Editing on a budget: Seven low-value (but highly-important) editing tasks to avoid paying for

Writers and editors can agree: editors should spend their time where it counts the most—wrestling with words.

Unfortunately, there is a category of editing work I call “important but low-value” that editors spend their time doing that isn’t a great use of their time and the author’s money. Some of these are easy to fix fairly quickly with automated tools but others aren’t.

Here are my top five:

1. Non-standard paragraph indenting: If you pick up a bestseller, you’ll notice a common pattern. The first paragraph of a chapter or a section is not indented. All other paragraphs have an indent. This is probably rule number one of professional book formatting.

2. Really weird font-selection: I know you think curly fonts are cute, but they’re hard on the eyes for your editors and will probably be changed by your formatter. Times New Roman, 12-pt font for editing please.

3. Unclear chapter and section hierarchy: Be clear and consistent with your chapter and section titles. Section titles should be in bold or (less preferred) italics. Again, the first paragraph of the section is not indented. If I can’t quickly figure out the structure of your book, it’s going to slow me down.

4. Phantom pictures and unclear design elements: If you have a placeholder for a picture, make it super clear. Don’t have us guessing what this thing is.

5. Rough citations: You knew I was going to say it. You don’t like to do them and neither do I, but since we’re both vested in producing a high-quality product, one of us is gonna have to fix them. I find that all of the citation information is there but they’re in the wrong order, it’s not as time consuming to fix as if there is missing information in the citations. If you want to save your editor some time, tell your editor to make a comment about what’s missing and so you can look it up and provide the missing details. One manuscript I worked on had 100 citations and probably 75% of them had missing details. This could be a task that you could be working on while your editor is working on the rest of the manuscript. The alternative is having your editor looking up publisher names and publication dates on Amazon and Google Books. Not a good use of time.

6. Bonus: Misspelled names: Okay, I couldn’t stop at five. Please, please, please verify that you’ve verified the spelling of a person’s name in your book. I will check every single one of them but if I notice a pattern of misspellings, please believe I’m fact checking everything now. The circle of trust has been broken.

7. Bonus: Okay, I’m almost done. Do not send your editor a document that you haven’t run Spell Check on. Yes, people do this. I lived to tell the tale.

Of course, if you, dear author, don’t want to do this work, your editor will do it for you. But these are things we think about when you’re developing your rate proposal and how long it will take to return your manuscript back to you.

Now, you might say, “Doesn’t the book designer do some of this?” Yes, if the author and the editor don’t fix these things, the book designer has to. If you’re spending your hard-earned money, are these the things you’d want your editors and book designers working on? Didn’t think so!

I have not presented an exhaustive list. If you saw the style guidelines that traditional publishers ask editors to follow, you might cry. Nevertheless, check out the submission guidelines of some publishers to see how you could get your manuscript in tip-top shape and editing-ready.

What a self-help book editor wants you to know

The beauty of publishing in the twenty-first century is almost anyone can publish their thoughts and share them with the world. Even though publishing is still a very privileged industry, I’d still say that independent publishing has democratized the process of communicating to the masses. This is a good thing.

Now that it is so much easier to publish, however, it is even more difficult for authors to write a book that truly stands out from the pack. It’s especially difficult for authors that want publish self-help books. Frankly speaking, there are not that many “secrets,” “core truths,” or step-by-step programs that are yielding original ideas.

So how does an author writing a self-help book with a new message to share rise above the rest?

1. Accept that most likely your self-help book idea solution is not original—but your delivery should be. Ugh, I hate to tell you this but your approach to how to overcome your issue has probably been written before. Don’t rack your brain trying to retell it. What will distinguish your book from others is your story and how you tell it. The greatest self-help books are carefully crafted stories that are grounded in both empirical experience (2) and research (6). Read up on the elements of fiction to tell an effective story.

