PRESENCE: The Book is Moving Forward!

PRESENCE is in the hands of the publisher! There are multiple phases a book goes through before being ready for market. That process has begun. Editing is the process of taking what you have written and making it clearer, cleaner, smoother, and more able to reach the reader.

The first phase of editing was to teach PRESENCE to a class over the period of the year it was first written. Each class produced more questions, identified areas that needed clarification, and provided more case stories to share.

PRESENCE then was sent to a board of five editors. Each person brought a different gift to the refinement: Marty brought a theological perspective through his insightful questions, Sarah brought her brilliant spiritual dynamic, Nick brought his career of editing numerous publications and his experience as a bible teacher, Yuri brought her shared experience of the foundations of this book, and Roban added her pastoral counseling perspective.

Two readers read the manuscript from start to finish with a pair of fresh eyes. Each reader was a professional writer.

Finally, the draft is now ready for the professional eyes of the publisher. This phase is called Developmental Editing. Developmental editors focus on the substantive, big-picture issues. That means structure and organization, use of anecdotes and exercises, audience and category suitability, tone, writing style, and any and all other problems that may exist.

As a writer, I have always found the editing process both difficult and valuable. It can be painful to rethink something that seemed so clear to me when I wrote it. But this book hasn't been written for me, it's been written for you. So it is important that I do everything possible to bring this to you in the best way possible. The timeline for this whole process should produce a book that will be available on Amazon by mid summer! Get ready, I hope you will all get your copy either in print or ebook when it comes out!