Congratulations, you have completed your manuscript. What should you do next? I always get excited after talking to a writer who tells me they are ready for the next step. I just got another phone call from an author who has been writing her book for over six months and just finished. Like so many others, her question was "What do I do now?”.
REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW!
The first thing you should do when you are done writing your manuscript is to read through the entire thing making changes that stand out from structure to wording, while also making sure the content is all there. I cannot stress enough how important this step is.
TIP: Read the whole manuscript out loud, one sentence at a time.
More Than one way to do It
My husband Steve and I have different ways of going about things. Often there is his way and then there is my way. And neither way is necessarily wrong; however, they rarely work well together. This process is an exception for us. We have worked out a step-by-step system to work through the initial review process.
Here’s What’s Worked for Us…
After reviewing my work for content and grammar errors, I forward the manuscript to my partner Steve. He reads through the whole book looking for missed grammatical errors and overall sentence structure. Most importantly, he ensures the content is there and makes sense to the reader.
Once Steve makes his corrections, the entire manuscript gets printed out. Armed with highlighters, I then go to town. Starting at the front and working my way to the end, I highlight anything that doesn’t look right or that I feel should be reworded for clarity. Over the years I have changed this process to the computer instead of printing it. I use Microsoft Word and use the highlight marker. When highlighting is complete, if I do it on paper, I make the changes on my computer. Sometimes it just helps to see it printed out with all the words on paper.
After the changes have been made to the manuscript Steve and I read through the entire manuscript one more time paying extra attention to the highlighted or changed sections. During this read, we use the read-out-loud part of Microsoft Word. The goal is to try to make it as good as possible from our end.
The manuscript gets sent to an editor for the first round of professional editing. Hands-off: At this point, there is no more reading, and no changes are made. The manuscript no longer gets touched HANDS OFF!
Hire a Professional
The best tip I can give an author when it comes to editing is to hire a professional. An Editor is not a friend or family member, but a trained professional. I can’t stress this point enough. Friends and family are great for visiting for Thanksgiving dinner or chatting on the phone; however, they are not editors unless they are making a living at it. Sure, aunt Sally teaches English and understands the language well, but that does not make her an editor. She is not trained in the common mistakes authors make or industry standards for publishing.
Unfortunately, many authors try to skimp on this part. I hear things like: “I have a family member or a good friend who is good with grammar, and they offered to take a look at my book.” Most of the time this backfires and what could have been a great book, gets bad reviews because of grammar, spelling, or any number of language mistakes.
I have seen train wrecks where authors pulled their books after publishing and sent them back to an editor, but not before they received some nasty reviews. It’s costly to pull a book for corrections and most importantly, it can cost you readers and fans who more than likely will not buy your next book because of a bad experience.
