.png)
So, you’ve written a book. It might be a memoir, a science fiction novel, or a biography of the person who invented cotton candy. No matter the content, you can finally cross this off the list. This monumental task is complete. Right?
Well, in a way. You have likely spent hours upon hours researching, brainstorming, choosing the right words, deleting those words, and writing lots of new ones. You have sacrificed happy hours and brunches and softball games to dedicate yourself to your project—your now completed work of art. Except, it isn’t quite complete.
Why Opt for Book Editing?
Finishing a manuscript is an incredible accomplishment that should not be minimized, but it’s not the last stop on the train to publication. Before you pitch your baby to agents or embark on a journey of self-publication, you’ll need an editor. Hiring an editor improves your final manuscript in myriad ways, a few of which include:
Saves you lots of time
Saves you ample frustration
Offers honest, objective feedback
Ensures quality from a practiced professional
A fresh pair of eyes that catches more errors
Still need convincing? Look at it like this.
Imagine you spend every weekend for a month painting all the rooms in your house, carefully choosing each color to match your style and inspire joy in your guests. You invest in the best quality paint and brushes and cover all the furniture and floors. You go to all this effort to make something beautiful, painting with intention and enthusiasm, but after you’ve peeled the last tarp off the couch, you simply toss all the trash and walk away. You don’t go back through the house to touch up any of the missed spots or wipe any speckles of errant paint. All that hard work isn’t wasted, but the first thing that anyone will see when they enter your home is the smudges and splatters—the mistakes that come from side-stepping that one last vital step.
Forgoing an editor is a lot like skipping the touch-ups. All those little errors and opportunities missed will distract the reader from your gorgeous prose or fascinating facts and it will detract from their experience of your book. Your hard work deserves to be scoured by a second, neutral pair of eyes—one that is trained to catch small errors. Your masterpiece should be presented to the world in its best possible form. The way to get there is through a book editor.
The Book Editing Process
Essentially, the job of a book editor is to prepare your manuscript for publication. An editor will be a writing professional with extensive knowledge of grammar, punctuation, plot, character, and other elements of craft. They serve to offer insight on various levels, whether it’s line edits or developmental edits, and are trained to bring your book, in whatever capacity you want, to the next level.
Depending on what you want from the experience, book editing covers a series of steps.
Developmental editing involves big-picture changes like a character’s background, the mending of a plot hole, or the chronology of chapters. This is the phase where an editor takes an aerial view of the manuscript and offers suggestions about how to arrange it in a way that makes the most sense and appeals best to your audience.
Line editing will allow the editor to take a closer look at your style, tone, and voice. They will break the book down, line by line, to ensure that you have chosen the best words to reflect your desired point of view as an author and allow the book to flow smoothly.
Copyediting is the most detail-oriented level of editing, and it involves improving grammar, punctuation, and spelling. While these edits are often the most tedious, they are the easiest to overlook in your own work and the most impactful to your readers if missed.
Making A Way Offers the Book Editing You Need
No matter what your editing goals—hiring an experienced editor for one or all these stages is essential to the success of your book. Editing should be treated as an irreplaceable part of the writing process. At Making A Way Writing Services, our expert editors have a long and proven history of success in the field and look forward to the opportunity to support you and your project. If you are ready to take your book one step closer to publication, contact us today at info@makingawaywriting.com.
Comments