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The editing process: what to expect and how to best prepare.

The editing process: what to expect and how to best prepare.

There are some things that you can do to prepare yourself and your book for editing that will help the process go smoothly and leave both you and your editor happy.

Know that editors are on your side

It’s a common misconception that editors are red pen-wielding fiends who want to tear your manuscript apart, but this is not the case. Editors want the best for your book and you as an author; their job is to ensure your content makes sense and is conveyed in the most comprehensible way to your intended readership. Go into editing with an open mind and listen to the suggestions of your editor when their work is complete.

The costs of editing

Editing is not always a cheap service, and some authors can be caught off-guard by the size of their quote. Editors cost their projects either per word or per hour, which can make larger projects costly for an author; even if your manuscript is better put-together than another project with half your word count, you may still end up paying just as much or more.

A way to help bring down costs is to make sure that everything in your book is integral to your story. Does your book need to be as big as it is or talk about something for as long as it does? This is something that can be addressed with my next point:

Draft your work, then draft again

It’s often said that writing is rewriting, and this is very true. An integral part of writing a book is revising your manuscript multiple times to ensure that every chapter, paragraph, sentence, and word is as close to the best that you can make it and is working for your story, not against it. This will help to make the editing process run smoothly and, as mentioned, bring the overall cost down.

Check out our other post for tips on how to successfully draft your manuscript: https://greenhillpublishing.com.au/three-tips-for-drafting-your-own-work/

The different types of editing

Editing is not just limited to checking spelling and grammar. An editor looks at your manuscript through many different lenses, including if the chapters are structured correctly, checking for continuity errors, filtering for a target audience, and more.

There are three distinct types of editing: structural editing, copyediting, and proofreading.

Structural editing

The often-forgotten side to editing. It focuses on the bigger picture rather than the sentence-level details. If your book requires structural edits, this often means that something is wrong with the flow of the manuscript, or that an element (like voice or language) is inconsistent. It could even mean that the chapter placement is illogical to readers, or that the book is too long or short for its audience and purpose.

Copyediting

The nitty-gritty side, the spelling-, punctuation-, and syntax-level detail that’s expected from editing. But it’s also fact checking, ensuring that what’s written couldn’t potentially become a legal liability, making sure that characters or settings don’t appear differently from one page to the next, and more.

Proofreading

The final stage carried out once all other types of editing have been completed. It’s similar to copyediting in the way that it mostly deals with sentence-level detail, but in this instance the editor isn’t dealing with a raw manuscript, they’re double-checking a near-perfect piece for any errors that might have been missed.

Which brings me to my next point:

Multiple sets of eyes are better than one

Books published through traditional publishing houses will have a minimum of three editors working on the book one after the other, each performing a different type of editing and rechecking each other’s work. Employing just a single editor—no matter how skilled they are—will not leave you with an error-free manuscript. It’s simply impossible, which is why it’s a great idea to get at least two editors to comb through your manuscript.

If you can’t afford to employ a second editor, another useful way to pick up anything that the editor has missed is to get an impartial family member or friend who has not seen or heard anything about your manuscript before to look over it. This of course won’t be as good as getting a second professional editor, but it will definitely help your manuscript.

Get familiar with the Microsoft Word revision software

Most editors in this day-and-age use Microsoft Word revision software to edit manuscripts. This involves functions like track changes and commenting.

Track changes

Once you get your edited manuscript back, you’ll have to go through each change that your editor has made and accept or reject these changes. This can be tricky, and a lot of text mistakes at the end of the publishing process can be accredited to edits that have been accepted or rejected incorrectly, so it’s beyond integral to make sure that you’re checking each and every change afterwards.

Comments

If your editor has left comments on a certain piece of your manuscript this could mean a few things, including being unable to advise changes as they cannot decipher your intent, really enjoying something that you’ve done and wanting to point it out, and explaining a change that they believe you may be confused about. Read over each comment carefully and make sure to either implement the changes they suggest and resolve. After the comments have been resolved, go back through and double-check that each comment has been addressed, then you can go ahead and delete them.

It’s also good practise to save two versions of your edited manuscript: one with the track changes and comments still included and another with them resolved. This way you have a record of both and can revisit easily if needed.

 

Editing can be a rewarding process if you’re well prepared. After you read and take on the information within this blog, you’ll be well on your way to getting your manuscript polished and ready for your editor.

