Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an era where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an era where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
Formatting when writing to a small degree makes some sense. Many authors want to get a feel for what their book will look like in print. Or perhaps to get a “head start” while waiting for a proofreading to be completed, they start formatting.
Almost invariably, though, this actually creates more work.
Before formatting, you want to be absolutely done writing, fact-checking, editing and even proofreading the book. If you format in Microsoft Word and then make changes to the text, you’ll likely run into one or more of the following problems:
• Page numbers change – Book design traditionally places the first page of a chapter on the right-hand (odd-numbered) page. When text is added or deleted, this can alter the locations of headers and chapters, forcing you to add empty lines to the page or even entirely new blank pages.
• Table of contents and index change – Usually regenerating the table of contents is easy enough…but editing after page numbers have been set requires you to redo this step. With indexes, you may recheck every entry.
• Hyphenated words shift – To get wording to space properly across a line in MS Word, sometimes hyphens are manually added. Delete or add a single word, however, and usually those hyphens no longer appear at the end of a line but its middle.
• Page breaks shift – Especially with MS Word, you might place artificial breaks in the text to ensure it is justified on the page. Changing a word can result in an empty line of text or push text to the next page.
• Images and text boxes get cut off – Adding or deleting text also means that images and any text boxes (such as for drop caps or breakout boxes) will shift on the page. They may no longer appear next to an image or only parts of them may appear on the page.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t make changes to a formatted manuscript. If you notice a typo, by all means fix it. Usually a lone misspelling won’t cause major problems, as its impact on the formatted text is localized (such as throwing off hyphens within that paragraph). But the fewer typos you have to correct, the less likely corrections will mess up the formatting.
Of course, some minor formatting can begin the moment you start writing. Selecting the font, the font size, and the line spacing, as well as boldfacing the chapter titles and headers (presuming you want them boldface) makes perfect sense. But any formatting that might be impacted whenever you revise the text ought to wait.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an era where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an era where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an era where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an era where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an era where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an era where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an era where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
Before making coffee in the morning, you’ve got to have grounds to put in the pot. Before grilling a steak for dinner, you need to have a thawed T-bone. Before self-publishing, you’ve got to have a completed manuscript.
If you haven’t yet finished writing your novel, anthology or nonfiction book, stop reading now. Bookmark this page and come back once you’ve completed writing it. We’ll see in a few days!
If you’ve finished writing your manuscript, congratulations (and welcome back all of you who stopped reading this book a few days ago and have just finished writing your book)! Now the bad news: A completed manuscript doesn’t just mean that you’ve got a book ready to be self-published. There’s a lot more to it than that.
Professional Edit
First, the manuscript ought to be professionally proofread and edited. Even the best writers need someone looking over their work to find stray typos and to ensure that the sentences and the book’s organization makes sense (Full disclosure here: I run such an editing service.). Writers often get so close to their work that they don’t realize they’ve made some oversight or that they’re rambling in a section. A good editor will advise you of this and help you determine a solution to many other problems, from plotting to logically organizing your ideas.
Sections to Include
Secondly, you must have ready all of the sections of the book that you need before uploading it to a self-publishing site. Among those often overlooked sections are:
• Title page – This is the page that readers first open to and see the book’s title in large letters as well as the author’s name and publisher.
• Copyright page – Turn a page and you’ll find in small print the book’s copyright, information about the publisher, the book’s ISBN and probably a notice saying parts of the book can’t be reproduced without permission or that the characters in it are wholly fictional.
• Acknowledgements and dedication – The next couple of pages probably give a list of people who the author is appreciative to for help in writing this book (aka “acknowledgements”) and a person or two who the book is written in honor of (aka “dedication”).
• Table of contents – A few more pages list all of the section and chapter titles in the book and on what pages they appear (or in the case of ebooks, links to those sections and chapters). A novel probably doesn’t need a table of contents, but a nonfiction book absolutely does.
• Index – After the book’s main text comes a few pages listing key words and concepts and what pages they appeared on in the book. As with the table of contents, an index isn’t needed in a novel, but a nonfiction book demands it.
• Author’s bio – While not necessary, many readers like to know a little about who wrote the book: what makes them an expert on the subject, if they’ve published other books, where they live, etc.
Formatting
Finally, your manuscript needs to be formatted. That means it appears on your computer screen exactly as it will be printed. That involves fitting the text within the margins of the book’s trim size (the book’s dimensions), that the text is in the correct typeface and point size, and that the page numbers are included, and more. We’ll also discuss formatting the book in upcoming entries.
Completing all of this is essential before starting to upload your manuscript to a self-publishing house. If it’s not done, your book either will look unprofessional or you run the risk of spending money to resubmit your manuscript because you must go back and complete all of this work.
Unless you’ve already published the first book in a series and you want each sequel to look the same, don’t start formatting the manuscript before all of the editing is done.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an era where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.