varying degrees of concern for your legacy, ranging from not-at-all through avarice to sincere compassion for your work. Get control of the process now....Your literary executor would optimally be someone who is both involved in the business of publishing and is familiar with you and your heirs. It could be an editor, agent, or fellow writer. He/She should understand both your work and intentions....Gover knew that his heirs would trust me and my eventual decisions, but I was powerless in managing his literary estate unless it was official. However, I learned that almost no one had information on this topic."
• Your Literary Estate, Part Two: Managing Your Work (Christopher Klim, The US Review of Books, 3-1-17) "Assigning a literary executor is not all about contract negotiation and oversight. It also involves handling your literary papers and letters....For the Eric Hoffer estate, his papers had already been stored at the Hoover Institute, but with regular rights inquiries, it was important to have access to existing contracts in order to help avoid copyright conflicts....In my experience, publishers will be intentionally unhelpful. They have a long history of hiding royalties from authors, as well as assuming rights that they had never obtained. Make sure your literary executor knows everything you do, so he/she can make the best decisions. Slapping a firm letter on a publisher with the power of an informed literary executor is better on any day than filing a lawsuit. The big publishers will out-wait and out-lawyer you every time."
• How to Fund a Living Trust With Royalties (John Stevens, LegalBeagle) A royalty is the right to receive financial compensation for a body of work that is used by a third party (e.g., for songs played on the radio, for books sold). A living trust is a common way to pass those rights at death. The main reason to create a living trust is to avoid probate
• My Life, Their Archive (Tim Parks, New York Review of Books, 5-21-14) 'For the author, needless to say, the lure is money. Large sums can be involved. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas reputedly paid $1.5 million for J. M. Coetzee’s papers. The British Library more modestly gave £110,000 for the manuscripts of novelist Graham Swift, announcing as a special attraction “a tape recording of the answer phone messages he received on the night he won the Booker Prize.” ...But not only money. Any organization that spends a considerable sum on you will also have an interest in promoting your reputation. They don’t want to be accused of having thrown cash at a lemon. So there will be exhibitions, seminars, features of archived material.'
• Final Drafts: Selecting a Literary Executor (Lloyd Jassin and Ronald Finkelstein, CopyLaw.com, 2002) 'A General Executor will often be a spouse or other family member that does not have experience with literary matters. Therefore, you should consider entrusting the care of your papers, existing contracts and unpublished manuscripts to a Literary Executor. Keep in mind that being a Literary Executor can be a lot of work. By taking the time to carefully select a Literary Executor, you lessen the likelihood of intra-family disputes that could result in family members refusing to negotiate for the further exploitation of your works -- preferring instead to retire your copyrighted works from publication....While a family member may agree to work for free, attorneys and literary agents will most likely seek a fee of between 10% and 15% for new contracts they negotiate on behalf of the estate....In some instances, an author may create a lifetime (“inter-vivos”) trust and transfer literary assets to the trust. In this case, a trustee will be appointed to carry out responsibilities similar to an Executor. In such instances, the author appoints a "Literary Trustee" who acts in much the same manner as a "Literary Executor" would under a decedent's will....Authors with significant estates should meet with their attorney or accountant now to determine whether any lifetime planning can be employed to reduce the value of their estates at their death so that more assets can pass to their heirs.'
• The Works of Merton (letter from Robert E. Daggy and reply by J.M. Cameron, New York Review of Books, 11-22-79) In 1967, on the advice of friends and with the concurrence of his abbot, Merton decided to name Bellarmine College repository for his literary estate.
• Do You Need a Literary Executor? (Susan Spann, Writers in the Storm, 7-15-13) When do you need a literary executor (or trustee) to administer the copyright in your estate? "Copyrights aren’t like houses, or cars, or jewelry—assets which can be readily converted into cash and which require no ongoing business skills. Copyright management requires specialized skills which many heirs do not possess....The copyright management process can be confusing even for one heir and confrontational when many heirs are involved... The literary executor can be one of the heirs, or can be a professional hired (and often paid) to manage the copyrights on your heirs’ behalf....While the general executor’s job may be finished in about a year, the literary executor may continue to manage creative works on behalf of the author’s estate until the end of the copyright term."
• Estate Planning for Your Indie Author Business (Karen Myers, 1-4-19) Estate planning advice for indie authors and micropublishers. "We don't think in terms of key employees, since we haven't got any, but we are ourselves the key employee, and we need to make plans for what will happen when we are no longer able to run our business. And if we've managed to grow large enough to have actual employees, we have the same issues as any other small business. We need a business succession plan."
• Orphan Row Update: Another Living Author, Two Books in Print, Literary Estates Held by Charities, Etc. (Authors Guild, 9-15-11) "Here’s what we can tell you about authors of some of the books that HathiTrust is scheduled to release for downloading by hundreds of thousands of students."
• Bitter feuds, buried scandal: the contested world of literary estates (Leo Robson, New Statesman, 1-2-19) When an author dies, literary estates take over – bringing disputes, fraud and conflagrations.
• The great estate: those global literary brands roll on (Robert McCrum, The Guardian, 3-15-12) The recently deceased Dmitri Nabokov made a fortune from his father's estate, while the houses of Fleming, Tolkien et al are equally at home in the digital age.
• Important. And pass it on... (Neil Gaiman, A Simple Will,10-30-06) Download "A Simple Will" and fill it in for yourself.
• Neil Gaiman on why writers tend to put off writing wills, particularly wills that spell out how their intellectual property should be handled. You can download a template (PDF) of a generic will for U.S. authors but maybe run it by a lawyer, as laws vary by state.
• Writers' wills: a rich legacy for readers (Claire Armitstead, The Guardian, 1-8-14) As a stock of famous authors' final testaments are posted online, we can be glad of the insights they leave to us.
• An end to bad heir days: The posthumous power of the literary estate (Gordon Bowker, Independent UK, 1-6-12) ""On the last day of 2011, the 70th anniversary year of his death, James Joyce's work finally passed out of copyright. It was the dawn of a new age for Joyce scholars, publishers and biographers who are now free to quote or publish him without the permission of the ferociously prohibitive Joyce estate."
• Wills of the Rich and Famous (aka "celebrity wills," posted on Living Trust Network, an estate planning portal). Featured: Warren Burger, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Princess Diana. Walt Disney, Doris Duke, Elizabeth Edwards, Henry Fonda, Benjamin Franklin, Clark Gable, James Gandolfini, Katherine Hepburn, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, President John F. Kennedy, John Kennedy, Jr. and more.
• Famous wills 1552-1854 In 2014, the National Archives (UK) brought online this collection of documents that will delight biographers and historians. Among them, the wills of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Admiral Lord Nelson, Dr. Samuel Johnson, John Donne, Sir Francis Drake, William Congreve, Samuel Pepys, William Penn, George Frederic Handel, and William Wordsworth.
• Guest-blogging on Writers in the storm, Susan Spann (author of the popular Shinobi Mystery series, published a series of pieces advising on authors' estate planning and authors' trusts, under the Publaw theme (where you can find more of these). I link to some of them here:
--- WHO WILL YOU TRUST? Wills in Author Estate Planning Susan Spann, guest blog on Writers in the Storm, 5-10-13).
---Who Inherits Your Copyrights? (4-22-13)
---Do You Own Your Copyrights? (Susan Spann, 1-10-14)
---Do You Know Your (Copy) Rights? (Susan Spann, 12-13-13)
---Who Can an Author Trust? Trusts in the Author Estate Plan (6-14-13).
---Do You Need a Literary Executor? (Susan Spann, 7-15-13)
--- How to Choose a Literary Executor (Susan Spann, 8-9-13)
---But What Does a Literary Trustee DO? (Part 1) (Susan Spann)
---Trust The Process: Literary Executors, Part 2 (Susan Spann)

