Every writer needs a good editor, whether it’s another person or an internal editor who can adequately judge, cut, and rewrite sentences. Yes, an editor will check for grammar and punctuation problems, but a good editor will also trim down text to make it shorter and more readable. Authors, however, who want to be good writers, should not depend solely on an editor; they should also strive to hone their own writing skills and create the most effective and to-the-point sentences possible. Revision is all important because it’s the process through which wordiness can be changed into effective communication.

When writing a first draft, the important thing is simply to get everything you want to say down on the page, no matter how badly written it might end up being. But once that first draft is written, revision is required. A good author will realize that revision includes cutting, trimming, and manicuring the sentences so they are as neat and precise as possible. Just like a gardener, a writer realizes it is not enough to have a bunch of words (flowers), but that those words need to be neat and orderly and not so profuse that the meaning (the best flowers in the garden) are not noticed amid a bunch of words (weeds). Every word should count and extraneous words should be deleted.

Whether you are writing a paragraph, an article, a short story, or a novel, a good rule of thumb is to aim to cut down 10 percent from the first to the second draft. If you write a novel of 80,000 words with your rough draft, your revision may well end up being 72,000 words after you trim down every little word and phrase you don’t need. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider the need to develop your writing and add details or examples to back up your points, but you should also look to eliminate wordy phrases and places where you tend to repeat yourself.

I have many friends who have taught writing over the years, and I’ve heard their war stories about the writing mistakes their students make. One difficulty students usually have is to fill the space required to write a four-page essay or whatever the teacher assigns them. And when the students do fill that space, they often do so with extraneous words that say nothing. I have often thought an effective way to teach writing would be to have a student assigned to write a 2,000 word essay and then actually count the words and make the student adhere exactly to that word count—not 1,967 words, not 2,038, but exactly 2,000 words. The student would then revise until every word counted.

In the movie “A River Runs Through It” there’s a great scene where the father teaches his son how to write. The son brings his essay to his father, and the father crosses out passages and then tells him to redo it—and make it half as long. Learning how to say something in 2,000 words and then to say the same thing in 1,000 words, or even 50 words is something authors must constantly do when writing and talking about their books. Such practices are effective exercises. Whatever piece of writing you are working on, I challenge you to cut it by 10 percent, and then 50 percent, to see whether you can hone down its language to the most necessary words.

Following are some words and phrases I frequently see overused or that are completely unnecessary. I’ll also give you a couple of examples of big words that can be replaced with smaller ones. Just as two or three words can be replaced with one, it’s equally important to take the three syllable word and replace it with the one syllable word whenever possible.

I Remember

I often see sentences that begin with phrases like:

I remember one time when I was in sixth grade….

If you lived the experience you are telling us about, it’s obvious that you remember it. It’s implied that it’s one of your memories. It’s sufficient just to say:

When I was in sixth grade….

One Time a Friend of Mine

You’ll notice in the rewrite above that I also deleted “one time.” Let’s look at another sentence using that phrase:

One time a friend of mine taught me how to fish.

It’s perfectly fine just to say:

A friend taught me how to fish.

Notice also that I changed “a friend of mine” to “a friend.” Unless the person is someone else’s friend, like “my grandpa’s friend” or “Joe’s friend,” it’s implied that the person is your friend.

The Fact

Use of “the fact” is hardly ever necessary. For example, you could easily eliminate it in the following sentence:

I cannot change the fact that he does not like me.

Often, “the fact” is part of “due to the fact that” which is even more unnecessary. A good substitute for this wordy phrase is “because.” Why use five words where one will do? Here’s an example:

She put on suntan lotion due to the fact that it was a hot and sunny day.

She put on suntan lotion because it was a hot and sunny day.

Here’s another:

Janet called to complain due to the fact that her billing was in complete disarray.

What a mess of a sentence! Why not just say:

Janet called because her billing is a mess.

There Are

Whenever possible, it’s advisable to avoid starting sentences with “There are.” Here’s an example and its rewrite:

There are some researchers who believe that some cats don’t like to eat mice.

Some researchers believe cats don’t like to eat mice.

The sentence’s real subject is “researchers” and “believe” is the verb so put them at the beginning of the sentence where they belong so the sentence is stronger.

Here’s another example:

There are many reasons why you should visit the doctor regularly.

Many reasons exist for why you should visit the doctor regularly.

The original sentence isn’t that bad, but “exist” as the verb allows the sentence’s subject to be at the sentence’s beginning where it rightfully belongs.

In Life (and other obvious places)

Here are some “in” phrases that really irritate me:

• In life
• In the world
• In the world today
• In today’s society

Unless you’re writing about “in death,” it’s implied you’re talking about life. Unless you’re talking about what happens on other planets, it’s implied it’s in the world, and unless you’re comparing the present to the past, it’s implied it’s today. Here are a few examples of when these phrases are used and how to reword them:

• In life, we must always strive to do our best. Obviously, we strive in life since we can’t strive in death, so just delete “In life” completely.
• In the world today, our natural resources are becoming depleted. In this case, you can just say “Today, our natural resources are becoming depleted.” Or better, “Our natural resources are being depleted.”
• In today’s society, girls are not afraid to show their belly-buttons. Again, here “Today” may be all you need at the beginning of the sentence, or you could say, “Girls are no longer afraid to show their belly-buttons.” The “no longer” implies that the present is different than the past.

