Are you confused about how should you edit your non-fiction books? Well, check out this article to know about the non-fiction book content editing breakdown that will help you with your self-publishing journey.
Today's topic has three points and you're going to want to stick around. Because the third point is a secret as to why content editing is most powerful for non-fiction writers. So let's get into it.
What we're discussing today is a non-fiction book content editing breakdown. Now you're a brand new writer or author and you've got your very first manuscript finished. And now you're ready to move into the editing phase of this.
But you're wondering if content editing is the type of editing that is right for your book. Therefore you're going to want to stick around because I'm going to tell you in today's topic whether it is or whether it isn't. So let's get into it.
Grab a copy of my absolutely free self-publishing Checklist secrets. To make sure that you're not skipping any of the steps necessary to win at the self-publishing game both in putting your book together and in getting it marketed. So let's move into it from my own story.
My very first books were run through two sets of editors two different editors that I had. Now I did my own personal rounds of editing I used software as well to do the editing. I then sent two additional editors, two particular editors to do the editing.
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And when you're first getting started you don't have thousands of dollars coming in a month from your self-publishing business. You're going to want to do it on the cheap. So I went to Fiverr and I found someone who was two people.
In fact who was able to do it at a reasonable rate and they both were native English speakers. Both were English teachers or former English teachers. Were looking to make a little extra money and they had been doing editing at least with regards to students.
Now I know what many of you are thinking, you're thinking "what is a high school English teacher?". Well, the answer is they're actually able to do quite a bit. You might be imagining that you need seven different editors like in traditional publishing.
Where if you're one of the top authors they're going to just run it through a whole pile of this type of editing. And that type of editing, they go through all of these complexities in order to make sure that your book is absolutely perfect.
And then that way we can maximize the sales and we're going to get into that in a little bit. But I'm telling you these two English teachers did an amazing job for me. But the end result was kind of an interesting one because it ended up giving me a very polished book.
The Ease Of Understanding
But this editing was more detailed editing they were looking for grammatical mistakes. They were looking for errors in terms of "oh look you did two words here" or "sentence order was here". These sorts of things or maybe this exact phrase you're using are a little bit confusing.
And so how can we do it? and this was more like low level but when we're talking about content editing as we're discussing today. We're talking about a little bit higher. Now I was also within the non-fiction but this content editing plays a very key role.
But I found the experience extremely helpful. I began to understand a lot of the things in a book that you need to pay attention to when you're writing your book. But I don't know if it actually increased the overall sales for my book.
And that is a question that would have to address on a different day. Because sometimes when you're trying to do counterfactual and seeing the impact of a specific thing that you did for your book. Whether it increased the sales or not.
It's hard to tell I can say that books that I've published since with a lot less editing have actually done even much better. Because they were targeting very very hungry markets and people are very happy but that's a little bit of the secret as well.
So let's get into it non-fiction book content editing breakdown. So the first thing is content editing is focused on what your readers are going to care most about as a non-fiction author. And that is the ease of understanding and functionality, does that make sense?
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The ease at which people can understand your book and also the functionality. So it's really about meeting the needs of your readers where they are. So we're not so much worried about the details of it or really complex advanced plot structures or something.
But rather when a reader picks up the book are they going to be flowing through. The flow of the book is the book going to answer their questions in a way that it's very easy to understand. And they can pick up the book and use it in a functional way.
These aren't very critical points when we're dealing with editing for our books. The second thing is you need to make sure that your book doesn't have basic grammar mistakes. You can use a number of tools just in terms of that before you even send it to this content editor.
That includes Grammarly, you can find my affiliate link below in the description of all of my YouTube videos. Or libre writer which is free or word, right? maybe the office 365 subscription you've got word on your computer and these are fantastic at finding all sorts of crazy mistakes.
Grammarly Is My Go-To Tool
I particularly would tell you to check out Grammarly. It is my go-to tool and it has amazing features that are built within this particular tool. And that you're definitely not going to want to miss and run your entire book through Grammarly.
This is something that will help you and you'll thank me later. Because a lot of people will complain about the contents of your book if they are not run through it but me personally I use all three. So we are not completed with any editing at all.
The first phase of editing until everyone through at least all three of these tools. Each one finds things when the grammar checks that were not found. On the other ones, it doesn't mean you just click accept everything.
But it makes you consider whether or not what you're doing is the best option for making your book going to be more readable. Getting rid of a lot of grammar mistakes. Now moving on to our secret answer of the day and that is our third point.
This is people want your non-fiction book to help with a problem and content editing is the key here. So that is when they're reading the book. The absolute most important thing is how easy is it for them to extract the information that you're presenting in your book?
In a way that is very easy for them to consume and then they're going to apply it. So if it's puppy training they don't want you rambling about this or that. They want you to get right on into it, you can use stories and things like that to pull them into it.
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But don't spend too much time on just this one point. Or this other point rather needs to flow and this is something that these copy editors are going to help you with. It's not so much of a science per se. It has a lot to do with the editor themselves and what they can do.
But this is something you're not going to want to skip when it comes to your non-fiction books. The final question I have for you is have you ever hired a content editor? If you have I want to know about it.
And if you've never done it, tell me that as well just write "no" below in the comments. I have a better idea of where you're coming from and can produce content that would help you in the future. Check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.