Interested in getting your book edited with our partner Bookmark Edits? Click here to find out more and get your editing assessment.

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5 keys to a successful book cover design

5 keys to a successful book cover design

clock - estimated reading time  Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

As a self-published author, book cover designs can be daunting, and there are a lot of factors to consider before committing to your final concept and design. When starting to design a book cover, you need to think about:

    • Aesthetics
    • Functionality
    • Branding
    • Audience Appeal
    • Technical Requirements
    • Professionalism

But how can you ensure that your book cover has everything that it needs to succeed? What do you need to focus on for your book to attract readers and distributors in a world of traditionally published books? Firstly, we recommend hiring a book cover designer and following the 5 key points discussed below to make sure that you are getting the most from your book cover and your book designer.

Contents

1. Trust your book designer
2. Don’t try to tell the whole story with your book cover
3. Design for book’s audience, not yourself
4. Fit your book cover within a genre
5. Be a big picture thinker

1. Trust your book designer

If nothing else, the most important thing you can do to make your book cover a success is to listen to your designer. They will make your book cover look the best it can. Your designer wants the best for your book as much as you do, and will no doubt have amazing book cover ideas that you hadn’t considered before. They are also experience professionals who have worked on a number of books in the past, so they understand the book market and know what is more likely to sell and what is more likely to not.

It is important to communicate your preferences and vision for the book in a way that can be well understood when you have the design brief with the designer. Your book designer will take cues from your brief and design a book cover that is marketable to help your book shine on the shelves and meet your expectations.

2. Don’t try to tell the whole story with your book cover

It’s important to intrigue potential readers and leave them wanting more—not leave them confused and overwhelmed. The cover should be a teaser that makes the readers want to know more and entice them to pick up your book and take it home with them. It is not necessary to try to tell the whole story of a book on its cover as it is simply a visual representation of the book meant to grab attention. If you try to include every detail that’s in your book on your cover, it will be a cluttered mess of references that are lost on potential readers.

A good cover should be visually appealing, give a sense of what genre or style the book belongs to, and accurately represent the book. Pick one to three things that best convey what your story is about and your designer will use what they can to bring your cover to life.

3. Design for your book’s audience, not yourself

When thinking about book cover design, it is important to keep the target audience in mind, rather than designing solely on your own preferences. As discussed earlier, the cover should be visually appealing and reflective of the content and genre of the book, but also designed to appeal directly to the specific audience who are most likely to read it. This may involve considering factors such as age, gender, interests, and reading habits of the target audience.

Let the book designer create the cover from the eyes of a buyer. Often what an author believes they must have on their book cover doesn’t translate well to readers and they miss what the author wanted to achieve.

Though you may read a lot in the genre you wrote your book in, remember: you are the author, not your audience.

4. Fit your book cover design within a genre

When designing a book cover, it is important to consider the genre of the book and design a cover that fits within the conventions of that genre. The buyer—whether a distributor or a reader—should be able to immediately recognise the genre of the book by the cover design. For example, a mystery novel may feature a dark and dramatic cover with a silhouette or crime scene, while a romance novel may feature a romantic image of a couple. A science fiction book cover may feature images of futuristic technology, space, or aliens. A fantasy book cover may feature images of dragons, wizards, or other mythical creatures.

This doesn’t mean that your book should be a carbon copy of another, but if the genre is not clear then the buyer will have to work harder to decipher what your book is and will be more likely to disregard it in favour for another. Gather some inspiration from within your genre and similar and pick them apart. Try to figure out which elements on those covers would work for your book and tell your designer. This will give your book designer a good starting point for your cover and let them know what you like.

5. Be a big picture thinker

When considering your book cover design, be careful not to focus on particulars, such as the exact shade of a colour, the precise positioning of an image, and the perfect font size/weight to use. While attention to detail is important in many aspects of book cover design, it is also important to keep the big picture in mind. If you give your designer a list of overly detailed instructions of what the cover must include, you’ll restrict their creative license and may end up with an unattractive book cover that just does not work.

Think about what is necessary for your book cover and what will make it attractive and successful in retail, but more importantly what is not. The goal is to create a cover that is visually appealing and accurately represents the book, rather than focusing on small details that may not have a significant impact on the overall design.

