There are a lot of authors out there who have written their book yet haven't found someone who may help them with the editing process. I will be telling you now the answers to your question, "where can I find self publishing editors?".
Today's topic has three points and you're going to want to stick around because the third point is going to save you some money and time when it comes to getting your books edited.
So let's get into it. Today's question is "where can I find self publishing editors?". This is a question that many authors wonder about. You've written your book and you've heard that you shouldn't just release it onto the market without first getting it edited.
Now, some self-publishers think I can just edit it myself. I will just read the book and try to find the mistakes. The problem is that the reason you have the mistakes and the grammar issues in the first place is because you're not an expert at this.
Secondly, you're going to overlook the common mistakes that you normally make when you're going about the editing process. So you realize you're going to need to find somebody else who can do the editing for your book. And that is what we're going to cover in today's article.
So where to start? Before we get onto that, check out my free Self-Publishing Checklist. It will help you make sure that you are not skipping any of the important steps when it comes to getting your book self-published and selling.
From my own story, when I first got started and put my very first books on the market or was getting ready to, I realized that I also needed to get them edited. But the big question is where exactly do you find the editors?
Check out this related article: Where To Find A Self Publishing Book Expo?
So I hired someone on the website Fiverr who had few reviews. They were positive to do the editing for my very first book. The problem was that the result they gave me was low-quality editing.
They found errors that Word itself would be able to find in the manuscript. So I went back to Fiverr and this was the first point where I discovered the first secret here. It is that you find people who have thousands of reviews, five-star reviews coming to them.
Not just a couple of reviews but an awful lot of reviews. And by taking those people and giving them the task, you find that they're able to do a much higher quality job. In fact, they were doing an amazing job, they saw a huge increase in the quality of the books that I was putting onto the market.
Different Types Of Editors
So, where can I find self-publishing editors? Well, the first thing is I would suggest you go to Fiverr and follow the exact same steps that I used. It involved making sure that the person you're hiring, whether it's for this, for covers, or for any other thing you want them to do for you, have as many reviews as possible.
That will give you the ability to cut out a lot of people who might go at a lower rate but a lower quality thing. One of the things I found on Fiverr that was especially useful was that there were several English teachers. High school English teachers who were there.
They could then go through your book and find all of the issues that you have and would make the corrections directly to them. And that's something I would highly recommend that you do. When you do have them do it, we don't care so much about what types of things they're fixing or suggestions.
We need it so that they actually make the manuscript correct. So make sure you make it clear to them, you want the actual manuscript fixed. Whatever issues they might find, just fix them directly in the manuscript itself.
The second thing is Upwork, it's a little more expensive but you'll find sometimes a higher quality. A higher caliber of an editor to go through your books. The other thing to remember with editors is there are different types of editors.
Some will just be looking for grammar mistakes. Others will look for plot issues that you might have or structural things. There's a whole series of different types of editors that when they go through your book, will help you with different dimensions of the editing process.
To make sure that you get the highest quality book possible. It's a little confusing in the beginning but I would suggest initially just somebody who can read the book, find mistakes, and let you know about them, that can be helpful.
Check out this related article: Should You Consider An Author-Published Book?
Also, you can even go to some of your readers like beta readers. They will then go through your book, be able to find problems with the book, and tell you what you can fix. That can be done even for free. But let's get into the secret answer of the day.
This is our third one and it is that you should use digital tools first. And here comes the set, you're going to use Grammarly which is free. I wouldn't suggest getting the paid version. Libre Writer Grammar Check is the next one I would suggest, that's a free program just like Word.
Then I would use Microsoft Word Grammar Check on your files. Depending on even which language you're doing the files in, you can easily get your books into these things. It will check them and do the grammar check.
Digital Tools To Use
It is amazing, the quality of what it's able to find. The next thing is ProWritingAid, that was one I used earlier on. I don't use it so much today but it's still a recommended tool.
I have a lifetime membership to it but this brings up a sub-point on all of these tools which is that some of the tools can find a thousand errors or a thousand issues in your book. It can take you a huge amount of time to try to fix it.
Like these sentences are too long or the number of words you use. Or the level of English that you're writing in is too advanced. There are all sorts of stuff and you can get bogged down into this process with the digital tools.
So don't do that, just do it at the highest level. Where it's able to find the grammar issues and basic flow issues. Particularly, Grammarly is the best of these tools.
You run it through these tools before you give it to your editor. So by the time it gets to your editor, they're not going to find these small mistakes that you could have already fixed in your books. And this is something a secret that many people are completely unaware of.
I can't tell you how many times I read books that have gone through major editors. Like serious publishers that have made it through with grammar mistakes inside the book. That even some of my basic using computer-aided editing would manage to catch.
So this is something that you're definitely going to want to check out if you're not already doing it. But whatever the case is, the first thing is we want to get your book onto the market. That is probably the most important which is a KDP version, a Kindle Direct Publishing version of your book onto the market.
Regardless of the editing issue, just don't get bogged down in it but get through the editing. We don't want our readers to give us one-star reviews. Because it's so annoying with all of the grammar mistakes that you could have caught if you had run it through these digital tools or hired an editor.
In addition, on one of these websites, Fiverr or Upwork to fix those issues. So why don't you tell me a little bit, have you had success at finding editors? I hope I answered today’s question which, “where can I find self publishing editors?”.
If you have, let me know where you have found your editors below in the comments. That will greatly help me. And check out my other blogs and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.