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Sunday, January 20, 2013

Editing | Worth the Price?

I have been getting such diverse information lately. I am currently editing the first curse book. I find that my methods of editing have been very useful. My questions will be now what? Should I skip right to publishing or is it worth the second editor? Here are my techniques.


After completing the book, I stowed it away for a full week. Even though I wanted to read it badly, I refused myself. I know that after finishing I needed a break from it. My mind needed a rest and frankly a vacation. After that excruciating week was up I opened up my computer and read it through completely. During this stage, I fixed all the blatant grammar issues. I fixed the tenses of the words if they were inaccurate. I fixed anything that I saw really. I just read through the copy on my computer and fixed whatever I saw.

After that was done, I printed out the full manuscript. I wanted to put it away for another week but I couldn't resist after day five. What can I say, I am weak! Then I started on page one and read it out loud. I circled areas that sounded wrong. I fixed words that seemed off. I added in some scenes where I thought they fit. By the end of this round, the pages were completely marked up. I don't think I had a single blank page.

With my marked up manuscript, I went back into the computer and fixed it all with my edits. I found this technique really useful because even though I was just copying from this piece of paper, it required me to read again. Really, I was killing two birds with one stone. I was fixing the errors I already caught and reading through it again.

After that I thought my book was good. I didn't plan on going back into it. I started working on other things pertaining to the book. For instance, I started this blog, I started talking with my designer for the cover, I started planning out book two and looking for publishers. I think the turning point here was when I did my first friday teaser. I saw in the passage I chose some errors. I thought, what the hell! I edited this already.

So.... After about two weeks away, I printed out manuscript number two. So here I am now, just finishing up this edit. I have actually found a lot of stuff I didn't see before. I've even found some spacing errors. I was astonished that I missed them the first time. I am almost done with this one.

My question now is whether I should spend the money on an editor. Let me start by saying, editors are freaking expensive. My book is long. It's over 90,000 words. That is a lot of time someone would be spending looking through my book. I believe the cheapest editor I have found would be $350 for a basic editing. Is it worth it? I want to do it but because I am a student, I am reluctant to shell out that much money. I'm broke! What to do... What to do....

TL

2 comments:

  1. I feel it's worth it. I tend to do exactly the same thing as you, then I give it to my parents, who each go over the work, and I still hire an editor. As a rule, I tend to spend around 700.00 for something of the length you're describing.

    After I get it back from the editor (I have 3 that I use, who are all very good), I send it off to 4 or 5 beta readers. Each of them find stuff that all of us missed.

    What is interesting, is the beta readers usually find different errors, so even they don't see the same mistakes.

    When that is done, I'm ready to publish.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! How did you find some beta readers? I have had cousins and friends read it but I feel like they give bias responses.

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