I just finished another editing job. I’ve been fortunate this year, to have at least one manuscript and often two on my desk every month since January. And these have been interesting works—well-written, for the most part.
I know of seven others that are coming my way when the authors complete their work—a novel, a true crime, two how-to/self-help books, a young adult fantasy and two fascinating memoirs. Some of the authors will complete their books on schedule, others may never find the time or the discipline to complete theirs.
Still other authors, whom I do not know, yet, will contact me in the meantime, asking for a manuscript evaluation and an estimate for editing it.
Sometimes, throughout the course of my work day, I read an author’s promo, blog, email or article and shudder. I wonder if they hired a good book editor to fix their spelling mistakes, their misuse of words, such as, “shutter” instead of “shudder,” “there,” instead of “their,” “intimidate” instead of “intimate,” “lose” instead of “loose,” and so forth. I hope that they hired someone to help them correct their use of quotation marks and apostrophes as well as their way of presenting dialog in text.
I sincerely hope they found an experienced editor before publication who could rework their muddy and run on sentences, who stopped their tendency to repeat words and use too many similar sentences together, for example.
Do you need an editor before approaching a publisher or before self-publishing? Most of us do. You might be quite surprised to learn how your eyes and your mind have deceived you as you carefully scrutinized your manuscript. Turn your manuscript over to an experienced book editor—some of us offer a free evaluation and estimate. Some of us will even provide a sample.
There are definite steps to successful publishing. Here they are outlined in logical order.
1: Study the publishing industry.
2: Write a book proposal (YES even for fiction).
3: Build promotion into your book.
4: Hire an experienced book editor before publishing.
Simple—but not easy. There is nothing easy about producing a viable product.
If you are writing a book that you hope to promote to the masses, start saving up for an editor today. It is crucial to your book’s success.