As any good book writing coach will tell you, after writing a book the next hardest thing to do is find a good editor. It is never a matter of sending your manuscript to several different publishers and hoping one of them will contract you. The same is true for online services. You can self publish a book, but without an experienced editor it probably will not get a lot of attention.
In short an editor makes a manuscript the very best it can possibly be. This goes beyond spelling and grammar checking. They can also fact check any citation referenced. They go over the layout making sure the chapters and headers are correct. Most importantly, they offer ideas. Having read many books they are full of ideas that can make your manuscript the next number one best seller.
Begin by determining what type of editing services you really require. Most manuscripts will need some developmental type editing. Copy editing is carefully going through a manuscript and attempting to improve on it. Generally hard editing is reading through it with a close eye and looking for misspelled words and other simple mistakes that often make them awkward to read in print form.
Check their credentials out. This is a work of your art you will be handing over to someone else, never be frightened to ask the hard questions so you are comfortable with them. Make sure they also have in depth knowledge their job and a particular understanding of the genre you are attempting to break into. This is critical knowledge and their experience could be the difference failing and winning.
Many editors often brag about successes they have. There really is no shame in doing this. Go over their websites to see if they list their successful publications and history. Remember that it is more likely upwards of 80 percent of their titles are self-published. Always find out how many titles they list were sold to traditional publishing houses. Doing this now may save you time and money down the road.
Good editors always ask for testimonials from people they have done work for. Just like anyone else you hire to work for you take the time to read through them and try to contact a few to get any further information you may need. Check out various web-sites to see if they have any information and what they thought of the actual books that were not self published.
Find out if they have actually written any books themselves. This goes a long way to showing not only that they can point out issues, but have the knowledge to fix them as well. You will be surprised how many write on the side under various pseudonyms.
This is one of the most important decisions you will ever make. Finding a good book writing coach and editor will affect your career in a huge way. Be patient and take the time to do it correctly and in 10 years you too can share your success story with other beginning writers.
In short an editor makes a manuscript the very best it can possibly be. This goes beyond spelling and grammar checking. They can also fact check any citation referenced. They go over the layout making sure the chapters and headers are correct. Most importantly, they offer ideas. Having read many books they are full of ideas that can make your manuscript the next number one best seller.
Begin by determining what type of editing services you really require. Most manuscripts will need some developmental type editing. Copy editing is carefully going through a manuscript and attempting to improve on it. Generally hard editing is reading through it with a close eye and looking for misspelled words and other simple mistakes that often make them awkward to read in print form.
Check their credentials out. This is a work of your art you will be handing over to someone else, never be frightened to ask the hard questions so you are comfortable with them. Make sure they also have in depth knowledge their job and a particular understanding of the genre you are attempting to break into. This is critical knowledge and their experience could be the difference failing and winning.
Many editors often brag about successes they have. There really is no shame in doing this. Go over their websites to see if they list their successful publications and history. Remember that it is more likely upwards of 80 percent of their titles are self-published. Always find out how many titles they list were sold to traditional publishing houses. Doing this now may save you time and money down the road.
Good editors always ask for testimonials from people they have done work for. Just like anyone else you hire to work for you take the time to read through them and try to contact a few to get any further information you may need. Check out various web-sites to see if they have any information and what they thought of the actual books that were not self published.
Find out if they have actually written any books themselves. This goes a long way to showing not only that they can point out issues, but have the knowledge to fix them as well. You will be surprised how many write on the side under various pseudonyms.
This is one of the most important decisions you will ever make. Finding a good book writing coach and editor will affect your career in a huge way. Be patient and take the time to do it correctly and in 10 years you too can share your success story with other beginning writers.
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You can visit the website www.carmenreneeberry.com for more helpful information about Some Good Tips From A Book Writing Coach For Finding A Good Editor
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