CONGRATULATIONS!!
You’ve FINISHED writing your book!
You’ve conquered your fear and shaped a satisfactory and conclusive ending!
And now you’ve decided you’d like to publish your book. Wonderful!!
It’s an exciting stage to be at in the book creation process. But there are still a few steps that need to be taken before you see your carefully crafted words in print. Before the eyes of the world see it, the eyes of a few objective and professional people need to see it first.
Friends and Family
Some members of the writing community will strictly advise you not to give your writing to friends or family for feedback. The reason being that they are too close to you and won’t give you an objective response. In my experience, it is just about being selective. My Mum has read many of my stories over the years and provided me with very honest and helpful feedback, which wasn’t biased at all.
And anyway, our friends and family are the closest and easiest people to us to reach out to. They are so readily available to us. Why not start with them?
Writers Group
I highly recommend that you join a writers critique group. It is a great way to get feedback on your writing! Us writers are often solitary creatures by nature, so by joining a writing group we are able to come out of our writing caves, connect and present our words to other like-minded people.
Editors: Editing and Proofreading
Now we’re reaching out to the professionals. At this stage in my writing career I do as much during the book creation and production process as I possibly can for free, as long as I will be able to achieve a quality result. Even at this stage, professional editing and proofreading is something I will spend money on if I can.
Here is the difference between Proofreading and Editing:
Proofreading focuses on correcting superficial errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting.
Editing takes a deeper look at how information and ideas are presented. The focus is on making changes that make a story easier to understand, better organised, and more suitable to its audience.
Prices for editing and proofreading can range from a few hundred dollars to a thousand. If you can’t afford this, please don’t discard the process altogether. Seek the help of friends, family and your writer’s group. One idea is to have a group of people read and review a section of your book for you, and in exchange offer them a free PDF copy of your book once it’s published.
Whether you pay for editing and proofreading or not, the most important thing is that your book is of it’s best possible quality once it is published. No matter how many times you have combed through your manuscript, you WILL have missed something. As the writer you will have become too familiar with it and too close to it.It is vital that it is seen by a different set of eyes than yours.
I hope this information has been helpful for you in your writing journey. Be sure to FOLLOW this blog so that you never miss my writing and publishing tips!
My books are available WORLDWIDE in paperback and ebook!
Kate Kelsen 