Big vs. Small Words

Never use a big word where a small word will do. People who tend to use big words usually do so because they are trying to impress someone, and big words used to impress are often misused by people who don’t really know how to use them anyway. Even when using such words properly, trying to impress someone should never take the place of communicating with that person. Here’s a perfect example. I once went to a conference where the speaker presented a paper about a classic novel, and the speaker kept going on and on about the main character’s interior perceptions versus her exterior perceptions. What the speaker was really talking about was the difference between what the character saw and how she felt. A lot less impressive sounding, but a lot easier to understand.

I’m not the first person to complain about the word “utilize” or “utilization.” I have yet to find a time when “use” and “usage” don’t work just as well. Just as you should aim to shorten two or three words down to one that means the same thing, so you should aim to use a one syllable word rather than a three syllable one.

Writing dialogue tags are another perfect example. If an author writes effective dialogue, readers do not need to be told how the words were said with a tag like “Joe expressed adamantly.” The words Joe says should be enough to show that they were said adamantly. It is sufficient after what Joe says, simply to say, “Joe said.” If you use any words other than “said, replied, asked” for a dialogue tag, you’re being wordy. There’s no need for “questioned, queried, wondered, responded, retaliated, reiterated, exclaimed, suggested, proclaimed, declared, chortled, snorted” etc. Stick with “said” and rewrite what was said so Joe’s meaning is there in the tone of how he says the words.

Finding the right word takes skill, but every word counts. Find the words that make the point as quickly as possible before you lose the reader in a flood of unnecessary words that fail to communicate. Big words and wordiness are the bane of communication and they don’t impress anyone.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

You were an English major in college. You’ve read lots of books, and you know good writing from bad. You get rankled when you find typos in books, and you are certain you could do a better job of editing and proofreading than most people out there. You know what a split infinitive is; you understand the conditional tense, and you would never, ever, under any circumstances allow a pronoun not to agree with a subject in a sentence. In short, you believe you have all the skills necessary to be a phenomenal book editor.

You may well have all the technical skills required, but knowledge of grammar and punctuation is not sufficient if you want to be a good editor. Emotional intelligence and true dedication are required if an editor is to succeed. Over the years, I’ve heard some true horror stories from authors about editors they’ve worked with, and also from editors about authors. Most of these boil down to not the editor’s skills or ability to do his or her job, but to personality conflicts. Following are some tips for editors to help them have good relationships with their author clients.

Giving Price Quotes and Editing Samples

A good editor will know how much to charge, not by setting one price for all books, or inflating prices, but simply by looking over the manuscript, editing a few pages, and basing an estimate on how much time it will take to edit the book. An editor may edit 1,000 words of a manuscript, discover it took fifteen minutes to do, and then figure he can do 4,000 words an hour, so for a 60,000 word manuscript, it will take approximately fifteen hours to edit. A price can then be derived based upon what the editor wants to charge per hour and whether a second or third edit, which will take less time than the first, will also be required.

A good editor will give a price quote, say $1,000 for editing a specific manuscript, and then stick to that price. Occasionally, the editor might find the book is not as much work as was expected, but after some practice, editors will usually be able to do a pretty accurate estimate. If the editor ends up putting in a few hours more than was estimated, a good editor will also stick to the price quoted rather than alarming the author by asking for more money midway through. Authors don’t want to pay by the hour because they become frightened by what the price will end up being, and they also want to know ahead of time so they can budget. A good editor will calm those fears by sticking to his word (the estimate).

An editing sample, besides setting a price, also allows an author to have a sample of the editor’s work so he can see what kinds of changes the editor will make to the manuscript so it is clear what kind of work will be done. The editing sample ensures that the author is not surprised later by what was or wasn’t done to the manuscript by the editor.

A good editor will be upfront with the author at the start about the price and what the expectations for the manuscript will be.

Badmouthing Other Editors

I know many editors who have taken over working on a book from another editor. Several unqualified editors are out there—people who set up shop with or without an English degree, and who have no previous writing or editing experience. Too often, these editors not only are not qualified to edit a book, but they don’t have the dedication required.

Editing consists of many silent hours of sitting and working with the text at hand. It requires good organization skills, determination, and quite a bit of stamina. Sadly, not every would-be editor is up to the task.

It’s always a good idea for an author to have a separate editor and proofreader. Unfortunately, the proofreader who receives a book edited by one of these unqualified editors ends up having to fix a lot of problems like subject-pronoun errors that were really the editor’s job. In these cases, I’ve known proofreaders or second-editors who badmouth the first editor. Such behavior is unprofessional and unnecessary. The proofreader or second editor’s job is to make the manuscript as error free as possible, regardless of what the previous editor did. If need be, charge more for the work, but rather than badmouth someone else, let your work speak for itself. Send the author back the manuscript with the corrections and let him see for himself what you changed and why.

I have known editors who have gotten into name calling wars with one another and trapped the author in the middle. I’ve also known editors and proofreaders who behave professionally by never saying a bad word about the previous editor; instead, they simply fixed up the manuscript. The author will notice the improvements, and next time will go to the second editor first while not using the first editor again. I’ve known this situation to happen repeatedly, and the professional editor only benefits by exhibiting professionalism in such cases.

In short, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” is a good rule to follow when it comes to an editor or proofreader looking at another editor’s work.

Having a Positive Attitude

However, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all” does not apply when it comes to communicating with the author about his own work. A good editor not only will fix errors, but especially in issues of content and development, explain to the author where the book is lacking, not to complain or judge, but with the intent to help the author improve the book.

The most important skill for an editor to have, short of a good command of the English language, is a positive attitude. Editing can be laborious, and at times frustrating work, but an editor need not take his or her frustrations out on the author. Granted, the author might be lazy or a bad writer, but that is why he hired you. If everyone were as skilled a writer as you are, no one would need an editor and you’d be out of work. Be grateful and do the job you were hired to do.

