Guest Post from There For You Editing
Today we have a special post from There For You Editing. Editors are very, very important people to authors, and it's nice to hear what they have to say every now and then....
So, let's welcome Melissa Ringsted to the blog and find out what she's got for us today! Thank you, Melissa for joining us and agreeing to guest blog.
Ahh, editing. You either love it or you hate it. Luckily for those of you that hate it, I love it. I have been an avid reader for as far back as I can remember! Some people wanted to be a fireman, a super hero, or a princess. I wanted to sit around with my nose stuck in a book all day. I feel that my love of all things written and a healthy dose of OCD have allowed me to be the editor I am today. After a brief stint trying to get into photo-journalism, and realizing I can not write, I decided I'd leave the writing to the experts. Years of learning, schooling, and living, later I am finally enjoying the dream. I created There for You Editing, which offers low cost, affordable editing services. With indie, and self-publishing, on the rise and the frequent complaints that these books were good but with horrible editing, I decided I would create the business and hopefully pay if forward a little. Why should only the authors who belong to large publishing houses be able to have a well edited book? Most of the larger editing places charge anywhere from $4 per page up, or $.01 per word up. I believe in being a part of the indie/self-pub movement and helping the arts. Why hire an editor you may ask? Well aside from the common thought that indie/self pub books are poorly edited, there are certain things that an editor knows and can look out for. For instance, many books come to me with 2 spaces at the end of each sentence. The 2 spacing rule is an old rule that goes back to the typewriter days. Now, thanks to Word and the automatic spacing depending on the letter, the new rule is only 1 space after a sentence. Of course there is the common issues of their vs. they're, were vs. we're, there vs. their, et cetera. Another common problem is where to put a comma and how to do correct sentence structure when a character is speaking. Which of these two are correct? "I love you beyond reason." He said "I love you beyond reason," he said. If you guessed the second, you are correct. Now which of these are correct? "Do you feel the same as I do?" he asked. "Do you feel the same as I do?" He asked. If you guessed the second... you are wrong. See, this is another common problem. My editing is line editing. This means I go through your book, line by line, correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, as well as the overall "flow" of the book. Now, I am still human. Errors are unfortunately made. If you read through some of the well known, or big name, books you can still find errors. The scary thing about that is those books go through up to 7 rounds of editing by different types of editors. To try and stop those errors though, I do one round of editing and a second read through. If you have any further questions, or are in need of an editor, you can either email me at thereforyou.melissa@gmail.com or visit my Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/thereforyou.editing On my Facebook page you can see some of the covers of a few of the books I have edited. Thank you Jennifer very, very much for hosting me today. It's thanks to amazing authors like you that There for You has succeeded. Enjoy your day! -Melissa A room without books is like a body without a soul. -Cicero
So, let's welcome Melissa Ringsted to the blog and find out what she's got for us today! Thank you, Melissa for joining us and agreeing to guest blog.
Ahh, editing. You either love it or you hate it. Luckily for those of you that hate it, I love it. I have been an avid reader for as far back as I can remember! Some people wanted to be a fireman, a super hero, or a princess. I wanted to sit around with my nose stuck in a book all day. I feel that my love of all things written and a healthy dose of OCD have allowed me to be the editor I am today. After a brief stint trying to get into photo-journalism, and realizing I can not write, I decided I'd leave the writing to the experts. Years of learning, schooling, and living, later I am finally enjoying the dream. I created There for You Editing, which offers low cost, affordable editing services. With indie, and self-publishing, on the rise and the frequent complaints that these books were good but with horrible editing, I decided I would create the business and hopefully pay if forward a little. Why should only the authors who belong to large publishing houses be able to have a well edited book? Most of the larger editing places charge anywhere from $4 per page up, or $.01 per word up. I believe in being a part of the indie/self-pub movement and helping the arts. Why hire an editor you may ask? Well aside from the common thought that indie/self pub books are poorly edited, there are certain things that an editor knows and can look out for. For instance, many books come to me with 2 spaces at the end of each sentence. The 2 spacing rule is an old rule that goes back to the typewriter days. Now, thanks to Word and the automatic spacing depending on the letter, the new rule is only 1 space after a sentence. Of course there is the common issues of their vs. they're, were vs. we're, there vs. their, et cetera. Another common problem is where to put a comma and how to do correct sentence structure when a character is speaking. Which of these two are correct? "I love you beyond reason." He said "I love you beyond reason," he said. If you guessed the second, you are correct. Now which of these are correct? "Do you feel the same as I do?" he asked. "Do you feel the same as I do?" He asked. If you guessed the second... you are wrong. See, this is another common problem. My editing is line editing. This means I go through your book, line by line, correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, as well as the overall "flow" of the book. Now, I am still human. Errors are unfortunately made. If you read through some of the well known, or big name, books you can still find errors. The scary thing about that is those books go through up to 7 rounds of editing by different types of editors. To try and stop those errors though, I do one round of editing and a second read through. If you have any further questions, or are in need of an editor, you can either email me at thereforyou.melissa@gmail.com or visit my Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/thereforyou.editing On my Facebook page you can see some of the covers of a few of the books I have edited. Thank you Jennifer very, very much for hosting me today. It's thanks to amazing authors like you that There for You has succeeded. Enjoy your day! -Melissa A room without books is like a body without a soul. -Cicero
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