John Nelson ~ Editor/Author

     I am a professional writer: the author of three published novels and three nonfiction titles, one of which, The Magic Mirror, won the COVR award for the best book of the year 2008. So, I come to editorial work from a writing background. In fact, I usually tell audiences at writer conferences that I had to develop editorial skills since I wrote such poor first drafts of my own novels and nonfiction.

     I’m not an English teacher turned editor, but a creative writer who brings a different kind of perspective to editorial work. I remember Michael Grosso, author of The Millennium Myth and Soulmaking, saying that what he liked most about working with me was that I came up with creative solutions to literary problems.

     I might also add that I come out of a small-publishing background. I was the ad/pub director at Hampton Roads Publishing in the mid-1990s, editorial director of Bear & Company in the late 90s, executive director of Blessingway Books in 2000, and the co-editorial director of Inner Ocean Publishing in the early 2000s. In small publishing, we couldn’t afford to pay big advances to established writers, and so we would acquire inspired works by novice writers that needed hands-on editing and rewriting.

     This has also shaped my editorial approach, especially working with first-time authors, in that I look at manuscripts or book concepts from a publishing/marketing perspective. Although I can act as a writing coach, I usually only accept projects that have good publishing prospects, and will work with the writers to shape their manuscripts to meet genre requirements and other publishing criteria.

     I was also deeply influenced by working with Barbara Clow at Bear & Company. She would say we needed to look for writing that’s coming from an author’s soul, not just a mental compilation of their reading list. She also chose me as her replacement based on my spiritual perspective. So, while I can work with commercial authors, as well as those in the new-consciousness genres, I will only work on positive constructive material that empowers and uplifts readers.

John Nelson ~ Author < click here for John's books >