2. Don’t just tell us what to do. Tell us who you are: I’ve read many early drafts of self-help books where the authors spend too much time telling the readers the secret sauce but haven’t spent any time telling the author who they are and what they’ve been through.

   
   Don’t hide your truth and don’t hide what you’ve been through. It’s not dirty laundry—it’s what makes you an authority on this subject. How do you know if you missed the mark? If you deleted everything that felt too private, too close to home, it’s time to rewrite. Which leads me to my next point…

3. Don’t try to be the Second Coming: What do we love about Ted Talks? They are highly-polished yet raw stories about transformation. The bestselling memoirs and self-help books don’t present sinless authors. They’re real.

   
   Some authors, in an attempt to demonstrate their authority on the subject, begin to exhibit what I’ll call the Messiah-complex in their writing. You’ve seen it: “Your life is awful but me, awesome author, has the secret to transforming your life. And by the way, my life is now perfect.” This isn’t the 3 AM prosperity gospel infomercial—this is your life. You may want to inspire hope in your readers but at worst, a perfect arrival can come across as over-sanitized, which will leave your readers wondering what you didn’t tell them. At the end of the book, we should know what your insecurities were, how you’ve overcome them, what you’re still working on, and how else you’d like to grow.

4. Okay, now tell us what to do: Okay, after you’ve shared your soul with us, give us some concrete things to do to apply what you’ve taught us. Give us some lists, reflection questions, exercises, meditations, affirmations—something. You wrote a book to change someone’s life. Too much theory and not enough application will leave your students underdeveloped and your dream unfulfilled.

5. Avoid using absolutism: Your experience is your experience—no one else’s. So use “always,” “never,” “all,” and otherwise general statements carefully. Your readers will appreciate the nuanced approach.

6. Substantiate your claims: I recently saw a Facebook post written by another editor whose new author client didn’t want to use any citations for her claims because they take too much time to manage. I saw an ad from an author looking for an editor that would help her do the research that would back up her claims she had already written in her book.

   For some reason, some people believe that self-help books don’t need the same level of anti-plagiarism scrutiny and citation formality as academic books. In fact, I believe the standard is higher. In academic circles, there are ideas that are fairly common knowledge that may be acceptable not to cite (but you still should to be safe) because academicians are communicating with their peers with similar backgrounds. It’s not the same for self-help authors. Do your research. Your readers will see you as more credible and you work will be much more polished.

Don’t know if you’ve done all of this? Or, you know you haven’t but want some advice about how to fix it? Contact me for some self-help book developmental editing assistance.

Effective editing on a budget

I see countless authors in Facebook writing groups moan, “I can’t afford professional editing.”

There are so many people an author could collaborate with when editing their book—developmental editors, copy editors, line editors, structural editors, proofreaders, plain-language editors, writing coaches, content editors, beta readers, alpha readers, unhelpful readers. The list could go on.

Let’s get real. Most self-publishing authors (heck, many publishers) don’t have the money to engage more than one or two people to edit their book.

What’s an author to do?

Here is a cost-effective editing strategy that will allow authors to publish the most polished piece possible.

Build your foundation: We’ve all seen those Amazon book reviews that say “Idea was great, but plot/argument was all over the place.” “Meandering and hard to follow.” “Lost steam midway through.” “Had to force myself to finish.” Don’t you get aggravated when you’re using your GPS and it throws in unnecessary turns or gives you a route you know will take 30 minutes more than necessary? You trust your girl Siri to not lead you astray.

The relationship between authors and readers is the same. The reader initially trusts the author to keep them on the most efficient path to the very end. Readers will forgive a couple of grammar and punctuation errors, but they get aggravated if the path the author provides is too circuitous. Authors, make sure your piece has a good structure.

