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Stay up to date with the events and knowledge that are shaping the publishing industry.
Celebrate National Dog Day with a Good Book (No Promises that the Dog Lives!)
Monday, August 26 is National Dog Day. The holiday was first established 20 years ago by animal advocates with the goal of advocating for the adoption of the numerous dogs found in animal rescues all over the country. According to a 2024 study, 65.1 million households...
Book Review: The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction by Amy J. Schneider
A quality and detailed manual to help in technically revising and formatting works of fiction. Writers and editors, certainly ones new to the trade, are inclined to focus on the importance of official style when it comes to nonfiction writing. The more “serious” the...
7 Tips to Overcome Writer’s Anxiety
After four years of political, social, and medical upheaval, stress is just a part of everyday life. If you aren’t feeling at least a little stressed, congratulations you’re probably a chatbot. The publishing industry is no stranger to stress. We’ve talked about...
Celebrating and Honoring Freedom Day: Juneteenth
Juneteenth has been celebrated by Black Americans since 1866, but has been largely overlooked, marginalized, and unknown to many Americans until recently. Juneteenth would not become recognized as a federal holiday until June 18th, 2021, after a proclamation by...
Pride Month Book Recommendations Across Genres
This June, we have a few book recommendations to celebrate Pride: skip the corporate rainbow-washing and instead curl up with a good book by a queer* author featuring queer themes, characters, and insights. The following books, encompassing just some of the diversity...
7 Key Tips for Tackling a New Client’s Style Guide
Diving into work for a new copy editing client is always an exciting time for any editor—but it can also be an intimidating one. And it doesn’t help when you’re trying to wrap your mind around a 10-page style guide you’ve never seen before! But here’s the good news:...
LGBTQ Representation in Publishing is on the Rise, but the Band Plays On
June is designated as Pride Month in honor of the 1969 Stonewall riot, which was seen as the unofficial start of the gay rights movement here in the United States. The movement has seen gains over the years in just about every aspect of American culture, including the...
Should the Onus be on Research Institutes or Publishers to Catch Scholarly Misconduct?
Scholarly misconduct unfortunately seems to be on the rise in recent years. Paper mills are becoming more and more prevalent by the day. More than 8,000 papers were retracted by publisher Hindawi. Wiley’s newest AI paper detection software found that 10-13% of papers...
Getting Graphic: A New Take on the Classic Gothic Novel
World Goth Day is celebrated annually in May. This day can be described, according to World Goth Day’s website, as, "a day where the goth scene gets to celebrate its own being, and an opportunity to make its presence known to the rest of the world." This day was...
This is the Blog About Death: Celebrating World Goth Day with Gothic Literature
Since 2009, May 22 is World Goth Day. According to the website, the holiday is “a day where the goth scene gets to celebrate its own being, and an opportunity to make its presence known to the rest of the world." For those of us who haven’t been in a high school...
Gothic Literature: Publishing the Eerie and Macabre
Halloween isn’t the sole occasion for spooky tales that send shivers down your spine. If you’re a fan of horror like me, you'll enjoy a chilling novel any day, whether it's the witching hour or not. Have you heard about indie publishers dedicated to all things dark...
Writer’s Digest Conference Recap
I attended the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference at the Hilton Midtown in New York City from July 28–31, 2022, and it was a very interesting experience. There were numerous intriguing sessions, and I will share common refrains that I heard throughout the weekend as well as some other general impressions: When It Comes to Writing, There Are No Hard...
Technicast: 2021 CSE Annual Meeting Recap
This podcast features a roundtable discussion on highlights from the recent CSE Annual Meeting that took place May 3-5, 2021. Special thanks to Nathan Taylor, Grace Taylor, and Hayes Simpson for joining me to discuss their experiences at this virtual conference.
Technica Celebrates Mental Health Awareness Month
It's been a hard year for many people. The stress and isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has put strain on the mental health of all of us but particularly those who were already suffering from mental health issues. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and in honor of this, Technica Editorial's Grace Dietz discusses a few books that could help those...
Technicast: IBPA Publishing University Conference Recap
The Technicast is back in 2021! This podcast features a roundtable discussion on highlights from the recent IBPA Publishing University Conference that took place April 7th-10th, 2021. Special thanks to Nikki Lazenby, Kayci Wyatt, and Rachel Wright for joining me to discuss their experiences at this virtual conference.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: What You Need to Know about Alt Text
Publishing is all about promoting an accessible and inclusive approach for readers. Alternative text (or alt text) is one small, but often forgotten, way to promote inclusivity. Alt text is an important way to assist those who have visual impairments by providing readers with a basic description of a visual element in yinour publication. Alt text is...
Fast-Track Publishing in the Era of COVID-19
COVID-19 has changed many aspects of the publishing industry and caused numerous issues and disruptions to arise in the last year. One of the biggest issues has been mounting delays in the peer review and publishing process. With many authors and researchers struggling to access their research facilities, the time needed to complete revisions and reviews...
An Author’s Guide to Building a Readership
Whether you’re an author who’s traditionally published or self-published, you can’t expect your book to sell itself. With the large number of new titles published each year, how do you stand out in the crowd? While an obvious way to sell books is to run ads and marketing campaigns, it can be costly if you don’t already have a good foundation and marketing...
Celebrate Women’s History Month with the Evolution of Feminism
Wisdom Born of Pain An anthology of essays forming a fascinating mosaic of viewpoints, insights, and understandings—Can We All Be Feminists? is a must-read for anyone looking to change their views via empathy and intersectional feminism. “Intersectional feminism” is a term that represents the intersections of oppression—how non-white women, LGBT+ women,...
Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist: A Discussion
Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist: A Discussion To truly embrace the pledge of equal opportunity employment and ensure fair treatment and opportunity for all workers, businesses, including those in publishing, must act to rectify imbalances resulting from a socioeconomic system based on the historical disadvantaging of certain groups based on their...
How to responsibly write and edit with anti-racism in mind: writing and editing in the time of COVID and black lives matter
2020 was a year of global change on an unprecedented scale. COVID-19 changed how we work, live, and interact with others, and issues like racial injustice took center stage like never before. With that in mind, it is important that we as writers and editors adjust how we do our jobs accordingly. Here are some ways to make sure that what you write and edit...