Tricky Edits Column for January 2026

Tricky Edits

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Editing Because We Must 

The More You Know…About Editing

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, 
author of  the HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers

Including the soon to be released Word by Word: A Vocabulary for Success

Many of us have been hearing about how if we only publish the “right way” we can spend all our glorious days doing just what we like, writing and going on book tours at the expense of our publisher wince the early days of writing careers. Some of it is an exaggeration and some of it is an…mmm, untruth. But the real damage is it keeps us from growing in ways that make us better at what we have chosen for our careers or our hobbies. I was reminded of that as I worked on a final edit (and index!) of the book mentioned in my byline above:

“We will always have more to learn. We mere mortal writers should strive to learn enough about editing that we’ll pick up on errors our editors overlook. Even better, we can gain the confidence to disagree with an editor—even a powerful one assigned to us by the best of the Big Five. Our voices will be stronger for it when one of those editors agrees with us that our book will be stronger without that particular change—or better still, that it’s evidence of a voice growing stronger. That same confidence might also make us more amenable to new ideas and new skills that great editing can plop right into the center of that forward arc nudging us ever upward.”

I hope some new words you find in my coming book Word by Word to be released in early summer by Modern History Press become tools you can apply to your own success story. Find the entire series on a special Series Page offered by Amazon at no cost to authors who publish their e-books digitally using their KDP.

In the meantime, this new book will be tested in a new pre-release giveaway by WinningWriters.com who is offering it as a giveaway as they continue in their search for ways to help writers build outstanding platforms with their own marketing of their services, contests, free newsletter and more—many marketing tools described in my The Frugal Book Promoter, the flagship book that has been helping authors for more than two decades and is now in its third edition, also from Modern History Press

My thanks to Dawn Colclasure for her support by sharing my tricky edits, many of them directly from the pages of the second full book in that series, also in its third edition. I have been with SPARREW through thick and thin from its first edition in her generous #SharingwithWriters effort as part of giving back to the publishing industry that has done a difficult but great job adjusting to the new model presented to us with the advent of the internet and digital printing. Hooray! It is big enough to accommodate all kinds of publishing and most of the preferences of forward-looking authors. Some of those authors—like me—have tried so many publishing models I’ve lost track.  Thanks for coming back here and wherever you can keep benefitting from “the more you know.”

MORE ABOUT CAROLYN

Once a month Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares something writer-related she hopes might save some author from embarrassment (or make the task of writing more fun or creative). The third edition of The Frugal Editor from Modern History Press includes a chapter on some of the words most misused by the very people whose business it is to know them. It is the second multi award-winning book in her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. The Frugal Editor has been fully updated including a chapter on how backmatter can be extended to help readers and nudge book sales.

This article is an excerpt from a new vocabulary book written especially for career-minded authors that WinningWriters.com will give to those who enter their 2024 #NorthStreetBookPrize. Carolyn has been a sponsor since that contest’s introduction. This book is among the several value-added benefits Winning Writers contestants and winners are offered at no extra charge. Carolyn’s book will be released in early 2026 by Modern History Press. Find the entire series on a special Series Page offered by Amazon.

Carolyn blogs sporadically on editing at The Frugal Editor and at her SharingwithWriters blog on other aspects of the publishing world and welcomes guest posts with ample author credit lines and links and welcomes guest posts complete with credit lines and ample links for her guests. She also tweets writers' resources and tips at her Twitter account using #FrugalBookPromoterTips hashtag.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program where has found a little humor can decidedly make a lot of learning easier on one’s disposition. 

The books in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers have won multiple awards. That series includes both the third editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and my The Frugal Editor. Published by Modern History Press, they have won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the coveted Irwin award. How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically is still in its first (very frugal!) edition but please wait for the second edition from Modern History Press. 

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts.