Mark Anderson Vita

Nationally award-winning editor, Mark Anderson, has nine years of experience in the publishing business. While living in New York, Mr. Anderson spent seven years as a developmental editor, working with over one hundred authors. As a developmental editor, also known as a "book doctor," he worked with unskilled writers, teaching them to write and develop their manuscripts into publishable works. He also worked with previously published authors, including Seth Margolis, to further sharpen their skills.

While working for The Editorial Department, Inc., he created a boilerplate document to deal with common character problems. He also co-authored a dialogue document that assisted other editorial staff members to recognize and successfully revise story related problems. Both of these documents led to a large saving in time and an increase in corporate earnings by offering authors new services. He has maintained contact with his authors and former editors, which are always potential sources for new work.

Mr. Anderson has lived in the Northwest since 1997, and worked for two years as Associate Publisher and Editor for Doral Publishing, a highly respected publishing company, whose books have won more than ten national awards and honors. Because Doral was a smaller company, Mr. Anderson was responsible for, at one time or another, every phase of publishing, which is an experience he would not have been able to acquire at a larger house. He was responsible for taking a book from a raw, unedited manuscript through the various editing stages, through graphic layout and design, to printing and production, and, finally, to bookstore shelves. He was also involved in all of the other day-to-day operations of publishing, including distribution, shipping, marketing and promotion, author contract negotiation, foreign rights, accounting, national and international distribution, and other intangible aspects. He managed an inventory with a retail value of more than $1 million, and brought a company that was operating at a severe loss back into the black by decreasing expenditures, increasing marketing, cutting ties with unproductive vendors, and helping to establish ties with new, productive vendors.

Mr. Anderson has an extensive background in computers and has been involved with computers from the very first introduction of personal computers. He has worked with every major word processing software and the most popular graphic design platforms. He has developed an award-winning webpage, which included content, design, layout, graphics, on-line ordering, and internet promotion that consistently ranked the web page in the top-twenty in worldwide search engines. His own editing webpage is ranked in the top ten on three different search engines.

His civic involvement has included working on the election campaign committees for Marion county judges and commissioners. He is a member of the Marketing Committee for Northwest Association of Book Publishers. As an active participant of the Northwest Association of Book Publishers, he is currently serving as vice president.

Mr. Anderson graduated from Nyack College in Nyack, New York, with an English degree. While a student he was published in Poet Magazine and won honorable mention in a national poetry competition. During his senior year, he was associate editor for The Nyack College Journal of Arts and Literature. Four of his poems appeared in this annual publication over a two-year period.

Summary of Accomplishments

Doral Publishing, Inc.
Personally oversaw and edited How Willy got his Wheels, winner of the Dog Writer's Association of America 1998 Children's Book of the Year.
Hands-on experience with every phase of publishing, including but not limited to: book design and layout, creation of promotional flyers, marketing, public relations, news releases, solicitation of book reviews, national and international distribution of books, order fulfillment, mass mailings, direct marketing, and inventory management.
Oversaw acquisition of manuscripts, developed submission criteria and guidelines. Edited accepted manuscripts and prepared them for publication; evaluated and selected artwork and guided authors in the revision process.
Performed book layout and cover design as well as coordinating design and layout with graphic artist and freelance editors. Intensive developmental editing and extensive rewriting of books for readability, voice, and substance.
Administrative duties have included contract negotiation with an international book distributor, advertising campaigns, ad development, overseeing printing production, and staff team building consisting of author, illustrator, graphic artist, and international printer and shipper.
Created an award-winning webpage, including content, design, layout, graphics, on-line ordering, and Internet promotion that ranked the web page in the top-twenty in search engines.
Managed accounting books with sales in excess of $300,000 and oversaw inventory with retail value of over $1 million.

The Editorial Department, Inc.
Created a boilerplate document to deal with recurring character problems, which resulted in substantial time savings while increasing earning potential by an estimated 18%.
Co-created a dialogue document to recognize and successfully revise problems. Because it was a new service to offer authors, this increasing corporate earnings by an estimated 12%.
Worked with authors to develop manuscripts and make them publishable. Worked with several authors simultaneously and tutored each on a one-to-one basis. Developed unskilled writers into published authors. Worked with both experienced and novice authors.
Have worked with a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction manuscripts and was directly responsible for recognizing talent, assessing the marketability of manuscripts, and recommend whether to accept them for publication or further editing work.
Performed developmental editing, extensive re-writing, ghost writing, copy editing, and proofreading. Analyzed current trends and styles in literature to give each book the best chance for publication and acceptance.

Training

A book editor is still an occupation that requires extensive hands-on training in a master, journeyman, apprentice setting. Mr. Anderson received his training from Renni Browne, who left the assembly-line style of New York publishing houses in order to pursue her true love, editing books. Ms. Browne was an early pioneer in independent book editing and founded a nationally respected book editing firm that saw hundreds of books break into print, including several bestsellers. Mr. Anderson, also received extensive training with Dave King, who was Ms. Browne's chief editor and with whom, she wrote Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (HarperCollins).
Formal and informal training in a wide variety of software and applications in both IBM and Macintosh formats. More than seventeen years of experience with a multitude of computer programs including, but not limited to: QuarkXpress, Adobe PhotoShop, Illustrator, and PhotoDeluxe, PageMaker, WordPerfect, MS Word for IBM and Macintosh, MS Works, Lotus Notes, MacWrite II, ClarisWorks, fundamental HTML editing, Claris Homepage, Adobe PageMill, BASIC, and Ventura Publishing.

Future Plans

After many years of placing his own writing on the back burner, Mr. Anderson has finally found time to start working on his own books. He is currently working on two children's books. In addition, he has started work on a screenplay, based on a medical thriller he edited while working for The Editorial Department.

Contact Information
If you would like additional information or have any questions,
please feel free to contact me by e-mail at: bookdr*wvi.com.
Make sure you replace the asterisk with an "@". (This helps avoid overloading my inbox with spam.)

This website copyright © 1999-2003 Mark Anderson.

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