I’ve been revising a new ebook this week. It’s called 50 Reasons Why You Should Write That Book. It’s a checklist for authors who are not sure if their book is a good idea and who wonder if they should actually take steps to publish it. This guide will serve one of three important purposes for authors.
• It will convince them that they should publish their book.
or
• It will show them how to create a more viable product.
or
• It will discourage them completely from producing this book.
Of course, no hopeful author wants to find themselves in the last situation. But it is better than producing a book that fails.
I’ll let you know when this ebook is available. I’m guessing it will be before the end of the month.
As I said, I’m in the revising stages. While I was working on the revisions yesterday, it occurred to me that I should share with you my experiences. Revising is an interesting process, don’t you think? This is when you are at risk of creating redundancy in your text, inserting or leaving in an extra word, repeating terms/words, stopping the flow in places, changing the meaning of a sentence, adding something that doesn’t belong, creating inconsistencies and so forth. That’s why I always edit and proof several times after revising several times. Do you?
So many of the problems and errors I see in the manuscripts I edit for others occur, most likely, during the revision process. That’s why I recommend that authors revise until they can revise no more—until their manuscript is as clean as they can make it.
Once you are satisfied then go through the manuscript again with an editor’s/proofreader’s eye. If you find quite a few errors the first time through, proof the manuscript again and, perhaps, one more time. As you’ve probably found out, the more extensive the revisions you’ve done, the more errors you discover.
Your next step, of course, is to turn your manuscript over to a qualified editor for a final edit. I’ve edited many dozens of manuscripts for authors at all levels of education and skill. Only one of them resented and resisted my suggestions and corrections. He marched to his own drummer and had his own warped view of how he would fit into the world of publishing. He was an interesting writer. Despite my warnings, he insisted on using obscure words in his manuscript so agents and publishers would know he was intelligent. He didn’t believe me when I told him that his intelligence showed through his writing without the phony charade. His was not a book for academics, after all—it was a mainstream memoir. He also decided it was okay to mislead his readers (along with the agents and publishers). I tried to convince him that his story was interesting and fascinating enough without using sensationalism tactics.
When I pointed these things out, he became defensive and decided that I wasn’t the editor for him. I’m pleased to say that was an isolated case and that my clients, especially those who know what good writing looks like, feel very good about their manuscripts once I complete the editing process. Most of them can’t stop praising me, when all I did was simply make their good manuscripts a tad better.
But this post isn’t about me—my purpose today was to encourage you to revise your manuscript until it no longer needs revision. And then go through it several times more with an editor’s/proofreader’s eye and clean up any leftover problems. You’ll learn a lot through the process and you’ll end up spending less money with your editor and that’s a good thing.
Visit my websites this weekend:
Sign up at this website and receive a FREE ebooklet.
http://www.patriciafry.com
http://www.matilijapress.com
Also check out the SPAWN website. If you are writing a book or you are the author of one or more books, connect with other authors, publishers, freelance writers and others through SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network). Sign up for our FREE enewsletter and receive a FREE ebooklet.
http://www.spawn.org