I have known editors who write snide comments in the manuscript, and worse, get so frustrated they quit halfway through editing the book. There may be cases where an author does not have the ability to improve, and even the best editor can only do so much, but a good editor will be willing to do a little more to create a readable and passable book. Taking out your frustration on the author, even if for his or her faults, serves no one.

Rewriting and Ghostwriting

A good editor is also a writing coach. No two clients are the same, and the editor needs to realize that and show some emotional intelligence about how best to help the author and to analyze the author’s skills and personality. Some editors may be able to coach an author through improving the book. Other editors might end up just doing some ghost writing of paragraphs, transitional sentences, or in extreme cases, even entire chapters, for the author. As long as you factor such work into the project upfront, the editor can help improve the book immensely by offering the skills the author does not have.

While authors who want to be writers may be willing to make changes and be more sensitive about changes an editor makes, many people just want to write books to promote an idea or to help their careers; they may not have the skills or the time to devote to rewriting and developing a book. In those cases, the editor may need to do some rewriting or ghostwriting for the author. While at times, such work can be frustrating for an editor, if the editor took a good look at the manuscript in the beginning, he will have factored in some time for such work into his price quote. Beyond that, it’s best to remember that “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well” is a good policy to have when an editor. An editor’s name is usually printed on the book cover, jacket, or copyright page, so an editor wants the book to be a good advertisement for his services; a little extra time and effort where needed can pay off in the end with future clients.

Communicating and Meeting Deadlines

I’ve heard many horror stories from authors who send their manuscripts to an editor, then do not hear from the editor for weeks, and the editor doesn’t return phone calls or emails. Of course, extenuating circumstances can occur. The editor’s mother may unexpectedly die and the editor has to have a week or two off to cope with the funeral and other family issues. But in such cases, the editor should still be responsible enough to call the author or send an email explaining the situation.

A good editor will communicate with the author throughout the editing process. Even just a friendly email every few days to say, “I’m up to chapter four,” or “Things are going well and I should be done next Thursday” is sufficient. Most editors are also bound to have questions for the author as they work through the manuscript. Besides clarifying things, such questions provide the author a sense that the editor is not only working on the book, but cares about the work and is interested in improving it. Communicating with the author is key to keeping a good relationship with the author and producing a quality book.

If You Want to Be an Editor….

If you want to be an editor, I hope I’ve offered some important things for you to think about. Be honest and upfront with your pricing, go the extra step to help the author, keep a positive attitude, and keep communication open. Then you’ll have all the skills, beyond the basics of fixing grammar and punctuation, to make you not only a superb editor, but a successful business person whose skills will be in high demand.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

There is nothing wrong with unpolished writing, but there is no excuse for not having it cleaned up by an editor. Hire a wordsmith, a grammarian, a picky English pro. Look for them in the Yellow Pages under “writing”. Ask for them in places where people work with words: check writing clubs, local colleges and ask at photocopy shops (or see the sidebar in this article). Interview several editors and get referrals from satisfied customers.

The editor returned the manuscript and the pages were filled with red marks. Attached was an apologetic note saying, “I am sorry for the mess but I thought you would want to know about the errors.” The author called the editor and thanked her. “I would much rather that you find the mistakes now than have my readers find them later.”

I trust my editors. To save time, I send the file attached to email rather than the manuscript on paper. That way I do not have to enter the corrections to the manuscript. The editor edits and corrects at the same time.

Each book presents a different challenge. Some require punctuation corrections while others demand a rewrite. According to Brenner Information Group, editors average sixty-one hours of work per book. Yes, editing is a rewording activity.

Your book is a member of your family. You want the very best for it. Give it a checkup and dress it well so you can be a proud parent.

Dan Poynter, the Voice of Self-Publishing, has written more than 100 books since 1969 including Writing Nonfiction and The Self-Publishing Manual. Dan is a past vice-president of the Publishers Marketing Association. For more help on book publishing and promoting, see http://ParaPub.com.

Where do you find a good editor? Many self-published authors have made the mistake of hiring a subsidy or print-on-demand publishing company to edit their books, or even a freelance editor, only to find out after the book was published that professional editing was not done and even that changes requested were not made. While many good editors are out there, and POD companies may have good editors working for them, just because a company claims it has good editing services does not mean a quality editor will be assigned to your book.

Trust me. I learned this the hard way. When my book “The Sitting Swing” was first published, I paid a subsidy press to do the editing, and then after I was told the editing was done, the book was published. Not long after, as my book started to gain attention, I was contacted by a major newspaper reviewer who told me she would have written a story about my book for her newspaper but she couldn’t because she found major editing issues. Consequently, I halted sales of my book. Later after I found a traditional publisher and an editor I could trust to do a professional job, I released a revised edition of “The Sitting Swing.”

I don’t base this article simply on one example. Recently another author contacted me who told me:

I have had two unhappy experiences with the same publisher (POD). I realize that there is no recourse according to my contract, and obviously, the first was less distressing than the second….In my case, not only were two sets of galleys not properly corrected (I wasn’t given a final approval, but I had to have faith that the second set would have the corrections made before printing), but the printer left out whole blocks of type. The result..[my book] offered for sale at $17.95 isn’t worth $5! It’s humiliating.

I could provide many more examples, but it’s sufficient to say if you do decide to hire a subsidy or POD publisher, be sure you have a contract that will cover all your bases. Because most of these publishers work within a “cookie cutter” one-size fits all mindset, they probably will not agree to special stipulations within their contracts, but be sure to ask anyway and move on if they will not.

