Editing is one of the biggest components of publishing a book. If you have a dream of becoming an author, you probably have this picture in your mind of typing away in a cozy coffee shop or in a perfectly curated home office. Maybe you’re seated at an antique typewriter, or perhaps you’re scratching your thoughts out in a leather-bound journal. There’s a cup of piping hot coffee next to you, and a cat or dog is curled up at your feet.
That’s the dream, right?
The reality is that writing the book is only about 25% of the process. The other 75% is made up of edits, edits, edits, and more edits before you finally get to publishing.
As self-published authors, finding an editor is one of the larger barriers we face. When you go the traditional publishing route, this is mostly organized for you, so when you’re on your own, there’s a lot you need to sort out.
This isn’t a blog that’s going to go super deep into the editing process; there are tons of great resources on the different types of editing and which ones you should do. In this blog, I’ll go over what I personally did for editing.
I Started With Line Editing
Definition of Line Editing: A stylistic, sentence-level revision process focused on enhancing the flow, clarity, tone, and overall readability of a manuscript.
The reason I started here is that I know my story and writing would change quite a bit through this process. I didn’t want to worry as much about any formatting, spelling, or grammar errors, as more were likely to come out of the line edits.
I found a line editor on Fiverr, and I’m intentionally not linking them here because I wasn’t a fan of the process. While there were aspects that I felt she helped with, especially when it came to pointing out sentences I had overcomplicated, overall, I felt her comments were not helpful.
Since this was my first book, I did quite a bit of research ahead of time on how to find an editor, and just because it didn’t work well for me doesn’t mean it’s not helpful. Here’s a rundown of what I would look for in the next editor I hire:
- Make sure they write and or read in your genre. This seems pretty self-explanatory, but essentially, if they don’t get your genre, they won’t understand how a reader in this genre will perceive your book.
- Ask them what format they edit in. I write in Google Docs, and my editor demanded I provide a Microsoft Word version (this should have been a red flag that working with her would be challenging). This created so many difficulties when it came to accepting her changes that, by the end, my entire manuscript was essentially ruined. I had to retype it because there were so many hidden HTML formatting issues due to switching between platforms.
- Make sure they have familiarity with your subject matter or location. My book takes place in the midwest and my editor clearly did not understand what it was like here, especially from a weather standpoint. I had to defend quite a few points in the book she wanted changed because she simply didn’t understand the region.
- Compare several editors. I sent a few chapters to several editors for free sample edits. The editor I selected really stood out from the rest, but when she reviewed my actual book, I didn’t get the same experience as in her sample, so be warned that it may change.
- Paying more doesn’t mean quality. I ended up going with a more expensive line editor, and based on my experience, more doesn’t always mean better.
Other Editing I Did
As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, editing is 75% of the adventure. I couldn’t stop at line editing, so I took what I learned from my burned Fiverr experience as I approached future edits.
Hiring an Editor I Knew
I was gun-shy after my bad experience with the Fiverr editor, so once my manuscript was ready for another round of editing, I turned to my friend, who had experience reading author manuscripts. Kaitlyn was an eagle-eyed genius and helped find spelling and grammar errors, inconsistencies in story points, and any formatting issues that remained after the Microsoft-to-Google-Doc nightmare.
Using AI Tools Like ChatGPT and Grammarly
This is probably controversial (just because anything AI is controversial), but I did utilize AI-powered tools in my editing process. I approached using them with caution. I did not use them to generate any content for my book, but purely for editing purposes.
ChatGPT
I mostly used ChatGPT to quickly answer formatting questions. Things like:
- “Do I need to italicize this?”
- “Is this the correct way to format this dialogue?”
- “Do I need a comma in this sentence?”
Essentially, ChatGPT became a writing sparring partner. Someone to practice with and to get tips from. As someone who did not take any writing classes outside those required in High School, I was super rusty with formatting and sentence structure. ChatGPT gave me the information I needed without having to do a ton of reading and research, which would have impeded my writing flow.
Grammarly
Grammarly is essentially Spell Check on crack. It’s an extension you can add to your browser that reads your document and points out spelling and grammar errors. Since my book was over 200 document pages, I opted not to turn Grammarly on as I wrote, but rather copy-pasted each chapter into a fresh document so Grammarly would have less content to scan.
I did this at the very end, right as I was entering my book into Kindle Create, which is the tool I used to create my ebook file for uploading to KDP. It’s also worth noting that KDP will run through your book as well and point out potential spelling errors, but you should not rely on this, as it is not 100% accurate. Same with Grammarly, there were plenty of things I didn’t accept because they were either inaccurate or just a stylistic difference.
Spot Checking Is Your Friend
After my book was as finalized as could be, I sent it to my Kindle and read each chapter as a normal reader would. This helped me catch little things, and I ended up doing this process 2-3 times before I felt I had a clean book. I also asked my ARC readers to point out anything that might have been missed.
Final Thoughts on the Editing Process
Editing is intimidating. You’re opening yourself up to critique, which, in life, we all try to avoid. You’re sending your book out into the wild to be picked at. Words will be pulled out and swapped with others. Plot points you thought were rock solid will be battered.
When it comes to your first book, my final advice is to protect your creativity. Yes, you should try to produce a quality book, but if you lose yourself as a creative in the process, is it worth it?
I’m sure as I become more seasoned and grow thicker-skinned, I’ll open back up to more critique and editing, but for now, using tools and those close to me whom I trust is the route I’ve chosen to take.
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