Tag: author

You’ve done everything for your story.  Your rough draft has been spell checked, sent to beta readers, edited by you, and spell checked again (and again, and … you get it).  Is it ready for an editor?  Do you need to use a professional editor?  How much will it cost?

On my blog, I’ve got interviews with editors https://eileentroemel.com/category/editor-interview/ who can tell you what they do and more.  Some editors charge by the word and some by the hour.  Here is one organization’s suggested fees – https://www.the-efa.org/rates/  I’m sure other organizations have something similar. 

Is your manuscript ready for an editor?  If you can’t take it any further, yes.  If you’ve edited it to the point where you know it isn’t going to get any better with you looking at it.  It’s time to seek outside help. 

Do you need to use a professional editor?  That is up to you.  Only you can answer this question.  Are you a grammar and punctuation geek?  Do you know the rules and follow them?  Do you know when you can break them without making it harder for the reader to understand what’s being said?  If you don’t or aren’t, get an editor. 

One thing I recommend when choosing an editor is to ask if they will do a sample.  If they do, it helps you to see their techniques and skill.  You don’t want to send someone a couple hundred bucks and find out they miss more than you did.  If you are trying out several editors, send them the same sample and see who gives you the best results. 

There are all sorts of ways to find an editor.  The question becomes is the editor you find going to work well with you?  With most online writer’s groups, all you have to do is say you’re looking for an editor and you get a dozen (or more) people offering suggestions. 

Professional editor organizations are out there as well.  Again Google is your friend here – use it to find a variety and then check out the organizations to see if they offer a list of editors.  You want one which has been in existence for a period of time and offers a feature to search their members or in some way find someone who’s interested in doing work for you. 

I’ve done editing and do a few jobs (no this is not a plug to do your editing).  It’s time consuming, difficult and complicated.  Editors are people – a good one will catch most of your issues but you need to be realistic. They will miss things. 

When working with an editor, here are a couple things you should know:

• No book is without error whether traditionally published or self-published there are always errors in there.
• Editors – even freelance ones – need to pay their bills, pay them for the work they do.  Be clear about your expectations and your budget.  Talk to them about their fees – don’t expect a discount.
• Editors – even freelance ones – are not going to be available 24/7 as soon as you email or text them.  They do have other clients and a life. 

Obviously you don’t want to be taken by a bad editor but if you use your due diligence you should be able to find a good editor to work with.  Take the time to get to know your editor and the type of work they do.  Budget appropriately and pay promptly.  You’ll be on pins and needles while they edit but you should end up with a better product than you had before you sent it to a professional.

If you have a writing question you want answered or discussed, use the contact form to let me know.

One of my biggest mistakes when I wrote my first book was to write a manuscript longer than any publisher would take in that genre.  I didn’t even think to go look at what romance writers were producing.  I wanted to tell a good story.  If it was good enough, it wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t the word count the publishers wanted, right?   WRONG! 

Harlequin – probably the biggest publisher of romance novels has an array of categories but the one common thing to all categories – they have a specific word count they publish.  My novel – close to 150K – didn’t fit any of them because it was too long.  Try taking at least 50K out of a book.  It broke my heart to do it. 

There are other reasons to research your genre.  It might direct you to which POV you use – some genres are almost exclusively 1^st person.  Others are never 1^st person. 

Reading your genre also helps because it tells you what tropes are always used (and may need to be avoided or used but in a unique way). 

Google is your friend when it comes to this.  Look for organizations which feature your genre.  I know what you’re going to say – I’m bridging multiple genres.  Well good for you.  Look up all the genres you’re bridging.  If one of them is 50K and the other is 100K you may have to compromise somewhere in the middle. 

It’s about more than just the length your novel should be.  Researching the genre for your novel allows you to have information about who reads the genre, where they get information about the genre, and more.  This is really valuable marketing information. 

Other things to look at – what are the covers like; what is the sexual or violence content; or what are the chapter headings like. 

