You have done it! You have a book in your hands you're proud of, or as proud of it as you can be, and you're ready to share it with the world. Perhaps you've even run it through a beta group or two and tweaked it a bit to take into account what they thought. Now, you're ready to publish, right? You're ready to send your baby out into the world and try to find an agent, or even look for a small publishing house to take it on. Or maybe you're ready to really step it up and try the big publishing houses. Your goal might even be to just publish it yourself.
Hold it! Stop right there! You're not ready. "Why not?" you might ask. Well, it's because you've become blind to your own work. You no longer see those sentences that just don't work. You don't see those random typos that snuck in. You aren't seeing those few spots where you accidentally typed "he" instead of "she." You don't see where your story line took off and ran into a dead end. Don't fret, we're all that way. Heck, I'll hit publish on this blog post and immediately find something wrong with it and have to fix it.
Nope. Your next step is to hire an editor. Don't expect a big publishing house to do it for you. That isn't how the game is played anymore. The margin between profit and expenditure is getting smaller and smaller and they aren't wanting to take the risk of putting more money and effort into a book than necessary. Small publishing houses have such a narrow margin between sink or swim that, while they might have an editor on staff, even they can only do one pass through on a book before it goes out. If it's too big of a mess, they won't even want to bother.
So! What do you do? Well, you go out and find an editor yourself, that's what you do. Start thinking about that at the beginning and start budgeting for one. They don't come cheap. There are also about 4 different kinds of editors out there. Each one specializes in something. The first editor you'll want is a developmental editor. They'll work closely with you to bring your vision to life and make sure you don't have any plot holes or ideas heading off into la-la land that shouldn't be there.
Let's say you did that. Your book is ready, right? Nope! Stop right there. You know that wallet? Reach into it again and at least hire one more editor if you can. The one that worked hand-in-hand with you for so long to help your book reach its potential is now as blind to it as you are. They love your book as much as you do, never forget that. However, in my reviewing opinion, you need at least one more editor. The all-important proofreader.
The proofreader isn't there for the content. They read it purely to look for typos and mistakes in grammar. That's their job. Good ones aren't cheap. I did a quick search one day and found they can usually ask about $30 for every 9-15 pages of a manuscript. The better they are, the more they charge.
If you can get in with a publishing house, it's possible you don't need the proofreader. The publishing house 'should' do that step for you. But never forget you can find a typo or grammar error in any printed book out there, even the ones with Penguin, Tor, or Bantam printed on the spines. If you're going the self-publishing route, absolutely, definitely, without a question, hire a proofreader.
I realize this all costs money that you might not have. I was recently out on Kickstarter and saw a lot of people running campaigns to help them raise the money for this step. I can't say how many of them actually make their goals, but it's worth a try, especially if you're working as hard as you can and living paycheck to paycheck.
While debating the wisdom of my words, check out this post on the myths and truth of editors. I'm not making all of this up, I promise.
When your book is out there, be sure to look me up at A Drop of Ink Reviews! If it falls within my fairly wide range of what I'll read, I'd be more than happy to give your book a review.
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