Today on Reddit I saw a post from a young author who felt unsupported. He was seeking someone to edit his book for free, or give feedback or commentary. I’m sharing my response because I truly sympathize: writing can be hard and isolating. And getting real feedback from a developmental editor is expensive. I charge $5K+ for editing and...
I started this article ages ago but only recently decided to finish it: in the past I’ve been skeptical of writing coaches in general, and even made an hour long rant in Bali against publishing packages charging high rates. So let me start with that: most books won’t earn money, because most books aren’t written The 3...
I made a short video series about my editing and revision process but never added it to my blog, so here it is: The 5 stages of self editing Once I’m done with a first rough draft, I go through a 5-step editing process to make sure my book is as good as it can The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle tour. Totally free. Get it...
The short version: Grammarly finds more typos and actual mistakes. In a full manuscript, it found 7 while ProWritingAid only caught 1. However, ProWritingAid sometimes catches things that Grammarly misses, and has very useful more advanced features that can help improve your writing by flagging slow passages, complex paragraphs, or repetition...
If you’re thinking about becoming a writer, you might be asking yourself whether you’re “Good Enough” to go professional. The short answer is YES, because quality doesn’t matter. Let me explain: Readers read for content, not quality. Yes, it needs to be clean and edited enough not to be distracting. I shoot...
Years of publishing has taught me that a book written and published quickly can be just as good (or better) than one that took ten years to polish. Even though I have a PhD in Literature and spent nearly a decade as a book editor, I’ve seen far too many beautifully edited books fail; I’ve The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a...
I recently watched the movie “Genius” – which is about Thomas Wolfe and the editor who got him into print. The topic is a fascinating one, something I’ve discussed in previous posts, but fleshed out in more romantic detail in the movie. In short: “genius” is the pure, uncivilized, manic, raw, passionate...
Last week I went through my manuscript one last time and sent it out to beta readers; I’d already gone through it a dozen times, and I thought it was pretty clean. I assumed there’d be a handful of typos (there always are), and that the beta readers would catch them (they usually do). However, The 3 secrets to book marketing, and...
Last year I started on online controversy with an article suggesting that indie authors shouldn’t pay for editing. What I mean in the post, which you should read (the comments too!), is that paying a lot of money to get a book edited may not be a smart business decision if your book isn’t going to sell. The 3 secrets to book...
I used to be a full-time editor. Since then, I don’t often read amateur/mediocre books. I rarely have time to read as it is, so I only read brilliant, perfected writing. Unless I’m helping somebody out with a review, cover, or something else – in which case the book may be suffering from common rookie The 3 secrets to book...