Overall, a successfully designed book cover is one that looks professional and like it belongs in the market, effectively and concisely communicates the book’s content and style, appeals to the intended audience, is visually appealing and on-par with other books in its genre, and is harmonious.

To see some of our favourite covers, check out our Instagram.

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The Little Book of
Big Publishing Tips.

 

In just a quick 8,000 words, this little book will equip you with the knowledge you need to successfully publish your book.

The Little Book of Big Publishing tips goes into the essentials of self-publishing a book, outlining the business and financial side of publishing, legal issues, design, editing, sales and marketing. There's even a section on how to identify a vanity-publishing scam.

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The cost of self-publishing a book in Australia in a turbulent world.

The cost of self-publishing a book in Australia in a turbulent world.

clock - estimated reading time  Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

CONTENTS

Cost of self-publishing a book – how are self-published authors affected?
How is the Australian self-publishing industry faring?
Paper and book printing costs – what does this mean for Australian self-publishing?
Book printing in Asia – does this affect self-publishers in Australia?

Cost of self-publishing a book – how are self-published authors affected?

The COVID pandemic has started to ease. But now it’s war in the Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East and Asia. You might think that as a self-published author in Australia you’ll be unaffected. But that’s not the case. Our present world has impacted on the cost of self-publishing a book.

For example some of our authors that we quoted on book printing 18 months ago, have been surprised that we can’t meet those prices any longer.

Here’s a quick update on where things are at.

How is the Australian self-publishing industry faring?

Self-publishing companies have been hit hard financially. We’ve seen quite a few Australian suppliers leave the industry. A  host of international publishers have disappeared as well.

This might seem tragic, but it has weeded out international book publishing scams and local small operators. Many of these operators – often one-, two- or three-person operations, simply couldn’t provide a full service or quality anyway.

Unfortunately, we’ve been contacted by a few Australian authors who have had their suppliers disappear. This was after they had made some payments. One author had their book design completed but because the publisher had ‘shut up shop’ was left stranded with no print and distribution. Ouch! The lesson is: stick with companies that are here for the long term.

Paper and book printing costs – what does this mean for Australian self-publishing?

Costs of self-publishing a book have been impacted by:

  • Paper – It’s what books are made of. Unfortunately, the price of pulp (and paper) has increased by 20% per annum over the last two years. Whether it is using digital or offset printing  Australian printers have had issues getting Australian made paper.  Papermills in Asia, Europe and the US also reduced their production at the start of the pandemic. Most of Australia’s imported paper comes from Europe. Russia and Ukraine are big exporters of paper products, and the war has upset supplies.
  • Energy prices in Europe have gone up due to the higher cost renewable energy and the disruption of Russian gas supplies to European mills. They’ve started placing a energy surcharge on orders.

Book printing in Asia – does this affect self-publishers in Australia??

Green Hill has a great Asia based book printing solution. This gives authors opportunity to get quality books at a great price. But authors printing a book in Asia, while cheaper, have been impacted by the cost of getting the book to Australia. Freight has added to costs of self-publishing a book.

  • International freight costs increased 350% in the past 12 months. This meant a book order for one of our authors cost Green Hill $2,000 more than our quoted price! That author got a real bargain. In future, we will not be quoting fixed prices on freight, rather the market price at dispatch from the Asian port. As freight prices stabilise and normalise (even reduce) this should not be an issue for our authors who print off-shore.
  • Another factor has been on-time delivery from Asia. Generally this has fallen to just 35% on-time. We’ve worked very hard on this, and our on-time delivery is approximately 90%. We think this is a real win for our authors considering the international situation.
  • The good news is we’ve recently completed negotiations with new Australian and Asian printers and expect to be able to offer some outstanding book printing deals before Christmas. Stay tuned!
SUBMIT YOUR DETAILS
CALL US 1300 810 131

Featured Blog Posts:

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The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

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No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

Interested in publishing your book but unsure where to start or what is even involved? Tell us about your project and we will post you a copy of our:

 

The Little Book of
Big Publishing Tips.

 

In just a quick 8,000 words, this little book will equip you with the knowledge you need to successfully publish your book.

The Little Book of Big Publishing tips goes into the essentials of self-publishing a book, outlining the business and financial side of publishing, legal issues, design, editing, sales and marketing. There's even a section on how to identify a vanity-publishing scam.

submit your project details