A few years ago I made a quick video series on self-editing your book (it’s free). This was one of my first courses so while the basic idea is there, it doesn’t have a lot of very specific editing tricks and tactics – and I’ve made a lot of those recently. This post on “how to write a book” links to a lot of my best writing and editing resources,
Recently I went to a writing conference and realized something surprising. Most authors spend years writing their book. Only a few study craft, plotting or structure – those that do often focus on the lyrical quality of language rather than the actual content (who’s going to read this and why should they?) Conferences are divided between agents and publishers looking for new projects, and self-publishing services offering to take author
We’ve used our decades of experience working with authors to set up a system that makes it easy for you to find the right editor for your job, and 95% of our clients are thrilled with our work. To make sure we can satisfy your needs, please make sure you understand and agree to our process, which is as follows: Submitting a Sample You can submit a sample on the homepage and
Editing is the most crucial part in turning out any written work. Experienced writers opine that editing may even be more important than writing. Whilst writing is an unbundling of thoughts, memories, imaginations and ideas, editing, on the other hand, organizes these thoughts streamlining them for the third eye. Without editing, those words on paper will continue to remain meaningless. This is what makes the role of the editor so
I made a short video course talking about book editing, self-editing, choosing an editor and the editing process. These are some of the things I’ve learned after working in publishing for a decade and helping hundreds of authors be successful. None of these videos is about why you should choose Book Butchers – in fact I urge you to self-edit first and talking about why paying for book editing may
You probably have someone smug in your life who corrects your grammar and catches your typos. Or maybe that’s you, and you need to broadcast your grammatical superiority. Either way, here are a bunch of fun mugs, Tshirts and other things with writing and grammar related themes. Join the contest: if you win, you can choose any of the following. Gifts for Grammar Police (giveaway) “I have my red pen
Insecurity is a common problem among authors. How do you know whether the book is good enough yet? What if people hate it? New authors tend to compare their efforts against well-known writers and literary masterpieces, but keep in mind, even famous authors had their doubts. Here are some of them. JG Ballard and The Wind from Nowhere British New Wave SF writer J.G. Ballard, who wrote the (in)famous
I’m going to be making graphics for each individual rule, plus a big poster of them all. (Also… a zombie version!). For now, here are the common things most people screw up. Even if you know these rules, your brain does funny things when you’re tired or not paying attention; so self-edit and make sure you catch them all. The use of “who” and “whom” Who – subjective pronoun, like
I’m about finished with my first ever full rough draft for my first ever novel. I’ve been an editor for ten years but am now working on my own fiction. Luckily, I’ve done some things right: I plotted exhaustively I went back and added tension, raised stakes, built in conflict I rearranged things so my protagonist has a character arc I hit all the right steps in the right places.
I get a lot of people who email me and ask about book editing. How do you choose an editor? What should you look for? How do you know if they’re doing a good job? Every editor will have a unique approach and style, however all we can do is build on what you give us. Your novel is kind of like a rough sketch of a product design. We’ll