EDITING CONTENT

Nink is intended to serve the membership of Novelists, Inc. with relevant, actionable, sophisticated, and industry-leading content that helps them in all aspects of their author careers: writing and editing, writer’s life, business and legal, marketing and publicity, etc. It endeavors to serve all authors in membership equally.

 

Nink’s editorial judgment reflects the philosophy of NINC, which means:

  • Declining to comment on other writing organizations and their activities
  • Declining to distinguish members through awards
  • Equally valuing all publishing routes (self, traditional and hybrid)
  • Advocating on behalf of authors’ interests over publishers’ and platforms’ interests
  • Emphasizing content relevant to all genres (and aiming to balance genre-specific information)
  • Emphasizing industry-leading expertise and original content unique to Nink
  • Refusing advertising placements and gratuitous self-promotion from experts
  • Maintaining privacy by redacting member applicant information from public issues of Nink

 

EDITING STYLE

Cynthia Moyer/Eve Henry (cynmoyer@gmail.com) is the copy editor. She provides editing services after the articles are edited by the Nink editor. Pay is $0.02/word for the complete file. She will edit from the Scrivener file. Use Scrivener (project stats) to calculate her rate: total word count for project x .02 = $payment. Turnaround time is ideally 5 days.

 

Frequent style notes:

In general, we edit articles based on AP Style.

  • Nink (title case) for the newsletter, NINC (all caps) for the organization.
  • Ebook is not hyphenated
  • Book formats are mobi and epub; capitalized at the beginning of a sentence. (PDF is capitalized in all cases because you say each letter)
  • Ellipses are auto-generated by Scrivener (use three periods, no spaces between, one space on either side)
  • Numbers: spell out one through nine, numerals for 10 and above
  • In a departure from AP style, we use the serial comma: “I like apples, oranges, and bananas.”
  • Spell out the word “percent” except when doing a report with 20+ instances; in which case, use the % sign.
  • Style guide notes are in the preformatted Scrivener doc: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6vl8l705jk4bo7n/AAAM0s6BPWFhPCnPgfxxEBxea?dl=0


 

ARTICLE SPECS

  • The article should be ~800-1200 words long, targeting 1000 words
  • Article payments may be capped at $250 without editor’s prior approval
  • Please suggest a headline and subhead
  • Please include your byline (the way you want your name to appear in attribution)
  • At the end of the article, include a short 50-100 word author bio. It may include your contact information.
  • Submit articles as a Word document with no special formatting (keep in mind it will be reformatted in epub and mobi)
  • Smart quotes should be used (not straight quotes)
  • Subheads and shorter paragraphs help make your article more readable
  • Links to other resources are encouraged! Please hyperlink the body copy.
  • Include a recent headshot at least 300dpi, head and shoulders. 3”W x 4”H is plenty large, JPG format is ideal
  • Include payment information: Payee name, Remittance address, or PayPal email address
  • Payment is based on body copy word count; it excludes headline/byline/bio.
  • Kill fee - $100 if the article is deemed unacceptable for publication
  • Payment rate is $0.20 per word; for reprints, it is typically a flat fee of $100
  • Stories must be written in third person, journalism style, using quotes and paraphrases. Bullets are acceptable but the bulk should be reported narrative
  • Photos and screen shots encouraged

 

CONTRIBUTORS

Regular columnist/contributor contact info:

Laura Resnick – laresnick@sff.net - Industry Opinion - $300 flat negotiated for 2016; for 2017 she typically gets $300 minimum or $0.20, whichever is higher

Dr. D.P. (Doug) Lyle – dplyle@gmail.com – Forensics files —he provides columns gratis

 

Reporters: See this spreadsheet for leads on SMEs and reporters:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fz0W8Nr8wMDgtWaZ7o82SogkO9OQIACx-_IMD9ag0XA/edit#gid=1607243937

Do not hire reporters Jennifer Stevenson and Jenny Gardiner (does not write to spec).

 

PAYMENT PROCESS

  • Get payment info from contributors when they turn in their articles.
  • Finalize content, then calculate word count on final (edited) copy via Scrivener doc, excluding header, byline and bio
  • Compile an invoice: columnist name & payment info (mailing address or PayPal); amount to be paid; and what they contributed—copy old invoices.
  • Submit invoice to the treasurer.
  • Mindy should have the invoice in hand by the 5th-7th. It'll take the bank a while to process the checks and mail them to each newsletter author. Authors should receive them between the 12-15th.

 

REPRINTS

Nink occasionally pays for reprints at a lower rate than for original content that first appears in Nink. Nink will reprint articles that are of substantial value to our membership, but the focus of Nink is unique and original content exclusively available to NINC members.