Here are a few stipulations to make sure are included in your contract:

1. Have a sample edit done. Before you agree to let the company, or any editor for that matter, edit your book, ask to have an editing sample done. Submit a few pages and ask to have them edited and a quote provided for the editing. This way you will know up front what the editing will cost, and you will be able to see what kind of editing will be done. If you’re not happy with the editing, request a different editor and another sample done, or look elsewhere. And don’t be afraid to ask other people’s opinions about the editor. It doesn’t even hurt to have two or three different editors do sample edits for you. Interviewing your prospective editors will not hurt at all.
2. Review the editor’s work. I don’t mean spot-checking. After the editing is done, sit down and read through your entire book slowly. If the editor returns the manuscript with the track changes on it, it may take you a while to go through it, but you will also see what was done and be able to change or approve it as you see fit. Remember, it’s your book, not the editor’s, so be sure you get the final say on changes made. That said, be careful with any changes you make yourself—too often authors make last minute changes which are grammatically incorrect or contain typos and punctuation errors.
3. Retain the right to make changes. You, not the editor, should submit the final manuscript to the printer to ensure that the edited version you approve is used. Once the book is then laid out, you will be sent the proofs. Most subsidy and POD companies, as well as most independent book design and printing companies, will charge you for excessive changes at this point—primarily so you don’t rewrite sentences, but fixing typographical errors are perfectly permissible at this stage. Read over your proofs and request any changes be made. Even if you are only allowed something like fifty corrections, do not let this deter you from correcting errors. Often errors found are not your fault but the book layout people’s error, such as not italicizing something, a title omitted, a paragraph accidentally cut, a special quote not indented or centered. Make sure these errors are corrected and you are not charged for any that were caused during the book design and layout process.
4. Double-check all changes. Once you send in the corrections for the proofs, make sure you are sent back another proof so you can see the corrections were made. Double-check each correction closely. The author I quoted above had problems because these changes were not made. Perhaps it was an honest mistake and the wrong file was sent to the printer, but in any case, the author should have had the right to make sure the changes were corrected.
5. Double-check the first printed copy. A good printer will send you a single printed book to ensure you are happy with it before a larger print run is made. Most POD companies, however, do not send a sample copy. Insist they do so or go elsewhere. A pdf of a book cover is well and good but when you see the printed cover, the colors may be lighter or darker than you want. The book itself must also be put together properly. Make sure you go through the book to ensure every page is there and all the pages are inserted properly—not upside down. The last thing you want is people to come back to you later complaining that their book is missing or has defective pages. Believe me—many an author has gone through a nightmare situation when books have been shipped that contain flaws.

These simple steps can save you from a lot of trouble, frustration, and heartache down the road because a publisher, editor, or printer failed to live up to his or her promises. Always get a contract and make sure any foreseeable problems are covered in it. If a publisher, editor, or printer does not want to work with a contract, find another. Similarly, if the person or company is unwilling to alter the contract to allow you to have final say over all steps of the editing, layout, and printing process, look elsewhere.

Remember, this book is your book. It has your name on it for the rest of its life. If it’s your first book, the process of publishing can be overwhelming, but don’t let that stop you from being assertive and making absolutely certain your book will be the best product possible. Once you find a publisher, editor, and printer you can trust, you’ll be ready to publish your future books.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

1. Read it aloud. Reading written text aloud exposes missing words, punctuation and awkward syntax. It also gives the proofreader an opportunity to discover gaps in logic and structure. Your ear will catch mistakes that your eyes missed. If you are proofreading a particularly lengthy piece, consider reading the final sections first, as this is where most mistakes will occur.
2. Do not do it all at once. Proofread multiple times for specific issues. Go through once for punctuation, once for spelling, etc. This improves focus and the likelihood that errors will be caught. Make a list of common error trends and proofread for each one singularly. It is also important not to force the process all at once. If you are proofreading your own work, it is a good idea to put time between when you completed the work and when you begin to proofread it. If you are proofreading someone else’s work, it is still beneficial to put it down for some time and recharge your brain.
3. Read it backwards. Reading from the last sentence to the first enables the brain to focus on individual words instead of the flow of a piece. Often when reading from beginning to end, proofreaders fill in missing bits without realizing it. Print the document and read it with a screen to help you focus on the individual sentence you are proofreading.
4. Watch out. Check homonyms, apostrophes and contractions carefully. Mistakes of these types can harm the overall impact of the text, so you may wish to proofread for each category separately. Be sure to proofread footnotes, endnotes and any other text that varies from the standard print, especially italicized words.
5. Check the numbers. It is important to go through and check that all of the numbers contained in the work are in fact the figures you meant to use. Also check that page numbers are correct and that the numbering of any lists contained in the work is correct. For example, if an author states that they will address five issues in a chapter, be sure that there are five issues contained in the chapter.

Randall Davidson is a co-founder of ProofreadingServices.Us, an innovative San Francisco-based proofreading service. Randall’s commitment to helping both individuals and businesses present themselves in a professional, accurate and articulate manner led him to create his successful proofreading company. Founded with the knowledge that even the brightest individuals often miss glaring mistakes when proofreading their own work, ProofreadingServices.Us provides affordable academic, business and book proofreading services that help writers ensure that their work is flawless.

Absolutely. The message that you want to convey through your book would be distorted, tarnished, or even ruined if readers discover that the text is riddled with errors.

