Read This First
You need an editor
You need a copy editor
These cannot be the same person.
I’m putting those three sentences before all other content because they are the most important concepts I need to convey. Even before I start talking about the risks and benefits of publishing options, I want you to be aware of what you absolutely cannot do without.
The reason they cannot be the same person is a matter of perspective. You want your content editor to be concerned only with what you write about and how. Good copy editors are detail oriented and very skilled at catching missing commas and the like. But if you want to give them the best chance of success they need to see your final version for the first time.
Once you’ve worked with an editor he’s invested part of himself in your work. He may have gone over several drafts with you. After he has become involved it would be all too easy for him to miss mistakes because he knows what should be there.
A copy editor, however, is only required to care about the presentation. I’m sure copy editors would prefer to actually like the book they are combing through. But they are reading your work with a different goal in mind and that needs to be clear from the start.
| Why? No matter how good you are, how many books you have written, how much you’ve practiced, you need an editor to provide you with the one thing you do not have: an outside perspective. A good editor is the difference between a manuscript that is well written but flawed and a masterpiece. An editor does more than catch the times you’ve used the same word too often. He finds the parts of your work that aren’t clear and gives you the opportunity and guidance to improve. You could be as practiced as Stephen King; you still need one. Sometimes we are so close to our ideas what makes total sense to us actually doesn’t work so well when read by others. However, an editor is more than a reader willing to tell you, “This part doesn’t work”. He is someone who loves books enough to dedicate time to them and knows how to bring out the best in an author. He can tell you where to trim, how to restructure, why the character doesn’t seem quite right, how to pick up or slow down the pace, what’s wrong with the plot... I could continue the list but it is as endless as the aspects that go into a good book. Without an editor, no matter how many times you’ve gone over it, your manuscript is still a first draft. That said, I will note one thing. Not all editors are created equally. If you have any choice in the matter it’s important to find one whom you like, whose opinion you respect, and is a person you can work with. When it comes time to get a book ready to be published the process needs to be a team effort. I’ll be revisiting this point. So bear with me. 
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| What's next? The The goal of this little subsection of the web is to provide you with an introduction into the two options available to an author: Traditional and Publish on Demand. I offer you advice and an overview. I will be adding a links and resources section later on. But you should also do your own research. What you should not do is choose the fate of your book on the guidance of one source alone. There are other opinions out there and I disagree with a lot of them. But you might not. Get the full picture. Otherwise the rest of the section is straightforward. I review and outline both methods, explain what you need to know about copyright, editors and the best choice for publishing on demand. Happy hunting.  |