Go to the local library and look at all the books in your genre and take note.  What colors are used for covers?  Blue may be common – so do you want to use blue?  Or will using a different color make your book stand out? 

Look through the same genre on your favorite book buying site.  Look at prices, descriptions, and all the details. 

This sounds like a lot of work.  It is.  It can be a pain but if it ultimately helps you produce a competitive product, it’s worth it.  As you write more books you’ll have to do less research if you write in the same genre. 

Researching your genre may not feel like it’s sexy but it is a key step which feeds into all levels of writing.  It can help you avoid overused tropes for your story and determine how long your story should be.  Research will aid you in formulating a marketing plan – yes you should be thinking about marketing before your book is published.  It helps to inform you in who is likely to read your novel and how you can reach them.  Research is key in many aspects of your writing. 

With your rough draft done, the next steps are all sort of intermixed.  There are a number of steps you need to do before you even go to an editor.  I know you’re saying but isn’t that what I pay the editor to do?  Editors are expensive. The cleaner your manuscript the better. 

First steps for me are a spell check, search for commonly overused words (I have a list), and reading through.  These are big steps (mostly) that take time. 

First thing – do a spell check.  Take the time to look up the rules / errors your word processing file shows you.  FYI – the word processor is not always right. 

There are a bunch of websites which will help you analyze your writing – some for free and some cost.  Grammarly https://app.grammarly.com/ is the one most often discussed.  I’ve used it peripherally.  It seems acceptable though I think you need to have a good knowledge of grammar to know whether you should accept or reject the appropriate corrections.  It works very like MS Word’s spell / grammar check. 

Analyze My Writing is another site http://www.analyzemywriting.com/   You copy and paste your writing sample into their software and click on different buttons like basic text statistics, common words and phrases; readability; lexical density; passive voice; and cloze test.  The most useful of which is the passive voice.  I’ve not used this a lot but when I tried the common words and phrases it didn’t work. 

Slick Write is another such site https://www.slickwrite.com  This one intrigues me.  I’ve played with it a little bit.  Across the top it has features; structure; quotes; vocabulary which all give analysis but along the side it has another set of tools all of which help you analyze your writing. 

Another option to look at is to find what words you use the most – frequency of words or phrases appear in your document.  Write Words out of the UK has a tool http://www.writewords.org.uk/word_count.asp  You paste in your text and press a button and it tells you.  Now obviously words like the, a, and are going to be more frequent.  In general, you don’t want to use the same words to describe things.  Now if you have a character who has a catch phrase – like “Sweet potatoes” obviously you’ll take that into account. 

Once you have this analysis on your writing, you use it in editing to improve your writing.  Rarely do I catch the words I overuse when I’m writing my rough draft – it’s always during the editing phase. 

When I do my searches for overused words, I highlight them (I use Word and you can search and replace words with highlighted words) so when I do my paper edit I can reword (hopefully) to reduce the  number of times I use my list. 

For my first novel, I didn’t have that list of words.  In fact, I didn’t know any of this so my first novel could use a rewrite.  This is meant to give you a leg up to use a tool like those I talk about above (and there are MANY more) to help you produce a better book. 

I’ve been self-publishing for four years.  When I read my first books, I sort of cringe because my editing procedures were not as good or as well developed.  Even now, I’m looking at the tools above and thinking I should add in one or maybe two of these to see what the different sites catch.  It probably needs to be one of my steps I do habitually. 

The last step is a read through.  I have to have mine on paper.  I can do a read through on the computer but I find I don’t catch as much.  With it on paper, I take more time, catch more things, and rewrite more.  This is what works for me.  Maybe you read better on your phone or the computer.  Maybe you have to do a headstand… okay maybe not.  My point is you have to do what works for you.  Find out when you are most edit conscious and how you can catch those quirks you don’t like in your writing. 

If you have a writing question you want answered or discussed, use the contact form to let me know.