The solution: hire a topnotch copyeditor to polish your words so they sparkle in the sunlight. In the twinkling of a well-trained eye, a skilled editor can zero in on misplaced modifiers, dangling participles, all-too-common mistakes involving its and it’s (and even the nonexistent word its’), to and too, and other hare-raising/hair-raising errors.

A Good Copyeditor’s Skill Set

Making suggestions for more logical placement of paragraphs and sentences? All within a good copyeditor’s purview. Calling attention to inconsistencies of verb tense, mood, and tone? All part of an experienced copyeditor’s arsenal of skills. Noting places to tighten or expand the text or substitute a synonym for an overused word, remarking about a redundancy, questioning the accuracy of a fact, nudging the author to clarify an unclear concept? All in a day’s work for a talented copyeditor.

Skilled editors say that mistakes “leap off the page” at them. And potential readers will “leap off the couch” to convey their enthusiasm for your book, which so obviously has been carefully copyedited, to other readers.

Unintended Consequences of Unedited Copy
Unedited words can result in dire, although sometimes amusing, consequences:

• A misheard cliche can creep into the copy: “We will stand on the toes of those who have gone before us.”
• One missing lowercase “l” can spell catastrophe: “For Pubic School Educators.”
• One missing zero can lead to a potential lawsuit: The text says $25,000., but should say $250,000.

Making Your Book as Perfect as Possible
Authors can find copyeditors through professional organizations — here in the Bay Area, through BAIPA (Bay Area Independent Publishers Association) and BAEF (Bay Area Editors’ Forum), through consulting and marketing organizations, directories that list editorial professionals, ads in magazines targeted toward writers, and by Googling “copyeditor.”

Hiring a good copyeditor to make your book’s content shipshape is a great investment in its eventual success. The message that you’ve workod on for so long will be conveyed beautifully to your readers — and that’s not editorial spin!

Linda Jay Geldens is a true publishing professional who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the past two years, she has copyedited more than 60 book manuscripts. Genres: business, novels, memoirs, spirituality, academic topics, science fiction. She is also a promotional writer of profiles, feature stories, Web site text, and blog posts. LindaJay@aol.com , www.LindaJayGeldens.com

I’m talking about editing at the same time you’re writing. If you try to edit while you’re doing your first rough draft of any article, white paper, or book, you’re going to slow down the whole process to a snail’s pace. Writing and editing are a completely separate process, and you have to treat them as such.

When you sit down to write, you must write. Don’t worry about being perfect. Don’t worry about making mistakes. Just do it. Write. You’ll do your editing later in the process. You might end up cutting out several paragraphs from the beginning of your writing when you get to editing. It doesn’t matter. In fact, when I’m training people on doing copywriting, it’s normal for us to cut out the first few paragraphs or even their whole first page. It’s almost as if they’re going through a warm-up process in getting started.

So sit down and write. That’s the key. Don’t go back and edit. Don’t sit there and contemplate what you’ll say next. The more you can just write or type your thoughts out as they come to you, the easier the whole project will be. Don’t allow yourself to rethink what you wrote at this point. Don’t stop to go back and make changes yet. Just write it until it’s finished.

Once you’re finished, now you can take a break from it for a while. Give yourself some time off. Relax and do something else to occupy your mind. My best ideas have almost always come to me while i was doing something other than working (playing a game, seeing a movie, taking a shower, etc.).

Have you ever experienced a conversation with someone where you don’t seem to get your point across? Of course you have. In most cases the perfect words come to you later on that day and you just wish you had said such-and-such. Writing is your opportunity to do this. You write as if you’re in a private conversation with someone. Then you take a break from writing and your subconcious gets to work on the project. Now you get the opportunity to go back in and reword your piece. You can’t take back words that come out of your mouth, but you can sure edit your writing before it’s published.

The best results occur for me when I take a day between the writing and the editing process. When I come back to my article I’m refreshed and often have a new perspective on it. It’s easy to go through and make the first several changes from things that came to mind in the past day. I then read it outloud. Someone else reads it outloud to me. Anywhere that it just doesn’t sound right is modified and edited. In a future postings, I’ll explain more about the overall editing process.

The one key principle here is that you must separate writing from editing. It’s that tendency in us to perfect something that holds you back in writing. It’s also the fear of making a mistake. What if you don’t write it correctly? What if it doesn’t sound right? Public speaking is the number one fear of the average person. They’re afraid they may appear foolish in front of an audience. This same fear invades our writing at times.

The simple solution to it is to tell yourself you will edit it before it goes out. What you write today is not what will be published. It is called a rough draft because it’s rough and needs some polishing. You have to get over your fear and get started. Just do it and edit it later.

Terry Dean helps business owners Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life. Receive his Special report, “10 Key Strategies for Any Business Owner to Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life” along with “Live the Internet Lifestyle…Retire Young and Wealthy” here: http://www.theterrydean.com

Proofreading is not simple or easy. Nor should it be done quickly. Proofreading should be ongoing throughout the entire book process. “I’ll fix that later” is unadvisable when it comes to errors because you may not catch them later. Starting with editing the initial draft and until approving the page proofs—exactly why they are called proofs—proofreading is an integral step in producing a quality book or shorter piece of writing.

While authors must always take responsibility for their own work, hiring a good proofreader is essential because as authors, we know what we have written or intended to write; because the words are in our minds, we may not pay attention to what is actually on the page; we think we know what we put upon the page. Consequently, a close proofread needs to be done, and even after hiring a proofreader, an author should do his or her own proofread of the final book.

Here are some simple tips for making the proofreading process more effective—note I did not say easier or quicker because easy and quick only result in missing errors.

