Editing for a self-published author is crucial in order to be taken seriously.
You need a professional editor. Someone who does it for a living not just your old English teacher or the neighbor next door. My first novel, Broken Branches, was edited three times by three different editors. When my husband finally read it three years later he still found errors. In my novel Honey Tree Farm - for the Love of the Beekeeper's Daughter, he found thirty-eight errors. I had paid a friend who was also an author to edit it. Needless to say I never used her again. I make all kinds of mistakes usually in spelling. I can even confuse spell check. I blame it on the fact that my mind is working faster than my fingers can type. In my latest children's book, Hayden and Fred, I made an error in placing the text. On one of the pages I had to move the text a bit away from the edge of the page. I did that but forgot to move the text box down and cut off a word. My illustrator in Wisconsin noticed it after I sent her several copies to place in a store up there. I rush to print, that is one of my great problems. As an author you need to slow down and make your book the very best it can be before you publish. It's a lesson I've learned the hard way and still have a problem with. I was at an event when a customer pointed out an error in my very first children's book, Just Batty. I had spelled the same word two different ways in the same paragraph. I'd been selling the book for two years and not one person had told me or maybe no one noticed. It was my first book and so excited I didn't have it edited properly. Always order a proof copy and give it one last edit before you publish. Not only is it good for you as an author but it helps all the other self-published authors out there.
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AuthorFrom the active mind of Brenda M. Spalding Archives
February 2020
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