This article is about importance of editing.
It is important to have your story edited as well as proofread. Proofreading only covers discrepancies such as spelling, continuity in story, and grammar.
Proofreading does not cover errors such as my first book ‘Jane Knight Rogue Officer’. I only found this out in October 2020. The book was published in July 2018.
Below are the errors that my readers feel are affecting their enjoyment of my book.
List of feed back
1 Military Intelligence 5 repeated through book. Mention it once, then MI5.
2 Type dates as 21st October 2020
3 First and third person mixed in the paragraph. So she sometimes struggled to understand the plot.
The first two opinions I am ignoring as it is my way of writing. If I wanted to write like Jane Austen, I would try to raise her from the dead and get her to write it for me.
The above third error is a crucial important problem. Now, to be perfectly honest, I will continue making all three mistakes throughout the whole of my future books. I accept my faults and live with them. My wife married me as proof of this.
I will guarantee you that the third error will appear in my next four books that will be published by March 2021.
I am not going to kid myself that I will take these criticisms and tell myself to avoid these errors. If I did this every time I wrote a book, it would never get published. I would be going in circles checking, rechecking, and going stir crazy.
If you are going to write your first book, one piece of advice is that you don’t let the above three issues bother your publishing. Everyone on the planet who writes a book will make these mistakes.
I heard of a lawyer who turned to writing and he admitted that his first two or three books were poorly written. Yes, he is a lawyer and I hear they scrutinise written evidence. So, if he is making mistakes then let’s all give up writing a great story.
Bearing in mind that despite the above critiques, I have 15 reviews and all of them are 5*’s. So, it shows you that if I listened to these issues, I would not have written six books. My other five books have received between 3*s and 5*s. Soon to be ten books by March 2021.
Again, the most important thing you can do to make your book spectacular is to get it edited. It is costly but what is more important. Would you avoid getting your car serviced so you cannot go to work? To get my first book edited for the first time was £929.76. But the future reviews and long term income will outweigh this.
Being an accountant, I have been editing all my career. My clients send me their draft work, bookkeeping. I proofread clients’ expense receipts and income. Check for figures with typo errors. But I also edit their work by leaving out costs like pet grooming and buying designer labels. Up to a standard that is ready for publishing to the tax office. I will add my flare to reduce their tax bill. If I left it as a draft, the taxman would have a field day and pay too much. See your book like this. It is not having your editor moan about your style of writing; it is them making sure you do not get moaned at by your readers.