"Broadcast" on August 15, 8:30 PM Eastern. See below for information about the recording.What is line-editing? It's a stage of editing between "developmental" and "copy-editing," but it's difficult to find anything other than general information about it. Even the revision classes we have been teaching as part of Kid's Book Revisions, we've left this territory unexplored.
Now available as a recording: What Is Line-editing and How Do You Do It? (the link will take you to a page from which you can stream or download the recording). You can also download the chat room transcript and handouts that we used from Dropbox.
In this webinar, we explain what line-editing is, and where it fits in the editorial process. We show how it's done, either by hand on paper, or on-screen. And we look at concrete examples of the two main aspects to line-editing: teachable sentence- and paragraph-level editing to fix specific kinds of problems; and the more intuitive editorial engagement that asks questions about specific writing choices.
This webinar can be watched on its own, but like other free webinars we've given, it also works as a useful introduction to Kid's Book Revisions, our approach to webinars, and our upcoming webinar series, "An Introduction to the Practical Side and the Mysteries of Line-editing" (coming up in September). On its own, the free webinar will teach you some things you may not know about line-editing. Of course, we hope that you will also want to sign up for this fall's line-editing webinar class after you watch the recording, but you're under no obligation to do so, and we promise you useful information, insight, discussion, and hands-on work. For more information, also see the FAQ for the line-editing webinar--Frequently asked questions: You may find your questions about it answered on this page if the main information page doesn't have the answers.
Our backgrounds:
Eileen Robinson published both fiction and nonfiction as an Executive Editor at Scholastic, as well as at Harcourt. She got her start in educational publishing in classroom and school and library and moved on to work with magazines, book clubs, book fairs and Scholastic trade, helping to create product that could work across markets.
Now an editorial consultant, she works with both published and unpublished authors on picture books through young adult novels, and helps them strengthen their writing and get published. She also consults with publishers on manuscripts before they go to press. Eileen created the site F1rstPages.com to help authors and partnered with Harold Underdown to provide online tutorials at Kids Book Revisions (kidsbookrevisions.com), where you can get the benefit of two professional editors simultaneously. She also founded and runs Move Books, a children's book publisher dedicated to moving boys to read.
Harold Underdown is an independent editor; he does critiques, helps to develop manuscripts, and provides other editorial and consulting services for individuals and publishers.
Harold wrote The Complete Idiot's Guide to Children's Book Publishing, now in its third edition. He founded and runs "The Purple Crayon," a respected web site with information about the children's publishing world at www.underdown.org. He speaks and gives workshops through the Highlights Foundation, SCBWI's national and regional conferences, and Kid's Book Revisions (offering online and on-site tutorials and workshops in partnership with Eileen Robinson).
As an in-house editor, he worked at Macmillan, Orchard, and Charlesbridge, and has experience in trade and educational publishing.