Soul Mate Publishing Editor: MJ Compton

MJ Compton grew up near Cardiff, New York, a place best known for its giant, which turned out to be a fiction so incredible, PT Barnum himself borrowed it. That’s a tough act to follow, but MJ tried—by composing her own stories. Although her 30-year career in local television included such highlights as being bitten by a lion, preempting a US President for a college basketball game, giving a three-time world champion boxer a few black eyes, a mention in the Drudge Report, and meeting her husband, MJ’s urge to create her own stories never went away. MJ still lives in upstate New York with her husband. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America and Central New York Romance Writers. Music and cooking are two of her passions, and she enjoys baseball and college basketball, but she’s primarily focused on wine . . . and writing.

Website & Blog www.comptonplations.comTwitter https://twitter.com/ComptonplationsFacebook https://www.facebook.com/AuthorMJComptonTsu http://www.tsu.co/mj_comptonGoodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8075221.M_J_Compton
BOOKS: Moonlight Serenade  http://tinyurl.com/lpsradw
And Jericho Burned  (buy link TBA)
1.     Tell us how you came to work with Soul Mate Publishing.Debby Gilbert, owner of Soul Mate, is a member of my RWA Chapter. I wanted to pick up some extra money, so I asked Debby if she needed editors—not to acquire, but for working with manuscripts. She said yes; the rest is history.
2.     What does your job entail? Debby sends me several manuscripts. I look them over to see which ones I want to edit. There are some categories I don’t want to edit at all, including the ones I write in. Then I sit down with the manuscript read it from beginning to end. If something glares at me, I’ll make a note at that point, but mostly I want to get a feel for the book and the author’s style. The next thing I do is a universal search for common problems. Soul Mate provides the editors with a “style sheet”, so although something may be technically correct, Soul Mate has its own way of doing things. Finally, I get into the nitty-gritty, looking at story structure, grammar, fact-checking. It’s quite a process.
3.     What do you enjoy most about being an editor?  Helping an author make her story the best it can be.
4.     What have your experiences been like working with the authors?Soul Mate’s process doesn’t include a great deal of interaction between author and editor—unless it’s with an acquiring editor. As an editor and as an author, the only person with whom I’ve worked directly with is Debby.
5.     What is the hardest part of being an editor? Trying to express what the manuscript might need in a clear, concise manner.
6.     And what is the best part? Reading 5-star reviews of books I’ve edited.
7.     Last question; If you could bring any book/movie/TV show to life, what would it be and why? That’s a tough one. Probably Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ What I Did For Love or Natural Born Charmer. The women in these stories find the strength to survive and move on in a positive way and that’s a message a lot of women need to read.
AND JERICHO BURNED(pub date 2/11/15)Lucy Callahan will do anything to rescue her sister from a cult, even marry a werewolf she’s just met. But the werewolves are working undercover for the government, and Lucy fears a confrontation between the agents and the cult could be deadly.Stoker Smith longs to be the best thing that ever happened to his human mate. He wants to take her home, start their family, and compose his music. And although his pack’s treaty with the government says he doesn’t have to work undercover now that he’s mated, he promised Lucy he’d get her sister out of the cult’s heavily armed compound. Lucy’s sister is now family and to a werewolf, family is everything.But Operation Jericho quickly turns ugly, thrusting Lucy into the middle of her worst nightmare, where she must choose: her sister or her husband. 

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