Paper vs. Screen

In the days before computers, everything was proofread on paper. You pulled the piece of paper out of the typewriter, got out your red pen, and went to work. Today, editing is much easier on a computer screen—no more pesky white-out and trying to realign the page with the typewriter keys to retype a word and not have it a half line above the rest of the sentence—if you don’t know what I’m talking about, trust me, you’re lucky to be too young to remember.

Because word processing has made revision much easier, editing is best done on the computer rather than on paper, but proofreading on paper still has a number of loyal followers. I honestly don’t think it matters whether you proofread on paper or on the computer except for the final printing when you want to make sure the book (provided it is printed on paper and not an e-book) is laid out properly on the page and the mechanical and computer process of printing or laying out the pages did not mess something up in the process.

Advantages exist for paper proofreading if your eyes cannot handle the strain of a computer screen for an extended period of time. On paper, individual letters look sharper as do punctuation marks. Even so, your corrections later must be transferred to the computer, so proofreading on paper is more time-consuming.

Proofreading on screen is what I personally prefer so here are a few simple steps to make that process effective:

1. Font. Please, leave the fancy fonts to the book layout people. There is no reason for a manuscript to be written in different fonts or font sizes. Choose only one easy to read font and size—Times New Roman 12 is standard. Fancier fonts tend to blur letters together or have scripts where some letters are almost beyond recognition. Fancy fonts are sure to give you typo problems simply because they are hard to read.
2. Use the magnifying glass. Perhaps not literally, unless you’re proofreading on paper, but instead of reading the manuscript at 100% view, increase it so it fills the screen—150 or 200% is advisable. Of course, you don’t want it so large you have to scroll back and forth, but the larger the print on the screen, the easier on your eyes and the more likely you’ll spot the typos.
3. Turn on the Invisibles. Invisibles are all the spaces you can’t see on the page. Every time you hit the space bar, which is between every word, your computer program will leave a little dot between the words. It will make a little paragraph symbol when you hit “return” to start a new paragraph. The invisibles can make a world of difference. I’ve seen printed books where one paragraph looks like two because no one caught the invisible paragraph break accidentally inserted. People are especially notorious for hitting the space bar after periods multiple times when it should only be hit once. Reading with the invisibles turned on will cure you of the habit, and it will make layout easier and less likely to have issues. Depending on your computer program, invisibles might also be called “hidden text” or “non-print characters.” Go to your word processing program’s “Help” and do a search for these terms to find instructions for turning on the invisible characters. Seeing invisibles on the screen takes some getting used to, but without them, what you can’t see can hurt you.

Read Slowly and Multiple Times

Nothing in proofreading is more important than simply reading slowly. Yes, it can be a tad boring, but an error-free manuscript is worth it. Here are useful tips to help you adjust.

1. Read Out Loud. I recommend reading out loud during the editing as well—you will be surprised by how you can improve tone and style simply by reading your manuscript out loud—you will catch nuances of rhythm you would not have caught earlier just by listening to yourself. I also believe your brain is forced to concentrate more closely on the page when you read out loud, which means you are more likely to catch errors.
2. Read backwards. No mirrors required. Don’t switch to reading left to right. Instead, start at the bottom of the page and read each line or sentence forward. That way, you won’t get lulled into the rhythm of the sentences and instead will be forced to see what is on every individual line. This process is time-consuming so you probably won’t stick with it for long, but it is good because it teaches beginning proofreaders to slow down and pay attention.
3. Look at every word and every letter. Paying close attention to each word and letter is vitally important. Many authors rely too much on spell-check. Spell-check will not catch words that are correctly spelled but in the wrong place. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen the words in the left column below substituted for words in the right column:

   Brain                Brian (I don’t know many people named Brain)

   Lightening         Lightning (there is a difference)

   Dairy                Diary

   Mediate            Meditate

   When proofreading, words with more than one vowel, two of the same letter together such as “occurrence” and “titillate,” or five or more letters really need to have each letter analyzed. As we become adept readers, the brain’s memory quickly recognizes a word simply by glancing at a few of the letters, the result being that we may not see a wrong letter in a word. For exmpl, yu cn prbaby undrstnd th meang of ths sntce evn thogh its misplld.

Finally, always get a second opinion. Proofread your work. Then give it to someone else to proofread. Don’t expect the other person to make it perfect and then consider the job done. Look at the mistakes the other person finds and learn from them. If you find you are making a recurring mistake, such as typing “dairy” for “diary,” you’ll learn to break yourself of the habit and watch for it more closely next time you do your own proofreading.

Proofreading, just like anything, requires practice. The more time you dedicate to it, the better you will be. You may never get into the Proofreading Hall of Fame, but at least, no one will think you can’t spell or write.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

Recently, I heard an author defend her self-published book, after a reviewer complained about its grammatical errors, by saying, “I didn’t write the book to pass the standards of an English professor.” That has to be one of the most ignorant, uninformed things I’ve ever heard an author say. Believe it or not, ninety-nine percent of readers have the same standards as English professors, and while they may not know every rule of grammar perfectly, when readers find a mistake, they take great delight in laughing over it, pointing it out to friends, and even telling the author.

Sadly, many self-published authors have learned the hard way that they should have gotten their books edited. Even harder is when an author pays to have a book edited, only to find out the editor did a sloppy job and had no business pretending to be an editor.

