Are you getting your rough draft done yet? Let's talk next steps!

Time to find beta readers and an editor and get the book into their hands! Let's not drag this out. Your book will never be perfect, but it can be really good, and hiring the right editor will make a huge difference. These people's job is to stop you from looking like an idiot. Please allow them to do their job.

A little constructive criticism up front may bother you, but it beats having something out in circulation that perpetually embarrasses you. You may be able to upload a corrected file, but you can never "unprint" a book.

There are two kinds of editing, and you need both.

Content editingThis is where you and your editor are looking over, you guessed it, the content. You're looking for transitional issues, holes in the stories, making sure things make sense, moving things around, or cutting what's not necessary. It's big picture editing. This can many times be handled by beta readers if you are looking to save money. Beta readers are people with time on their hands that wouldn't mind reading and taking some notes. The last thing you want are "yes men" but people who will honestly tell you what they think. It will help you to tell them exactly what you are wanting them to look for, the aforementioned holes, things that need clarification, or where you come across in a negative way. If you use beta readers, you need to work with them and integrate changes before giving it over to a copy editor.

Copy or line editingThis is the finer stuff. Grammar, spelling, sentence structure, word substitutions and making your writing understandable and dynamic.

You need help with both of those things. You can find an editor on Odesk or Elance, pull from your own network, or check out the resource section of this forum for people I have worked with and recommend.

To save money, give your editor as clean of a manuscript as you can. I use Grammarly for an initial run-through, taking some of its suggestions with a grain of salt. Especially commas. When you're saving money, please do get a real editor. Somebody who teaches English or has good grammar skills is not the same as someone who actually edits books for a living.

A main issue with line editors is the voice thing. If you've got someone who thinks they can be an editor because they have a decent command of the English language but little experience editing someone else's work, they'll either change your voice in the process or they will do too little in order not to. I've worked with several editors, who have varying degrees of experience.

Editor #1: Line editor who's experience is authoring her own books and copywriting for online businesses which showed in her work. She restructured my sentences to make them compelling and dynamic. Didn't preserve my voice, but that was ok for what it was. Ultimately I had this reedited by Editor #3 because my voice is a major deal with my brand.

Editor #2. Content editor who was extremely hands off. She put in a comma, asked me to elaborate on a couple points and said things like "This sentence doesn't work. Can you find a way to rephrase it?" There was a lot of back and forth for so little. This felt more like consulting or teaching than editing to me, but if you are someone who is very close to what you've written, and you don't want anybody monkeying with your words, I can see how this would be a great option. Plus, no voice change issue. Credentials? Don't know, other than a famous author has her for all his books.

Editor #3. Another line editor. (Yay!) Loads of experience, this is all she does, and for a wide array of people and industries, so she has had practice maintaining voice and does the work for you. My favorite so far.

Before you hire an editor whichever way you do it, make sure you both are clear on whether they are doing content, copy or both; your time frame, book size and budget.

When you go over your changes, invariably your editor will rewrite something in such a way that it changes the meaning or your original intent. Before you put it back the way you had it, you need to consider that what you said failed to get your intent across clearly, or they would not have misunderstood. You'll need to find a good clear compromise.

Something you might consider is getting some sample edits. Pay the people of course, but you'll see how everybody works and who you can work with.

Work quickly, don't overthink it, you can spend the rest of your life easily editing your book. Just get the thing out there so it can make you some money.

Beta Readers and Editors

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