Thomas L. Daniels, The Environmental Planning Handbook for Sustainable Communities and Regions and The Small Town Planning Handbook, 3rd Edition

Joanne Shwed did an excellent job of copyediting and designing the interior of two of my books. These are popular textbooks that cover a wide range of land use planning and environmental issues. Joanne was fun to work with and greatly improved the overall presentation of the books. She did such a good job on the first book that I asked her to copyedit the second one! She did another thorough copyedit and helped reconstruct a number of important tables and graphics. I’m delighted with the results. Joanne is always a pleasure to work with!

Randy Zimmer, onlineteendriving.com

It was a very satisfying experience working with Joanne at Backspace Ink. We hired Joanne to edit our drivers education course. She did an amazing job. I appreciated her input and her work was on time and on budget. She took what I thought was a good manuscript and course and made it something professional and easy to read. I can’t thank her enough.

Donna Jacobsen, Editor, Rising Star Press

Having my books pass through Joanne’s hands is essential. She has performed near miracles on several of the manuscripts sent her way and only extraordinary work on the rest. Rising Star Press uses Joanne’s editing and layout skills regularly and will continue to do so.

Thomas A. Ekkens, Collected Poetry of Thomas A. Ekkens—Early Works

Joanne has been putting the polishing touches on my writing since 1984. She will probably glisten up this testimonial to perfection, because that is her way. Working with Joanne has only made me a better writer, giving me a pause before phrase. I now write with a certain comfort knowing that Joanne would never let me publish without editing, and challenging, every nuance of each thought and phrase. Writing is not a solitary vocation with Joanne on your team.

Sylvia Lewis, Director of Publications, American Planning Association

Joanne Shwed has edited more than a dozen books for us. She does a great job—promptly, accurately—and she’s fun to work with. All of our authors have enjoyed working with Joanne and not one has found any mistakes in the finished product. Joanne is also a one-stop shop. We send her a raw manuscript; she delivers finished pages ready for the printer. She does all the editing and page layouts, all the while serving as the main contact person for our authors. We get an excellent product that’s delivered on time. Joanne sweats the details. What more could a publisher want?

Dave Holt, Voyages to Ancestral Islands

You might be a business professional putting together a text in a convincing form for the purpose of selling and promoting your ideas; or you might be a creative artist struggling with the anxiety, fear or embarrassment of putting original work out on a “world stage.” Either way you look at it, Joanne Shwed of Backspace Ink is a versatile and efficient book professional. She can support the poet emotionally as he or she contemplates the perils of their publishing debut. She just as easily takes command of the organization and speed needed to meet the cost and marketing demands of a business project. Joanne offers the best of both left brain and right brain worlds to the creation and publication of your book. She helped me create a great product I can be proud of.

Eric Shapira, DDS, MA, MHA Clinical Gerontologist, Aging Mentor Services, A New Wrinkle: What I Learned from Older People Who Never Acted Their Age

I hired Joanne to meet with me for copy editing my new book. I was on a deadline to proof over 35 pages of corrections for the publisher in two days. Joanne came on time, stayed beyond what I expected to help me edit and proof the proofreader’s mistakes even. She is knowledgeable, exacting, fastidious, sure of herself, fair and reasonable. I found Joanne easy to work with and very interested in my project, which I felt good about. I know that she has worked with many other authors and is an author herself, so I felt comfortable working with her and had a great deal of faith and trust that she would help me ... which she did. I highly recommend her to anyone embarking on writing a book or other literary project. Joanne will definitely be part of my next book project. If anyone needs to contact me about my review for verification please do so at ezs1dds@aol.com.

Constance Dunn, Practical Glamour

Having been raised in and around publishing, I consider myself very fortunate to have received the immense benefit of Joanne Shwed’s expertise while preparing my book. Her rock-solid editing, design, indexing and production skills, along with her complete professionalism and responsiveness to this project, were far beyond what I had hoped to find in a book/literary professional. Bonus: she’s nice, too!