How can you be certain the editor you hire knows what he or she is doing? If you’re an author who doesn’t know perfect grammar yourself, this question can be daunting. Before you hire an editor, ask that he or she edit a couple of pages of your manuscript as a sample so you can see what the editor thinks needs to be done. Make sure you look over the editor’s corrections carefully. If you’re up to it, purposely put a few mistakes in your sample edit to see whether the editor catches them. Below are three common problems I often hear readers, publishers, and book reviewers complain about seeing in books. Plant a few of these in your writing sample, and if your proposed editor catches them, you’ll know you found someone truly qualified to edit your book.

SUBJECT/PRONOUN AGREEMENT

The number one problem I see in manuscripts today is the use of “they” to refer to everyone and everything possible. I think authors, not wanting to be sexist, are trying to avoid using solely “he.” They think “he and she” sounds awkward so they use “they” instead. For example:

When you complain to the store manager, they may not want to listen to you.

Store manager is singular but the pronoun that refers to it, “they,” is plural. Your pronoun must agree with your noun (They must both be singular or both be plural). You can correct the sentence in any of the following ways:

When you complain to the store manager, he may not want to listen to you.

When you complain to the store manager, she may not want to listen to you.

When you complain to the store manager, he or she may not want to listen to you.

You can use either “he” or “she” or both, so long as you are consistent. You might want to use “he and she” the first time to acknowledge you are not sexist, but then use “he” after that simply because it sounds be less awkward. The problem with using “he and she” is that it becomes awkward when you have a longer sentence. For example:

When you complain to the store manager, they may not want to listen to you because they do not believe you know what you are talking about while they have twenty years of experience running their store.

If you try not to be sexist here, you’ll end up with a ridiculous sentence that says:

When you complain to the store manager, he or she may not want to listen to you because he or she does not believe you know what you are talking about while he or she has twenty years of experience running his or her store.

Almost always, the best solution will be to make both the noun and pronoun plural. At times, this solution may also sound awkward, but it usually reads better than a lot of “he and she” phrases:

When you complain to store managers, they may not want to listen to you because they do not believe you know what you are talking about while they have many years of experience running their stores.

Notice I also changed “twenty years” to “many years” since different managers will have different numbers of years of experience.

THERE/THEIR/THEY’RE

If your editor gets this one wrong, I would not hire him or her in a million years. Chances are he or she will know which word (there, their, or they’re) to use in which context, but go ahead and throw in a few wrong uses of these words just to test how much attention he or she pays to detail. If you aren’t sure yourself about how to use these words, here are the answers:

1. “There” usually refers to a noun (a person, place, or thing). For example:

There are ten trees over there.

The first “there” refers to the trees, tangible, physical things. The second “there” in “over there” refers to a place.

2. “Their” refers to something that belongs to more than one person.

I gave them back their money.

Money belongs to “them.”

Jared and Susie invited me to their house.

The house belongs to Jared and Susie.

3. “They’re” is a contraction, which means it combines two words “they” and “are” into one word. For example:

The park where they’re going is on the lakeshore.

It could be written as:

The park where they are going is on the lakeshore.

It would not make sense here to say either:

The park where their going is on the lakeshore.

The park where there going is on the lakeshore.

WHETHER and IF

The difference between “whether” and “if” is overlooked by all but the very best editors. If you want to make sure you have an editor who really understands grammar, try writing a few sentences using “if” where you should have “whether.”

“If” should only be used for cause and effect sentences. For example:

If you continue to jump up and down, you will become tired.

Jumping is the cause that leads to the effect or result of being tired.

We commonly misuse “if” in everyday speech, and we all know what is meant by it, but it should not be misused when writing. For example, we might say:

Mother wants to know if you want ice cream.

There is no cause and effect here. If you reversed the sentence, it wouldn’t make sense to say:

If you want ice cream, Mother wants to know.

You can figure out the sense of it, but it is not cause and effect. It might make sense, however, to say:

If you want ice cream, Mother will get angry.

That makes sense, assuming Mother doesn’t like you to have ice cream.

The correct sentence would be:

Mother wants to know whether you want ice cream.

If you like, you might also write:

Mother wants to know whether or not you want ice cream.

However, “or not” is not really necessary—it is implied in the context.

A good way to determine whether you should use “if” or “whether” is to see whether you can flip the sentence around if “if” is in the middle. For example:

I’ll never speak to you again if you hit me.

If you hit me, I’ll never speak to you again.

Both sentences make sense because they imply cause and effect, while it does not make sense to say:

I’ll never speak to you again whether you hit me.

You can easily find other tricky little sentences that a good editor should know how to fix. The bottom line is that you need to have your work edited, and you need to make sure you hire an editor who will do a good job. The last thing you want is to pay someone to do editing when he or she does not do quality work. Do not be afraid to interview a potential editor, ask him to do a sample edit for you, and ask him for references from past clients or for the titles of a few books he has edited so you can look at those books to see whether (not “if”) he did a quality job. If he didn’t do a quality job, look elsewhere. Your book deserves the best edit possible.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

Proofreading doesn’t end with sending the book to the printer. Proofreading the proofs is extremely important to make sure no last minute errors creep in before the final print run.

Once the proofs for your book, both text and cover, arrive, you will have already had your book read and re-read and proofread and hopefully edited and proofread by an editor. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to proofread again. Even if your book was completely flawless after you or your editor sent it to the book layout and cover design people, or even from there to the printer, many mistakes can still happen. At two points before the final books are printed, you will have the opportunity to see your proofs—first, after the layout person has completed his or her work, and again once the printer has prepared a sample copy. Take advantage of both of these proofs to catch any last minute errors, or new errors, that may have crept in.