• Rights and Royalties Management, Licensing,

issues about and problems with authors' and artists' estates. What happens to works after authors die. (Writers and Editors, Copyright, work for hire, and other rights issues)

• SFWA runs two helpful lists (which cover more than genre fiction writers):
---Estates Contact Information
---Estates we’re looking for
• Literary estates administered by The Society of Authors (UK)
• Wills, Probate and Trusts For Writers (H.S. Stavropoulos, author of crime fiction with a Greek-American flavor)

Now some stunning photographs:
• 15 Famous Authors’ Beautiful Estates (Emily Temple, Flavorwire, 1-24-12) Photos of the beautiful homes of Anaïs Nin, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, Gore Vidal, J. K. Rowling, Kurt Vonnegut,Vladimir Nabokov, Mark Twain, Stephen King, Robert Graves, Victor Hugo, Eudora Welty, William Shakespeare, Frederick Douglass.'
• 18 Famous Authors’ Houses Worth Seeing (Nick Mafi, Architectural Digest, 10-4-19)

What other resources are helpful? Tell me about experiences you've had or know about that it might be helpful for others to know about -- particularly problems to avoid or minimize.

by Kitty O'Meara

And no, the poem wasn't written in 1869, during the Irish famine, or in 1918, during the Spanish flu epidemic. It was written during the 2020 coronavirus epidemic. 

Kitty O'Meara, Author of "And the People Stayed Home," Opens Up About Writing That Viral Poem ~ Elena Nicolaou, Oprah, 3-19-2020