#EditTip 1: Hire an Editor

Just do it.

The other day, I was browsing the samples of a certain romance sub-genre (published by small presses). These books were garnering five-star reviews with the occasional one or two. Lower raters complained the novels were riddled with grammatical and story development issues.

They were right.

In the short samples, I read the misuse of the word “shown” for “shone,” two point-of-view shifts in a four-sentence paragraph, errant commas (which I understand since mine aren’t so great), cliché phrases (“…put her hands over her face and cried a river.”), multiple curse words in a “Christian”-labeled book, and action tags in place of dialogue tags.

At least passive voice wasn’t an issue.

One could argue that these technical details won’t detract from a reader’s experience. Others would say that the romance genre isn’t known for its literary masterpieces, and romance readers wouldn’t know what one is anyway.

Neither argument negates the necessity of producing a quality product for paying customers. I’ve been reading an increasing number of reviews where readers state they tired of seeing these same issues in books. They are reaching a breaking point over the lack of a fundamental business practice.

I know editing can be expensive. One-star reviews can be expensive too.

Hire an editor. Make your book shine. Readers expect quality and writers should give it to them.