Success Stories

Through the years, we’ve been fortunate to work with many talented and dedicated writers. Most of them were men and women who couldn’t rest until they arrived at the top of the manuscript mountain. As a result, our bookshelves are filled with the titles of great authors we’ve been able to guide properly until their manuscripts were published. Here are a few of the success stories we’ve been able to cultivate in the last year…


Dr. Raafat Georgy, Absolution
Raafat knew he was onto something special when he contacted us. His utopian manuscript about an Israeli prime minister and a Palestinian politico whose love helps forge a two-state solution in the Middle East was too academic and stilted. He needed characters that leaped off the page in order for the book to work. We set about fleshing out the characters and making the text more accessible, and his manuscript took off from there. Set to be published later this year, Absolution is a great read for anyone interested in the intersection between politics and love.

Peter Ochs II, Eyes of the Sage
Rarely have we worked with an author who was more well-researched than Peter Ochs II, whose book about an astrophysicist who leads an investigation of a lost civilization on the Arabian peninsula was nearly ready for publication. Peter’s command of the history and geography of the region is spectacular, but he needed a sharper point on the human aspect of his narrative, along with another pair of eyes. As always, the combination of a passionate author and our fine-toothed comb editing paid great dividends for this book.

Shawn Inmon, Feels like the First Time
We have a special place in our hearts Shawn Inmon and his memoir about love and rock n’ roll in the ‘70s. We knew Shawn had a great story to tell after providing a manuscript evaluation, and it was clear he was targeting a specific niche of readers. What we didn’t know was how dedicated he was to completing his great story and selling the heck out of it. Shawn’s transformation from a guy writing a story into professional author has been truly incredible to watch.

Michael Robinson, The Violent Offender
Some of our best work comes from helping people with great stories to tell. Michael’s ficitionalized account of a young man locked away for ten years is a startling account of violence, abuse, and neglect. Few writers we’ve met were more determined than Michael was to get his story on paper and onto publication. He had the personal history and passion, but he lacked the industry knowledge and editorial skills. Together we fine-tuned his story, while keeping the raw edge he craved.

Randal Lanser, The 22nd Secret
One thing we’ve learned over the years is that everybody has a story to tell. But some of them take the reader on an unbelievable journey. This is definitely the case with Randal Lanser’s epic story of espionage and romance, which combines top-secret undercover operatives and futuristic computer science, with a passionate love story in the dead of an Alaskan winter.  I knew Randal had a great book after the first page, and our goal was to sharpen the text and get the hiccups out of the way of the great story.

Isaac Yoryor, Giving Life Meaning
Isaac’s story of his 15 years spent inside a Liberian refugee camp was one of the most tragic personal accounts we’ve ever read. We knew from the first paragraph that his story needed to be heard by as many people as possible. His commitment to turning his experience into life wisdom was something we wanted to see to its best possible conclusion. There is no doubt Isaac’s story – and that of the Liberian people – will be read by thousands eventually.

Frank Layman, Success through Logical Thinking
Frank is a lifelong physical therapist and Army reservist, who compiled the best of his wisdom and never gave up on his path to publication. We knew from the start that Frank’s manuscript needed sharpening and organization. But it was also clear that his homespun wisdom could benefit people from all walks of life. We were proud to help make his text as strong and lean as his message.

Margie O’Connor, Return Your Sword
We love fine-tuning a great story into a lean, sharp manuscript that lets the characters and narrative arc shine, and this was the case with Margie’s book. This futuristic tale of two friends drafted into war was nuanced and complex when we received it. But Margie’s work needed to be clearer and leaner to let her characters shine. Margie knew she was onto something good and needed a good push to get over the hump.

Manuscript Evaluations

Is your book good enough to earn a publishing contract from a major commercial publisher? This is the most vital question that writers must ask upon completing their manuscript.

Don’t squander your chances of landing a top-tier literary agent or publisher for your book. Before sending it to agents and publishers, make sure it lives up to its full potential.

Our manuscript evaluations start at $300. We’ll read your novel, nonfiction manuscript, memoir, or biography and give you a written summary of its strengths and weaknesses, as well as an appraisal of its marketability. We’ll also give you an honest appraisal of your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. If we feel that you and your manuscript will benefit from a critique or other editing help, we’ll tell you exactly what the work will cost and when it will be completed.

Contact us today for your written evaluation!

Dissertation and Academic Editing

Congratulations on reaching this part of your dissertation process. Perhaps you’ve already combined your best efforts at research, analysis, and writing, and you’re ready to put the final touches on your dissertation. Or perhaps you’re not quite that far along in the process.

In either case, professional dissertation editing is likely going to be necessary to create the end result you need. As professional dissertation editors, we’re familiar with every element of a professional academic dissertation. We work with hundreds of students each year and we know what separates an average dissertation from a great one, and what secrets are guaranteed to get yours accepted.

The professionals at Open Book Editors are intimately familiar with the research and writing processes. We understand what an excellent dissertation looks like and what types of mistakes lead to rejection. In the end, professors and students agree that professional editing is the most important step in turning your work into an excellent research paper.

Great editing is not simply about clean copy or proper grammar. A great dissertation requires countless standards of research, analysis, expertise, and composition, all combining to raise the level of the literature on the subject. The experts at Open Book Editors are passionate about those standards and dedicated to helping students like you produce excellent dissertations that get great results.

This One Cool Trick

How many links have you clicked on that promised a new body or a million dollars by following one cool trick? Of course, you wouldn’t click on those. Nobody does that. Nothing worth having could ever be the result of following one cool truck, right? Strong, marketable writing is no different. There are no easy tricks to make your writing jump off the page. If there were, we’d all be lining up with the next American novel.

