At the Carnival this week we are discussing editing. Where do you find good editors? How much do they cost? What should you look out for?
I honestly don't have much to say on this subject. The editors I have tried have charged ridiculous amounts of money and still didn't fix everything. When I was writing for Harlequin, there was a team of editors and they still missed stuff. Editing is hard. I was warned that every time a change is made in a manuscript there is a chance of messing something else up.
My books go through several people, but none are professionals. Most of the people who have read my books haven't noticed a problem, but if you are a Grammar Nazi and it drives you crazy to see the slightest mistake and you can't focus on reading, don't read my books. :)
I'm not crazy about seeing mistakes either, but I can still enjoy the book as long as there isn't a major problem in every single sentence. It takes months for my team to go through one of my books, and they do it several times. Still, we don't catch everything. It bothers me when I hear about a writer rushing the book to Amazon (or wherever) because you know it has to have problems. You need to sit on it for a while, work on something else and put some distance between you and the book so you can read it with fresh eyes.
My top tip for editing? Get Y-Writer. You can download it for free. This thing will read your book to you. I copy and paste a scene at a time. I will listen to it with my eyes closed. You'll catch a lot of problems this way. Then I listen to it while following along with me eyes. It's awesome and I couldn't do what I do without it.
Check out what the other Carnies have to say.
3 comments:
I honestly did not know about Y-Writer. I guess it's only human for even editors to make mistakes. I will attempt to edit as much on my own before seeking a pro, so Im glad I read this post :)
I had never heard of that software before. That's cool.
It is very cool, and I don't know how I would live without it now. I can read it a hundred times and read right over extra words that don't belong, but when I hear this guy read it, I catch it. It used to have a mechanical voice, but now it sounds pretty good. The only problem is he mispronounces some words. Also, he reads without emotion. It's kind of funny when my character is screaming and this guy is talking very low and calm. LOL
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