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What is bad about your editing experience?
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An English teacher for 32 years, I decided not to hire an editor to locate and correct my manuscript's mistakes. It could very well be that the editor would have been most helpful, but I could not be certain of that. Better to do myself what I felt confident of doing at no cost. Finding and correcting your own mistakes, I believe, is part of becoming a better writer.
A professional editor is great, and if it is at all possible for you to hire one, do it. If you aren’t in a position to hire one, here are a couple of things I found very helpful in writing “Back to Christmas.” I used both of these resources in addition to the professional editors who looked at my book:- Serenity editing software: this caught a ton of stuff – unnecessary words, clichés, bad punctuations, misspellings that got past Word, mis-used words, etc. I have no connection to this firm other than that I have used their software: http://www.serenity-software.com/ . I used the Standard version, which is $55.00
- Blue Book of grammar website. This site was particularly helpful in getting me to finally understand the proper use of commas. Helpful for other punctuation rules as well. Again, no connection: http://www.grammarbook.com/
Dennis wrote: "A professional editor is great, and if it is at all possible for you to hire one, do it. If you aren’t in a position to hire one, here are a couple of things I found very helpful in writing “Back t..."Someone besides you has to edit your work. Ideally, more than one person. You're too close to it.
Jane makes a good point. I'm an excellent editor (shocked Simon & Schuster once by turning in a manuscript with NO errors). But when I edited my novel HOOKED, I kept finding more typos and more typos. There are probably more still! You can't fix your own work if you're too close to it. (I always add that someone out there probably can, but not most of us normal human writers.)
Dennis wrote: "A professional editor is great, and if it is at all possible for you to hire one, do it. If you aren’t in a position to hire one, here are a couple of things I found very helpful in writing “Back t..."Wow. I took a look at Serenity software, Dennis, and it looks good. Thanks for the info.
Editing, to me, is a huge chore. I mean, yes, granted, it gives me a chance to add and delete stuff to enhance the flesh of the writing, but it is not the bulk of the creative process and that's what I love most. Speaking of typos, my first book, initially, had several after eformat conversion (accursed technology) so much so it had to be redone. But, we all try and learn from previous works...I hope. I professional editor might be nice, but is also expensive. I would suggest, esp for new writers, do your own editing a few times, but also make sure you have a few people who can also read the book and edit for you. besides for typos, it is always good to know if others read what you write the way you intend it to come across.
I do self-edit sometimes, and I know I'm fairly good at being objective, but I still prefer an editor. It's not really possible with some of my self-published stories, but I will have at least one or two people beta for me.
Crucial as clean, error-free copy is, it's even more important for prose to flow nicely, and the book to be free of structural issues. I've read a number of fairly solidly written SPA books that either weren't edited at all, or edited by someone who's not good at the big picture.
I have also long come to the conclusion that price and quality in freelance editing have almost no correlation with each other. Some of the cheapies seem to be reasonably competent, and I am aware of authors who have paid stunning amounts of money for "editors" who don't seem to have a basic command of English grammar.
I have sort of halfheartedly put my own shingle out as an editor, but most of what I've done has been either as a favor to a friend, in a volunteer capacity, or part of a barter arrangement.