NO AUTHOR IS AN ISLAND In part one of this series I told you that every work needs to be edited.
You are going to need help, but you should not rely solely on another person to fix your mess.
You need to be disciplined enough to be able to work with the editor/proofreaders to be able to make sure that the end product is squeaky clean before you publish.
Every author stands at the crossroads of editing, deciding if they want to pay someone to do it for them, or if they can convince a friend or relative with some skills to help them for free.
If you had a publisher, the resource would be provided for you.
And that's the rub for the indie author.
You haven't sold anything yet, so there is no money coming in.
You may be broke, or with limited resources.
Some editors will do the work for a promise of a percentage of the profits later.
This really isn't too bad of a deal.
They will be motivated to do a good job because they are hoping to share in your success.
I have been blessed with two main partners, a lesser partner, and several proof readers that believed in my project and did not ask for anything in return.
If you are similarly blessed with help, remember to bless them with gifts appropriate for the help you received when your business moves from the red column to the black one.
My earliest help came in the form of a proofreader.
He did not show an interest in grammar correction or any of the fine details that you will need.
What I asked him was this: Did you like the work? What did you find engaging? What could I have done better? To my surprise, the first proofreader did not like the lengthy flashbacks that I added to fill in the backstory.
He said that my fifty page flashbacks were confusing and dizzying to him as a reader.
So...
I went back and cut and copied all of the back stories and put them in chronological order throughout the book, and "healed" the ripped places and smoother them over.
That proofreader's life cycle in the project was done.
They had no desire to comment further.
That was fine.
An invaluable insight was achieved.
The second person who partnered with me had some unique qualifications.
He loved sci-fi, was former military, and was especially picky about grammar.
He stayed with the project for two years before telling me it wasn't fun anymore.
I will say that you should be respectful of your partner's contributions and their time.
Don't burn your relationships or your bridges.
Take the "temperature" of your partners often and don't impose beyond what they want to help with.
At this point a relative and close friend stepped in to help.
This one had a degree in journalism, was a sci-fi fan, and was retired military.
My dream-team partner had arrived.
Although his qualifications undeniably added richness to the project, I realized that I had to develop editing skills and manage the project, too.
I will bring out some of the things I had to bring to the table in another installment in this series.
This project had been four years old when my new partner identified a chapter that needed removed.
He liked it, I liked it, but it had to go.
He pointed out that it did not follow true to the character and added nothing of importance to the story.
I reluctantly agreed and we had our first deleted chapter.
The best way for your partner to help in the editing process is breaking it into chunks, starting from the beginning, working forward.
The right size chunk is probably a chapter at a time.
We used Microsoft Word's ability to track changes.
I would send the proposed material to my editor; he would send it back with changes and comments.
I always renamed my latest master document by the date, like for instance, WN_051414.
docx.
Then I would save the old documents in a folder on my hard drive and a copy on my thumb drive.
I correctly have Word documents still in my possession with 2004 dates on them.
Keeping old copies in safe keeping makes good business sense.
I am only one day away from the next to newest copy of my manuscript, even if I lose my work in progress.
Whenever I decided to do rewriting of material already covered, I highlighted the script blue and sent it to him.
It was then easy for him to scroll through the document and see what was different.
He would track changes and make comments, and then I would go to my master document if the changes were okay and turn the changed areas black again.
Like throwing a pebble in a pond, anything you do in a book can create ripples throughout.
The best feature in Word is called the find option.
Once you know you have made a change that will result in ripples, search them out and change them.
Sometimes you will not find them until the umpteenth time you have personally proofread it.
As good as all other editors/proofreaders are, they didn't create the book.
No one knows the material, characters and storyline like you.
I don't know how many times that I've spotted a discrepancy that no one else caught.
I have one more thing to say about working with a partner.
You have to agree or disagree with the changes they proposed.
Realize that if you reject the advice, you have to live with the output.
Some helpers come into your life for a short while, like the wife of a coworker, and edit a single chapter, and some, like my sister, will do a few chapters in the middle of their busy life and then be unable to help.
Be grateful for any help you get.
Part 3 of this series will be about research and collaboration with experts.
Best regards, Morris E.
Graham