Indie Publishing Secrets Revealed - Copy Edits

Is there such a thing as an error free first edition?

I've never seen it.

With that being said, I can't stress how important it is to get a great copy editor. In fact, you might need two. For Protected, I'm actually using three.

Why?
Well, I'm not very good at editing-especially when I've made a thousand changes during plot editing. I get to a point where I can't see the problems. I'm too focused on the story itself.

So, after I get all my plot edits done, I give it to a couple of English geniuses to help me fix the copy errors they see. After I fix those things, I send it to a paid copy editor. Yes, it costs money, but it is worth it.

Because she finds so many errors (especially commas. I love them and use them way too often), after I fix all the mistakes she finds, I send it to another English wiz to catch anything my copy-editor missed.  It's easy to miss things when there is a sea of mistakes.

I'm happy to say, that she didn't find many this go around. Yay!

Then, after it's published, I wait for my fans to tell me about errors that still remain. Yep. After all that, some mistakes still linger.

You might be thinking that I don't have a good editor. Well, it simply isn't true. In fact, there isn't one author I've talked to about editing who hasn't told me their editors, no matter how amazing or how expensive, miss things. It happens. So be prepared.

I happen to know some awesome copy-editors that are honest and very competitively priced. Check them out.
1. Tristi Pinkston  
In fact, you could win a 250 page evaluation from Tristi by signing up to attend a cool workshop THIS coming Saturday, January 21st. No joke. Sign up here. That'll save you a lot of dough!

2. Precision Editing Group

Have you ever read a book that had no errors? Not a single one? If so, what was it?

Indie Publishing Secrets Revealed- #20 Editing

Indie Publishing Secrets Revealed- #20 Editing

Okay, time for confessions on EDITING. Boring right?

After reading my story, you'll think twice.

I don't like to edit. I think it's a drag.

If you are an indie author, you will probably be tempted to skip the professional editing part of publishing. Why? Because it can be expensive and who has $300-$1000 bucks to give out? Right?  And besides, every book you've ever read has errors in it. Yes, I know. Even the big six published books have errors. Yep.

You also are probably thinking that so many people have gone over your manuscript, there is no way there could be many errors. You have a critique group, beta readers, friends who edit and all of them have read your book. You've done your due diligence.

That's what I thought.

From the inception of my book to its publication, it took a little over 4 years. That is a long time for someone who doesn't have a very long attention span....

When I started writing Watched, I knew nothing about writing a novel. That being said, I did win a lot of awards for my writing in college. I should've taken the hint back then. Instead, it took me years of teaching awesome teenagers and a dream to kick my butt in gear. I was top of my class in all my English courses, too.

I did all the right things. I went to writer's conferences, joined a few critique groups and edited my manuscript like crazy. I had a lot of beta-readers read it and took a lot of their advice. I edited and edited.  So many people had looked at my manuscript and heck, I'd looked at a milllion times. How could there possibly be any errors?

Truth be told. I think something happens to an author's eyes when they look at their work for the millionth time. At least for me, I couldn't see anything wrong with it anymore. Maybe it had something to do with being in the middle of writing the sequel...who knows. My eyes could no longer detect any errors. 

 It was ready. Finally. I was ecstatic and impatient.

I set my release date with Barnes and Noble and started spreading the word.

On June 6th, 2011, I gave birth to my baby, right there in Barnes and Noble. I was so proud.

At the end of June, a couple of my cute friends pointed out a few silly punctuation errors. I quickly fixed them for the ebook version and made the changes for the print version. The next printing would be perfect, I told myself. I love my friends.

Then, in August, another awesome friend of mine that has an affinity for English, helped me do an in-depth edit of Watched. 

Wait, you're saying. I thought it was already released. Yep. It was. 1500 strong..and that's just the print books...

She was amazing. You will not believe how many errors she found in my perfectly critiqued and edited book. Yikes. She found missing quotations, missing commas, missspellings, words that should have been capitalized, incorrect punctuation and other general awkwardness.

Don't let this happen with your book.

After several plot/content edits, when you think your book is perfect, have someone line edit it. Make the changes and have someone else line edit it, just to be safe.(I guess twice is over-kill if you hire a professional...)

What was I thinking? I wasn't.

So, my book has been out now for three months and I finally have a polished book. I can't tell you how good that feels. Don't leave it to chance. Do it right the first time. Then you won't be like me, wishing you could give all 1500 of those people a new polished book.

Maybe when I'm rich and famous.  :)

HAPPY EDITING

Indie Publishing Secret #12- Revisiting the Cover

Indie Secret #12-Your Cover....
Go check out Why Not? Because I Said So TODAY! 

And write a review of Watched in the comment section of my blog to be entered to win a $10 Amazon gift card. Yahoo!


I've had a lot of emails asking about Createspace's cover designer. I thought I'd go into a bit more detail.

1. Not all templates allow you to upload your own photo. If it doesn't give you the option to upload your own-then you can't use that one with your own design/picture. It will only the allow the background you see on the template. Only a few are like this.
2. One template is made for you to put your professionally done cover in. When you click on it, it lets you know it is that one
3. When you choose a template, you can use your picture or choose one from their gallery if you'd like.
4. You can not change the placement of the title, author name, author picture, and back blurb because it is a template. However, you can unclick "visible" for several of these and not have to worry about them. For example, I put my picture on the last page of my book instead of the back cover by unclicking the "visible" box. You could unclick the visible for the back blurb-but I don't suggest that. You want that.
5. If your picture doesn't work just right-you can edit it with free software like Picasa or use Photoshop or some other editing software to make it work. Just edit and reload until you get it right. 
6. The most important thing about your cover picture is that you remember the picture has to be high resolution. If it isn't it will send you a message telling you it may be blurry when they print your cover. Make sure you heed that warning-even if you love how it looks on the screen.
7. The spine does not show until you submit your cover. You submit by pushing the submit button at the bottom of the screen. This does NOT lock you into that cover. It only creates the entire cover for you. It takes a few minutes-but you could change it however many times you want. Just re-submit when you think you have it how you want it. 
8. Keep in mind as you look at the picture without the spine, that the ISBN is on the back of the book. So, check out it's placement to kinda know where everything is on the page. If it's too hard to understand that concept, simply press submit and get the whole view. No harm, no foul. You can do that as many times as you like.
9. Also, remember, you need to add your price on the back of the book somewhere. I used Photoshop. You can do it for free in Picasa or use a different edititing program. You can't, however, use Word. If you do, you end up with a Word document and you can't upload those for your cover.

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.


Happy Covering!! And get to reviewing my book, Watched, so you can win the $10 Amazon gift card. Just put your review in the comments of either of my blogs to enter.