What are your options?

a.  Priciest option: Invest in developmental editing or book coaching. There is a lot of overlap between the two. Whomever you work with, make sure they have experience with your genre and putting some structure around texts. Even if you have a developmental edit, I still suggest you put in the time to…

b.  Budget-friendly option 1: Find some beta readers—but choose them carefully. You’re looking for readers that can offer constructive criticism and solutions. Help your beta readers by asking them to answer specific answers about your manuscript. Where is the text overly word? Do the chapters feel logical? If you don’t guide them, the best you can expect from them is “Great story!"

c. Budget-friendly option #2: The outcome of a manuscript critique is usually a lengthy letter an editor writes to the author summarizing the developmental issues. Typically, the letter provides examples supporting the editors’ findings. A manuscript critique is a budget-conscious alternative to a full developmental edit.

Polish: You’re past the developmental stage. You’re confident in the structure of your manuscript and you’ve written and rewritten sentences and you. are. just. done. with the self-editing process. At this point, writers will say “I need an editor/proofreader.”

Stop right there. Do not ask for proofreading if you haven’t been copyedited yet. I see so many authors that are disappointed with their editors and I suspect either a) they didn’t get a good editor, b) they asked for the wrong editing service. Proofreading will only correct obvious errors that copyediting didn’t address. A simplified example: A copyedit will condense a grammatically incorrect 50-word sentence into three grammatically correct sentences with 25 words. A proofread will address the grammar issues but will leave the sentence intact with 50 words.

If money is tight, copyediting is where you should make your editing investment if you have selected some fantastic beta readers. Copyediting will transform good prose to great. Your copy editor should help correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling'; tighten up and rearrange sentences; remove extraneous spaces, and more. A couple of gracious readers reading your copyedited text can move you from 90% to 95%.

You’re probably thinking, “What about those writing tools I see authors talking about?” Grammarly, ProWriting Aid, and other popular writing aids are steps up from Microsoft Word’s grammar and spelling checks but they won’t help maintain your voice, identify inconsistencies, or tell you when you’ve lost your way within the paragraph.

How do I find a good editor? Beware of editors offering rock-bottom fees for lengthy material. Professional copyeditors invest in continuous education and are up-to-date on current language trends and know when to break grammar rules (that are actually myths). If your editor has removed all your conjunctions (and, but) that started some of your sentences or they’ve rearranged your sentence to avoid ending with a preposition (with, of)— you’re not working with a professional.

If you made it all the way to the end of this blog and you’re still confused, drop me a line. Let’s figure it out together.

How to work with an editor

There are a few things I consider a personal life treat. One of my personal life treats is editing or reading while eating brunch. The more variety of the dishes, the better. Bonus points if brunch has a veggie breakfast burrito, a side of berries, and iced chai with almond milk and just the right amount (a lot) of ginger.

If it was socially acceptable to show up to my favorite brunch buffet places in pajamas and spread out all. my. stuff, it would bring me so much joy. The guy above is living my best life.

Alas, I have to create this scene at home.

Anyway, here is a list of tips that I have collated that authors will find helpful when working with editors.

1. Using Microsoft Word track changes and comments: When I return your manuscript, the Track Changes function in Microsoft Word will be turned on in your manuscript file to make it easy for me to tell which are your edits and comments and which are my edits and comments. You will not be able to use the Accept/Reject Changes function. This is to ensure that I can easily find your changes or comments to review them.

   If you do not agree with a particular edit, please delete it, and your deletion will be tracked by Word. If text must be added, please insert it, and your insertion will also be tracked by Word.

2. Different types of editorial services: Unfortunately, there is a wide range of definitions for the different type of editorial services. Read this page from Editors Canada. My interpretation of editing largely aligns with Editors Canada.

3. How to handle the developmental edit: A humorous and educational podcast with an author and his editors and a recent developmental book (DE) edit. Grief, horror, relief, and laughter all in one service. Developmental edits are challenging for authors and editors, but I still find DE the most gratifying service.

4. How to Format a Book: 10 Tips Your Editor Wants You To Know: I don’t think I can stress this post enough. Make sure your files have some level of organization that another person can understand.