Is Publishing your book worth it? Editing
Publishing a book and editing. I don’t know about you but this one fragment sends shivers down my back. Why?
Because I’m not good at editing. As anyone who has read my blog on writing for a long time can tell you, I’m a work in progress. Okay, big work in progress. Fine, stop laughing, I know exactly what kind of a work in progress I am.
BMV anyone? (if your wondering, that was my valiant attempt at writing about cars, BMW’s to be exact. The entire post said BMV. Let me just point out no emails about it, and many comments about how much they love cars. Kindly when I do make such an error, tell me. don’t humor me.)
The fact of the matter is we all have to write and edit. It is as simple as that. Sometimes it means we cut things, our darlings to make the work readable, but this is all about publishing a book.
Of course, I’m reading a book right now called Blood and Groom, and it is awesome, now before you go and say, wait a minute, this is a mystery, Jill worked hard to get it the way it is today. My hat is off to you Jill! Everyone needs to get this book. Yes a review will be up by your truly soon.
So editing is possibly the most important thing about writing and publishing and I think it makes the work that much better.
Right now I’ll be saying this: My New Years Resolution is to improve my editing and my blog. I want to have people come back and comment.
My Newest Magazine article is up you can read it here.
6 Comments
James
you are big on legacy aren't you?
Cindy
I'm not a big fan of editing either. That's why I usually try to get the first draft as perfect as possible. Ugh! But, I still realize the importance of it so I've been working on new strategies to make editing more productive and less dreadful 🙂
JS
Editing is good but before that comes proofreading. If you aren't good at proofreading, you can't do editing well either.
So for me, proofreading comes first (coz you got to learn to find the mistakes first), editing (and then have the knowledge to edit those mistakes) second.
The Prodigal Tourist
I don't think you can edit your own book–you're just too close to the material; in fact, I don't think you can really effectively proof your own book. Read A Yank Back to England SO many times and still found errors once it was in galley form. Nothing beats fresh eyes.
Rebecca
james big on lagacy yes.
editing is a big thing, but sindy you are right it can be a pain.
Rebecca
editing by someone else is important.