Proofing the PDFs of the Text and Cover

Before your book is sent to the printer, your book designer will send you PDFs of the cover and text to approve. Look over these very carefully, and if you have an editor, have him or her do the same. I suggest you sit down and carefully read through the entire text to ensure there are no errors.

In the text, look for typographical errors for any additions not in your original manuscript, including title pages, copyright pages, the Table of Contents, headers, and footers. Usually, publishers will print the titles of the chapters in the headers. The layout person had to type these titles so make sure there are no misspellings. Look at all the chapter titles on the pages and make sure they consistently match the Table of Contents in wording and in fonts and being uppercase or lowercase letters.

If you’re reading the entire text, you will also catch any layout issues, but be on the look out for quotations or anything you wanted to have with a special layout, such as being indented or centered, as well as any tables. Make sure tables and photographs correspond with the text where they are discussed, and as much as possible, make sure tables are printed on one page and not across pages, or that situations don’t exist where a reader will need to flip pages back and forth to look at a table or chart. Look also for odd blank parts of pages before and after photographs inserted in the text. Don’t forget to read the photo captions for errors and to make sure the captions are consistent in wording and appearance throughout the book.

A good layout person will have manipulated your text so it will flow around your photographs or illustrations, but in doing so, it’s possible a line or even a paragraph of text can be lost (hidden behind an illustration), so read carefully to make sure nothing is missing. Also watch for a repeating paragraph in places. Trust me, I’ve read enough proofs to see all these errors occur.

Watch for photographs and illustrations that are also too close to the book’s gutter (the inside crease that holds the book together). You don’t want readers to strain their eyes or seriously have to bend back the book to see something in the gutter. You may end up having to move a photograph, which can mean text being moved and needing to be reviewed again for accuracy.

Read over the PDF of the cover multiple times. Besides looking for typos, now is the time to make sure all the necessary information is there—the correct ISBN number on the bar code, the correct price on the book, and the BISAC or genre category on the back cover such as Non-Fiction/History or Mystery/Suspense. Make sure the images are clear. Make sure you like all the colors with the understanding that the blue or other colors you want may be close but not exactly the same as the color you are seeing now because of the difficulty of matching colors.

If you find errors, send a list to the cover designer and layout person with all the errors you want corrected. You should not be charged for mistakes the cover designer or layout person made, but if you find excessive errors that are your fault because you did not proofread closely enough last time, they will probably charge you to correct them, but while that may be a hard lesson to learn, have the corrections made anyway. Mistakes will only hurt your book sales later if word of mouth starts spreading about the mistakes in the book. Insist upon seeing a corrected proof, and then proof it again, and if you find errors again, continue the process until your book is as perfect as possible.

Once you have approved the proofs from the layout person and/or designer, they will be sent to the printer who will then send you hard copy printed proofs.

Approving the Printed Samples

Yes, errors can still happen at this point. The printer will send you a sample of the book, often called a galley, which is usually the bound book as it will appear minus the cover. The cover will be separate and represent how it will appear before being wrapped around the book. Take care of these copies because you will most likely have to return them to the printer.

Look at the cover closely. Even if it was perfect when it was sent to the printer, strange things can happen to the files. A common mistake I’ve seen is that words that are italicized, bolded, or underlined on the PDF template you approved may not have translated to the printing so they may not be correct on the cover. Be sure also that you approve of the image quality and the color. If they are relatively close to what you had hoped, they should be fine, but if the photograph is darker than you expected, or the reds appear orange, you may want to request another copy be made.

Generally, you will have a form to sign to approve the proof, or to approve it with corrections you can then specify on it. But do not hesitate to pick up the phone to talk to the printer or to the layout person coordinating with the printer for you—you want to make sure the corrections you need made are understood and done properly. If necessary, request yet another proof sample. After all, it’s your book and you want it to be perfect.

As for the paper copy of the bound book without the cover, at this point it should be perfect so you should not have to read it through again. However, I recommend you go through and look at each page. Count all the pages to make sure they are there and the page numbers are all chronological—sometimes a signature (an 8 page section) gets left out. Make sure none of the pages are upside down or printed crooked. Such errors are more likely to happen on a small print run of 100 than a larger run of 1,000 because humans generally assemble smaller print runs while a machine will be used to stack and assemble larger runs. Don’t be alarmed if you find an upside down page—it’s human error and probably won’t happen in your actual books, but inform the printer of the error anyway. At this stage, it’s unlikely there will be errors, but it still happens.

When the Printed Books Arrive

Once you have approved everything and a week or so later your printed books arrive, before you take them to the stores, open up a few boxes and randomly look at the books. Flip through them again to make sure all the pages are there, no pages are upside down, there are no repeating wrinkled pages, and that the books are not largely damaged with dented covers etc. Your contract with the printer probably specified a certain degree of error permissible, up to maybe as much as 10 percent. That said, if you find errors, most printers will work with you to replace the copies. If you find that out of a run of 100 books, one book has a dented cover, just accept it—you can sell it as a damaged copy at a discount, but if you find seventeen books with eight upside down pages in the middle, the printer will probably print you another seventeen books and ship them to you free of cost. As for the seventeen flawed copies, you can also sell those at a discount at a book signing—you’d be surprised how many people will buy a damaged book and consider it a deal, provided none of the text is missing.

Hopefully, you won’t experience any of the errors I’ve described in the proofing process, but chances are, at least one will happen. Just do your due diligence, realize it’s all part of the process, maintain a professional tone with the people you hire to produce the book for you, and then remember to celebrate when those books arrive. A good proofreading—or better yet, multiple good proofreadings—will ensure you have a quality product that your readers will enjoy.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.