Due Diligence Publishing
Whilst I do read many traditionally-published books, I have a particular love for books written by indie authors, mainly because I like to offer them my support and recognition after working so incredibly hard on their manuscript. Of course, all authors work hard however they’re published and even though many trad authors nowadays have to do the bulk of their own marketing and promotion, indie authors have to do it all. From start to finish. Forking out for adverts, promotional material, book tours, reserving stalls at book fairs and signing events. It’s an expense for those who choose to self-publish. And let’s not forget the expense of editing and proofreading, sending out ARCs, maybe even paying for beta readers if that’s something you prefer to do. But I’m not going to tell you about the costly part of publishing in this article; I’m going to tell you about the importance of ensuring your book is as polished as it can and should be before it’s either submitted to agents and/or publishers, or is self-published by you.
The reason I’ve decided to write about this is because I notice, too often, how a lot of writers do what should always be avoided when wanting to become a published author, by “cutting corners”. This could be because they don’t want to pay for professional editing or maybe that they don’t want anyone to read their book before it’s out there; it could be because they think their book is perfect and publishable and the best thing since JK Rowling discovered Harry Potter. Unfortunately, cutting corners leads to errors, in some cases lots of them, and it also leads to poor sentence structure, waffly scenes, inconsistencies and plot holes, zero-depth storylines with unrealistic scenes, and unrelatable characters that are annoying, have nothing to offer, have no arc, and whose dialogue is stilted. These are areas that professional editing advises on, corrects, suggests alternatives for. Areas that might make a huge difference to your book should you have allowed a professional set of eyes to go through it and show you how it can be improved. Your book is your work and you should always want it to shine.
It can be frustrating for me sometimes when I read for pleasure, you know, either on my Kindle or a paperback, money I’ve spent on a book that looks right up my street, a genre I enjoy to read, or a book that’s been written by someone in our ever-increasing writing communities on social media. Because, as a professional editor, the moment I notice an error, be it on the first page, the fifth page, or ten pages in, my brain goes into work mode and I start reading the book from a different perspective. I notice poor sentence structure, basic punctuation errors, a character that sounds unrealistic or a page of waffle that should have been cut. I notice how the author has written a well thought-out paragraph and probably eaten a thesaurus for breakfast that morning, then the next paragraph is mediocre and ordinary and… dare I say it… amateur. And yes, that’s my fault for being an editor; I try not to read with my editor’s hat on when reading for pleasure, but when a book is littered with errors and spelling mistakes and all the things I’ve mentioned, it’s extremely hard to then enjoy the story because I just want to correct everything!
Now, this leads me on to another part of the publishing process that I also find irritating, and one that absolutely needs to be addressed. So, you’ve written your book, you’re pleased with it, you might or might not have had it professionally edited, and you might have had someone else read it through for you to give you some valuable feedback (always a good idea). You then decide you want to submit, either to agents or publishers. Let’s say you’re submitting to a publisher. How do you decide which one(s)? What makes you say, “that’s the best place for my book”? Have you researched the publisher, looked at other books they’ve published, done some homework on the staff at that company, i.e., editors, marketers, owner even? Have you read any of the books they’ve published and if so, were any written by the owners or members of staff?
This kind of research is exactly what you should be doing before you decide to submit your work – your “baby”– that you’re incredibly proud of and feel it needs to be out there in the big wide world and read by a wide audience. Your book that deserves to be in bookshops, railway stations, airports, supermarkets, etc., etc., etc. That’s how proud you should be of your work before you even think about submitting.
If I were submitting a book of mine to a publisher, I would make sure, 100% sure, that the books they publish are well-written, error-free (or at least “almost” error-free – no books are completely error-free, unfortunately). That the owner/main contact/person who is at the head of the company knows about editing and proofreading, and also, that if they have their own books published, those books, even though might not be your favourite genre, are polished to within an inch of their lives and are 99.9% error-free. If you find basic errors in their book, and I mean basic, like spelling mistakes, incorrect punctuation, missing punctuation, and anything else that’s simply wrong, that should be seen as a red flag. If the people who run the publishing company can’t even get their own books right, what chance do you have?
If you’re expecting readers to choose your book and pay money to buy it, then you should always make sure that book is the best it can possibly be. I’ve worked with so many authors over the years who impress me with their constant passion to become published, who take my constructive feedback left in the manuscript and in the feedback seriously, and that makes me feel very proud of the people I work with. If you want to self-publish your book, you have complete control over it, and that includes who you hire to edit that manuscript you have spent months or years meticulously working on. And if you want to aim for traditional publishing, even though you still have control over what you write, you might find that if you don’t do your due diligence, some of your work might require changes, changes being requested by someone whose own books are littered with errors – basic errors as well as sentence structure and other things. Don’t give anyone like me a reason to DNF your book because of errors. If a reader doesn’t finish your book let it be because it simply wasn’t floating their boat. Sometimes, a blurb can describe just what we’re looking for, then once we get into the book we realise it isn’t as interesting to us as we thought it might be. And that’s absolutely fine. You can’t and never will please every reader. That’s impossible. But you can give your reader a chance at least, by offering a well-written manuscript, with good characterisation, outstanding imagery, and an interesting plot. I can’t stress enough how vital it is to avoid cutting corners, and how important it is to ensure the publisher you want to work with is professional and has competent staff to help you.
If you’re looking for an editor, please feel free to make contact with me by email at kathryn.h1969@hotmail.com. I want to help you become published, whether that be traditionally or by self-publishing. We can talk about fees and payment plans if you need to, but please don’t think it’s okay to cut corners when it comes to your passion and dream of writing that book. It isn’t okay, and it will show in your work, believe me.
