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    ABOUT EDITING an essential guide for authors
    ABOUT EDITING an essential guide for authors
    ABOUT EDITING an essential guide for authors
    Ebook80 pages2 hours

    ABOUT EDITING an essential guide for authors

    By Sallianne Hines

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    About this ebook

    A savvy author needs a working knowledge of editing. With so many paths to publishing nowadays, this is more important than ever.

     

    Proper editing can enhance your author credibility and improve your chances for success by raising the quality of your manuscript, submission packages, marketing materials, social media posts, and websites. Many authors overlook these crucial advantages. Even if you're aiming for traditional publication, your project will benefit greatly from professional and timely editing.

     

    In this book authors will learn:

    • why to examine publishing choices from an editing perspective

    • the types of editing and when each might be needed

    • how to prepare your work to get the most out of your editing budget

    • which editing tasks you can do yourself

    • how to choose an effective editor—and where to find one

    • how to save money on editing expenses

     

    Improve your progress on the publishing pathway by learning how quality editing can smooth the way for success, however you define it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGrasslands Press
    Release dateAug 14, 2023
    ISBN9798986207803
    ABOUT EDITING an essential guide for authors
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    Author

    Sallianne Hines

    SALLIANNE HINES writes contemporary and historical character-driven fiction, plus nonfiction on topics of editing/authorship and simple intentional living. She is a lifelong horsewoman, mother of three, grandmother of eight, and shares her home with a bossy cat and two dogs. They all live in a little house on the prairie. To learn more about Sallianne and her books, visit her website at https://www.salliannehines.com.

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      Book preview

      ABOUT EDITING an essential guide for authors - Sallianne Hines

      chapter

      one

      Writing & Publishing from an Editing Perspective

      The goal with all editing is to preserve and enhance the writer’s unique voice while clarifying the message for the reader’s understanding and enjoyment.

      Any creative project meant to be shared with the world—whether a novel, an article or essay, a short story, or an author website—needs a fresh pair of eyes on it first. It’s the best way to ensure the clearest author voice and the highest quality of craft—both vital for effective communication of a story or an idea.

      Editing might be described as cleaning and polishing your original piece of work to make it ready for publication. At its most basic, it is the process in which you take your first draft and strive to make it flawless. It is much more than correcting spelling, capitalization, and punctuation—as you will learn later in Types of Editing.

      Authors also need to know how self-editing works in tandem with professional editing. Both are important to the success of any book.

      A reminder as we begin: be sure you have and use a system of multiple backups all the way through your process.

      Back up on an auxiliary drive on a regular basis.

      In addition to that, email that updated version to yourself. Authors should have different personal and professional email addresses, so send it from one to the other.

      You can also email a copy to a trusted friend to simply hold for you in case you ever need it.

      Create a digital backup on a Cloud server.

      Make sure each backup version is clearly labeled in whatever system makes sense to you (V1, V2, or Version A, Version B, or Book Name June 2023, Book Name August 2023, etc.) Hopefully you will never need your backups, but if you ever do you will be unbelievably grateful to have them.

      Before we go further, you should understand there are THREE STAGES OF PUBLISHING, and there are editing needs unique to each stage.

      STAGE ONE is writing the first draft and getting all your ideas down in some kind of order.

      STAGE TWO is all about revising, self-editing, getting outside feedback, then hiring a professional editor to elevate your creation into publishable form. This second stage often takes the longest.

      STAGE THREE includes choosing your publishing path, formatting, cover creation, uploading to sales sites, creating author pages on those sales sites, and then marketing your project. This stage is ongoing for as long as your book is for sale and you will be tweaking and updating all these things over time.

      As an author you should also have a good understanding of the various PATHS TO PUBLISHING. Traditional publishing and vanity publishing are the classic modes. Self-publishing has grown tremendously, in numbers and in quality, and is now fully acceptable and viable. The new players are hybrid publishing and service providers.

      The path you choose affects the editing your project will need.

      If you are set on trying the traditional publishing path, once you secure a legitimate agent and/or publisher, much of your editing will be handled by them. Most of your editing needs will occur before that, in your submission materials, to help you clear the huge hurdle of being chosen and signed. Just be sure you are accepted by a legitimate agent and a legitimate publisher, not a service provider or vanity press in disguise. There are lots of scams out there. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

      We will expand on publishing paths later in this book.

      chapter

      two

      Why a Professional Editor?

      Every writer needs an editor. Some claim they don’t—but if you look closely at their books it is usually obvious that they don’t realize how much they don’t know. In addition to knowledge of grammar, a professional editor has special training in literary form, syntax, genre styles and expectations, and is skilled at polishing the voice of the writer without changing it.

      Your editor is your partner in publishing at several steps along the way. Besides honing your current project, feedback from a good editor can help you improve your writing skills and increase your likelihood of ongoing success.

      NO ONE CAN OR SHOULD BE THE ONLY EDITOR OF THEIR OWN WORK

      I am an editor and a writer. We writers know what we meant to write, so even if our actual written words don’t accurately communicate the idea, our brain will still understand it and complete it. We won’t see our own errors or omissions.

      ISN’T EDITING EXPENSIVE?

      Yes, it can be.

      But think of your editing expense as an investment in the development of your product—your book, your website, your marketing materials, even your career as an

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