Happy Hump Day! Today I bring you something I've not done before, a guest post. Nothing against them, I've been a guest on other blogs before, I just never thought about offering up space to do the same. Something that I should probably change, but until then, let's get on with today's topic.
Christina Kaye is the co-owner and editor of Top Shelf Editing.
Now through Oct. 31st, they are offering up 3 prizes to any new clients!
1) FREE book evaluation (first 5 pages)
2) 20% off editing services
3) FREE social media blast by HEA Book Promoters (courtesy of Lydia Harbaugh)
Go to their website: www.topshelfedits.com and authors interested in the 3 gifts should email them at info@topshelfedits.com with "3PRIZES" in the subject line.
As writers, we'd like to pretend that what we produce is amazing from the moment it's an idea in our heads clear through it being a completed draft. Christina is here to tell us why we may be a little wrong in that and why we need the help of outside parties.
Writerly Friends,
Today, we’re going to talk about why authors should never
try to publish their books without having an unbiased third party review/edit
it first. Who am I to have such an opinion you ask? I’m an award-winning author
and the co-owner/editor of Top Shelf Editing, an elite editing service created
for author by authors. We’ve been on both sides of the publishing world and we
know how tempting it can be to self-edit to save time and money. But we also
know firsthand the pitfalls an author faces when doing so. Let’s discuss.
So you’ve finished your novel after weeks, months, or even
years of hovering over your laptop and ignoring everyone and everything else in
your life outside of your fictional world and the characters you dropped into
it. Great. You’re ready to upload it to Amazon. Right? Wrong. You need to have
it professionally edited first.
But, wait! I’m this, like, awesome, amazingly talented
writer! I’m really good at comma placement and catching typos. I have a good
eye for mistakes. And better yet…I have Grammarly! Why on earth would I pay
someone I don’t know to edit my work for me when I can do it myself for free?
Slow your roll. Pump the breaks. Hold your horses.
I have heard this rebuttal more times than I can count. In
fact, if I had a dollar for every time I heard something along these lines, I
could quit editing altogether, and Stephen King and I could be sipping mimosas
on the Maine coastline, burning our money on the beach for the fun of it.
So…I did some research and I’ve gathered some facts,
statistics, and other useful information to prove to you that you absolutely, unequivocally,
irrefutably CANNOT edit your own book.
Reason #1 – Your brain literally cannot process your own
mistakes.
Reason #2 – You aren’t trained/experienced/practiced at
editing.
Unless you’re a trained editor, it’s doubtful you’ve taken
courses or studied all those intricate little writing rules that no author ever
learns until someone teaches them. I want you to close your eyes. No, wait.
Open them. You can’t read if your eyes are closed. Anyway, just think back to
when you first starting writing novels. Remember how you were just typing away
words that sounded great together and weaving together this beautiful story you
just knew the whole world needed to hear? Now…think back to the first time you
learned that there are actual RULES to writing that go beyond what you learn in
high school and college English courses. Most new authors have never heard of
writing techniques such as “show, don’t tell,” etc. And that’s just one of
dozens of “rules” we must follow. You may be a wonderfully creative
storyteller. Hell, you may even be a natural born “grammar Nazi.” But let’s
face it. Learning all those pesky rules, techniques, and devices takes YEARS of
research, practice, and training. But even the most highly skilled book editors
never edit their own work.
Here’s a fact/statistic to put things in perspective (if
you’re a numbers kind of person). According to industry standards, even the
very best of editors may still miss about 5% - 15% of errors in a given
project. So if people who have spent many years of their lives and spent God
knows how much time, effort, and money to train to be the best they can be in
their field STILL miss things, how on earth is the average writer ever supposed
to catch ALL of their own mistakes? They can’t. That’s how. It’s absolutely
impossible.
Reason #3 – Bad Editing and/or Lack of Editing Leads to Bad
Reviews and Low Sales
If you’re a published author, odds are, you’ve been there.
You’ve published your book (or your publisher has) and you sit there anxiously
refreshing your internet browser every day, waiting for those amazing 5-star reviews
to start rolling in. And you get them! But then…then, you get that first
dreaded less-than-four-star review. (Side note, I consider anything less than
four stars a “negative” review). Your heart sinks to your knees. You break out
into hives. You fight the urge to throw up on your computer. You also fight the
urge to cyberstalk said reviewer and give them a piece of your mind! It’s true,
there will ALWAYS be a Negative Nancy. Someone who finds fault in even the best
of literary masterpieces. Hell, Stephen King gets bad reviews from people who
think they could do better, while they sit in their mom’s basement all alone,
unemployed, in their underwear, staring at the blank notebook, which should
contain that next best seller they’ve been telling all their friends they’re
writing. There is absolutely no way to avoid ever getting ANY negative reviews.
Get used to it. Deal with it. Talk to your therapist about it.
However! There is one sure-fire way to guarantee you will
get negative reviews and slow or no sales. Don’t hire an editor. Just write
your book, type THE END, have your best friend/mom/brother/mailman “edit” your
book, then slap it up on Amazon. Just sit back and watch the three, two, one-star
reviews roll in and try not to jump off a bridge as you read all those scathing
remarks about how poorly written/edited your book is. Because it WILL happen.
Don’t believe me? Here is just ONE example of a scathing review for a poorly
written/unedited book:
Don’t take any of this to mean that you are incapable of
writing a brilliant and lovely book. Of course you can. But the bottom line is
simply this. You cannot edit your own writing well enough that you will catch
all possible mistakes, typos, and errors. And we haven’t even touched on
content and developmental issues in this post. Hiring a trained professional to
work with you and help make your book baby shine is the only logical route to
take for any author who desires to not just write and publish books but to have
them reach the masses and satisfy readers and keep them coming back for more.
Okay, great, Christina. You’ve talked me into not self-editing
and hiring a trained professional like you to edit my manuscript before I
publish it. Now what? How do I find the right editor? How do I know if an
editor is for real or a wannabe? How much should I pay? How does it work?
Well, my friend, stay tuned for Part 2 of this blog series
where I will next answer all those questions and more.
In the meantime, be sure you’ve taken a minute to browse our
pretty website. You can read all about us, our mission/goals, our success
stories, our services and rates, and read testimonials. You can even check out
our Author Resources Page, where we list ONLY the best and most affordable
service providers which we have personally vetted and guarantee are among the
best in their field. We only list a few of each kind of service provider (cover
designer, formatters, promoters, PAs, etc.) because who wants to scroll through
a really long list? And besides, we don’t trust our clients and their books to
just anyone. Those listed on this page are providers we have worked with
directly in the past, and we GUARANTEE they offer the best combination of skill
and affordability.
And, finally, if anything I’ve said here has resonated with
you, and you’d like to talk to use about what we can do to help make your book
the absolute best it can be, visit our Contact Us page, where you can reach out
to us by email. Simply say, “Hey, Top Shelf! I want to learn more!” And we’ll
take it from there. Every interested author gets a completely free,
no-obligation evaluation of the first 5 pages of your manuscript. Within 24
hours, you’ll get back a complete content and line edit of those pages, along
with a professional quote for our services and an estimated turnaround time.
Talk Soon,
Christina Kaye
(Co-Owner/Editor of Top Shelf Editing)
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