 

Nink typically does not accept or print articles previously published by RWA since there’s so much crossover in membership.

 

Authors may reprint their own Nink articles on their own websites, but only one month after the Nink article has run, and then with a disclaimer “This article originally appeared in Nink, the official newsletter of Novelists, Inc., a professional organization for writers of popular fiction.” Authors retain copyright of their articles.

 

When other publications request to reprint from Nink, we allow it if the author allows it (and the author may take payment from the subsequent publisher because they hold copyright). We request that articles are reprinted at least one month after the Nink article has run, and then with a disclaimer “This article originally appeared in Nink, the official newsletter of Novelists, Inc., a professional organization for writers of popular fiction.”

 

CONFERENCE

Have a reporter in every workshop. Ask for volunteers on the conference loop, via the newsletter and the FB page. Send volunteers to sign up (asking for byline, headshot, payment info up front) on a Google form, also asking for their preferences on each planned session (very interested, somewhat interested, not interested). Ask how many articles they wish to report on (3 is a good max, and I suggest 2 max for new reporters) and to confirm they can turn in by deadline (recommend a 2-part deadline, one about 10 days after the conference, the next deadline about two weeks later)

 

Give preference to each volunteer getting 1 session, and ideally one they mark “very interested.” Next preference goes to those who indicate being willing to report on 2 sessions. Look for sessions where there are fewer people marking it very interested, to assign those before the more popular sessions. Coordinate with conference committee to avoid conflicts: one person reporting and moderating (not OK), or reporting two sessions that happen concurrently.

 

Ideally, you’ll be able to assemble a pool of reporters in July or August and make up a schedule, which allows everyone plenty of time to plan and you to relax about that. You’ll be dependent on the conference chair having a schedule ready. Start by asking for volunteers and build a pool of reporters.

 

Quality varies remarkably (and we’re writers!!) so match the best reporters and meticulous notetakers with sessions where that counts more.

 

 


 

DISTRIBUTION

  • NINC is distributed on the first of the month or the last business day before/ first business day after the first of the month if it falls on a holiday or weekend.
  • Nink publishes 10 to 12 issues annually. The newsletter is free to members of NINC.
  • Select complimentary copies of Nink are available in the form of a public edition. Comp copies are provided to industry guests who previously spoke at the conference (prior year, for 1 year’s comp subscription), who are planning to speak at the upcoming conference, and for authors who submit an article even if they are not members (1-year comp subscription).
  • The November, December, and sometimes January issues are largely packed with content from reporters at the NINC conference in September/October. Columnists are given this time off.

 

Sourcing the mailing list

Once you have admin privileges on the website as a board member, you should be able to access the full membership info.

  • Go to: https://ninc.wpengine.com/admin/publisher
  • Download the CSV file.
  • Open the file and delete all information except first name, last name and email address.
  • Upload this cleaned file to Mailchimp, matching the 3 fields above.
  • The above should be ~875 names. Use this for deployment of the MEMBER version of the newsletter
  • Note this procedure changed with the creation of the new website; see Erica Ridley for details

 

Working with Mailchimp:

Each newsletter uses an existing template (with the words and links in the template changed), a new mailing list (downloaded from the admin > publisher section of the website so it’s current) and the same campaign type.

Login: ninkeditor@gmail.com

PW: TellMeMore16!

 

After a deployment, watch email closely to be able to respond promptly to questions or concerns

Evaluate open rate – should be 50% open and 20%+ click-through after 24 hours

 

Public version & comp distribution

  • Delete the membership update section (new members & applicants) and the NINC member news section by unchecking the Scrivener doc before compiling to epub and mobi.
  • For the PDF, simply delete these two pages.
  • Label these issues as PUBLIC.
  • Immediately after publication, distribute the public edition to the “comp list” found in a tab of this Google Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fz0W8Nr8wMDgtWaZ7o82SogkO9OQIACx-_IMD9ag0XA/edit#gid=1607243937

 

MISCELLANEOUS NOTE FROM LAURA PHILLIPS (editor 2014-2015):

At some point, someone will note that the Advisory Council as listed on the masthead doesn’t include all the past presidents because they’re sure Laura Resnick served a term. She did, but she did not want to be on the advisory council. Laura Phillips spoke to her personally about it when the question came up.

Policy is that Advisory Council members who are no longer members of NINC are removed from that listing on the masthead. Founders remain founders forever. (Heidi Tretheway note: Vicki was a good resource to vet the list and we should be solid on this now, though volunteer positions change.)