Perlman says to be a good editor you must proof read. Another thing you must be first-rate communication skills with a number of people. To publish you have to talk with writes, printers, reviewers and designers.

Also, work on spelling and have solid writing skills.

Here are some other tips for becoming an excellent editor...

Holy! Cow is a small literary press in Duluth whose goal is to “publish the very best collections of Midwest writings we can find and develop an audience for those books regionally and nationally.” Jim Perlman is the man behind the local publication.

Perlman has been writing and editing for publications since he was in high school where he edited their literary magazine. He also started and worked for magazines at all four colleges that he attended (Drake University, University of Minnesota, University of Arizona and the University of Iowa for graduate school).

He was inspired to start Holy! Cow Press while working at all of the magazines. He saw poets with full length manuscripts needing a place to be published.

Holy Cow has been in business since 1977 and in Duluth since 1988. Thirty-two years and 100 books later not much about the company has changed. One of the only notable changes in the publishing company has been the technology used to bring the Midwest their Holy! Cow literature.

When Jim Perlman started publishing, production, printing and selling were all 180 degrees different from today. He was using a light table and graph paper in the production stages. If you are so deep into the 21st century and don’t know what a light table is, google it. I would place an image here; however after finishing a course in media law, I am in fear of copy write.

Nevertheless, the cut & paste with our right click is a far cry from the legitimate cut with a scissors and paste with glue on every page by hand that Perlman endured before our Mac’s and PC’s waged war onto each other.

Perlman also had to visually check for stylistic errors before the new computer software that we use was out.

Printing time and costs have gone down by 25% because the computer takes care of the middle steps faster and more efficiently than a person could.

“Six weeks is down to 18-to-20 business days to print.” Says Perlman.

Selling the literature has also changed its identity completely over the years. With websites like Amazon and other online ordering options, sales are more convenient for consumers.

Multiple websites have also started posting book reviews.

“You can’t pick up the book and read the review like at a book store, but the basic run down is there.” Perlman said.

Perlman is even getting involved in a few popular networking sites, one being facebook, although he has not attained all of them.

“I don’t really understand it.” Perlman said about the popular networking site Twitter.

The online world has gotten Perlman’s the name Holy! Cow farther than any type of 1980 advertisement would have.

The one-man band behind Holy! Cow Press says the hardest aspect of running the publication alone is both a “blessing and a curse”. He receives 400 manuscripts a year and only publishes two or four books a year. He has to read all 400 of those manuscripts scattered across his office himself, if an intern is not readily available.

“I’ve always wanted to stay small as a publisher.” Says Perlman.

However the marketplace is getting more competitive for the small company. Where it used to be that 75% of bookstores were independent – now its 75% of bookstores are chains.

“It makes you march to the beat of the chain bookstores to sell your books.” Perlman said about the change.