But in fact, there is one cool trick most writers could use to make their text shine: starting sentences with strong nouns and verbs. In my years as an editor, the failure to employ this one trick – which really isn’t a trick at all – is one of the most common mistakes emerging writers make. It is very common for writers to want to pack sentences with thoughts and ideas, dazzling the reader with command of the language and a lofty narrative arc.

In fact, the best writers make sure that their best words are the nouns and verbs that start their sentences. If your writing seems to not be as crisp as you’d like it, or if some of your sentences seem convoluted, it might be time to focus on this one simple trick. Avoid the $20 adjectives and abandon the similes. Make your focused nouns and your strong action verbs the star of the show and watch what happens to your manuscript.

In the strong, lean text that sells, every single word has meaning. This is what professional editors are for: to get rid of the fat and tighten up a manuscript. But if you’re looking to make the most progress as a writer with the least amount of work, start by committing to strong nouns and verbs. You might be surprised how this one simple trick and transform your text.

Professional Editing: The Edge Your Manuscript Needs

The differences between editing from a professional and getting a little help from a friend who was an English major in college are profound. Writers who have invested hours, days, months, and even years in their manuscript are typically looking for a payoff for their work. It is very difficult to find that payoff – whether the goal is book sales, an artistic splash, or simply getting a great story down on paper – without professional editing.

Of course, most of us are aware that professional editing is the key to publishing success. But why is this so?

Transform the Writer

The biggest difference is that professional editing transforms both the manuscript and the writer. A writer benefits from seeing how a professional tackles the same challenges he’s been grappling with. A writer who absorbs a professional editor’s changes will in turn become a stronger writer going forward, impacting his future work for years to come.

 

Industry Experience

A professional editor knows what types of manuscripts are selling and what publishers are looking for. This can make all the difference when trying to maximize distribution and exposure upon publication.

 

Make Every Word Count

A professional editor makes sure every single word counts. This is critical for emphasizing well-developed characters and rising conflict, allowing them to leap off the page the way they should.

 

Objective Analysis

Sadly, in the publishing business, the advice of friends and family members does not count. If it did, we’d all be great writers and our moms would be the best critics on the planet. The only recommendations that matter for writers with high aspirations come from third-party editors, and there’s no avoiding the fact that the best ones are full-time professionals with years of experience.

In the end, the difference between editing from a professional and from an amateur is night and day in terms of conciseness, focus, and experience. If you’re like most writers who’ve poured countless hours into your manuscript, the only solution is a professional one.

How Real Writers Deal with Failure

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” - Thomas A. Edison

It is common knowledge that the writing life is hard, but it takes a dedicated writer to know why. Good writing is not about coming up with ideas or waiting for inspiration. It’s about failure. Cold, hard failure – the kind that comes from having your work rejected a thousand times or realizing the greatest idea you had for a story is actually terrible. The act of writing is like any other public display of your personal views. It leaves you totally exposed to personal rejection. If this sounds hard it’s because it is, especially when that rejection is attached to the manuscript you’ve worked so hard on.

Ultimately, the successful writers come to learn that failure is really a precursor of success. If you or your writing are on the brink of success – or just a step or two away from the finish line – it might be time to rethink your concept of failure. For most writers, failure occurs in two ways, over and over again. Failure happens from bad writing and from getting rejected. Both types of failure are a natural consequence of trying to become a successful writer, and both can take the starch right out of your collar.

But the fact is that both types of failure are milestones on the path to success. Thinking this way forces writers to develop a perverted concept of failure, thinking about it as something that must happen before achieving success. Many of the great stories of our times followed some really crappy writing, during which the author ironed out the story and worked to translate great ideas to the written page. Many of these great stories also followed countless rejection letters, receiving them one at a time and eating at the writer’s soul before success finally arrived.

The fact is that the great writers are not the most talented or the smartest. They have the mental and emotional make-up for the writing life, which involves building up a resistance to failure. If you’re struggling to find the audience your work deserves, it may be time to reconsider the way you think about failure as a writer.

There are several reasons that professional editing is far superior to editing from an amateur or friend in most cases. Many of the reasons for this are fairly obvious.  Of course, professional editing is far more thorough and rigorous than editing from an amateur. Professional editing follows both traditional rules of grammar and standards of style based on a style guide such as the Chicago or AP manuals. This is critical for building text that is seamless and direct, which allows the characters, tone, voice, and narrative arc to truly jump off the page. Professional editing pays close attention to factors such as narrative consistency and effective sentence structure that are difficult for an amateur to pick up on. This difficulty is not because an amateur editor isn’t smart or talented; it’s because it takes years of editing experience and familiarity with the publishing industry to be proficient at this.

Most writers are familiar with many of these points. What often gets overlooked about professional editing is that it should transform both the manuscript and the writer. Any writer who has their work edited professionally will naturally improve. This happens as the writer sees how a professional tackles the same challenges and obstacles that they’ve been struggling with for days, months, or years. Good writers absorb the edits that a professional has made and incorporate them into their subsequent work. This happens naturally, mostly because good writers become slaves to elements of style over time. They’re naturally pulled to the elements of the language that work for them; things like direct sentences, coherent paragraphs, and realistic dialogue. The act of seeing their writing transformed in this way usually changes the way writers think about the challenges they’re facing on the blank page. This leads to more confidence and more time to spend on the nuts and bolts of creating great characters, developing a unique voice, and building rising conflict.

Professional editing is not for every writer and not for every project. But every writer who takes the craft seriously should have their work edited professionally at some point. The writers we work with have typically reached that point. They’ve been working long enough on a project or on writing in general that they know it’s time to have their work edited by a professional. This is a major step in the development of a writer, and it necessarily changes the way writers think about writing; usually for the rest of their lives.