Category: Publishing 101: Prepare Your Content

You most often hear about book reviews AFTER a book has been published. But reviews BEFORE your book is final can be invaluable to your rewriting process.

Reviewers can come from many different spaces. 

• Content experts
• Target audience
• Bloggers who discuss topics relevant to your book
• Educators
• School librarians
• School guidance counselors
• Social workers
• Children
• Parents
• Grandparents
• Veterans

Whoever they are, they could be your first fans and your first customers!

Virginia Lee Burton is one of my favorite children’s picture book authors. She read her books over and over again to her intended audience until she got the book right. Her audience were her own children. Her strategy was brilliant!

As you go through your writing and editing process, you can ask reviewers to read your work, answer a few targeted questions, and give you feedback—at different stages! The questions you ask can be general or very specific to something tricky you’re struggling with. Just keep it to no more than 5-6 questions.

Perhaps you want a librarian friend to read your book early on in the manuscript writing process. Hopefully that person will give you honest feedback to substantively improve the quality of your book. Take their review seriously and make changes to your book accordingly. Since they are your friend, they will also be sure to read it at a later phase—regardless of their opinion early on. Perhaps they didn’t like your book at an early manuscript phase, but if later edits reflect their input, they’ll be happy you asked them to help and they should be pleased with the work you’ve done to improve your book. This could come before the development edit phase.

You can also ask your favorite blogger (whom you want to blog about your work when the time comes!) to read it closer toward the finish line when your book is closer to being ready. Since you don’t want to alienate a stranger to an early phase of your book, be sure they’re reading a more finished version. Hopefully they’ll still have good input that you can use to improve your book. 

And since every reviewer is going to have their own perspective, it’s best to solicit reviews from multiple people. 4-6 at each review stage is best. You may find that you thoroughly disagree with all the reviews you receive, and that’s okay. But really listening to them and being honest with yourself will help you as you rewrite your book.

As author Danielle Wilkinson rewrote her Nina Puppalina series, she solicited reviews from a well-known dog trainer. What she learned from the review had a significant impact on her rewriting process.

To solicit honest feedback, you’ll want the reviews to be anonymous. Especially at the early stages of your rewriting process. Many of your friends might not be totally honest with you. Or perhaps they’ve never critiqued a book and, even though they may be a person with the expertise you need, it’s just not in their nature to read your book with a critical eye. Even a stranger that is not a regular book reviewer might have a hard time being honest when sharing their thoughts directly with an author. Having an unbiased party solicit and collate reviews for you will yield the most honest results. Or you can utilize an online tool such as surveymonkey.com. 

When the time comes to ask strangers such as bloggers to review a final manuscript, it’s a good idea to personalize your solicitation in some way and to create a relationship with that person. You would likely not want that to be anonymous. If the review is good, you’ll want to use that in your marketing.

Reviews coinciding with the launch of the book is another topic to be covered another time!

In the book world, CONTENT IS KING!

As a book author, preparing your content properly will be critical to your success. As part of that process, you will write and rewrite your content over and over and over again.

But you don’t have to edit and rewrite completely alone. And you really shouldn’t. No matter how good a writer you might be. That’s where an editor can help.

Editors exist to make books the best they can be. For that reason, it’s critical to the success of any author to enlist help from editors. 

Editors can be friends or family, but it’s best to engage the help of professionals. Hire editors with experience who will give you honest feedback about your work. 

But what type of editor do you need? The answer is likely all of them.

Each type of editor performs a specific function in your writing process. You might even find editors who wear multiple hats and will do some or all types of editing. That’s okay.

• Development Editor (sometimes called a content editor or book doctor) is the big picture editor. They can be part of the planning process as well for early drafts. They offer specific comments related to the premise, story, character, and voice. A good development editor will read through the eyes of a typical reader: What questions would the reader have? What’s inconsistent? What needs more information? What needs less? Read more about Development Editors here.
• Beta readers read unpublished manuscripts and provide constructive feedback to the author. They are often free of charge (with varying degrees of experience or actual help) and can come anywhere in the editing process, but best to do early on.
• Line editors focus on improving the flow of the writing, making prose polished and more engaging for the reader.
• Copyeditors focus on correcting inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization errors, shifts in tense, and similar issues.
• Proofreaders edit the book after a book is typeset. They serve as the final checkpoint before the finalized version is completed and printed.

Whatever path you choose with an editor, be open to edits. Editors are there to help your book. They’re not worried about hurting your feelings. And even the most successful authors accept feedback from editors to improve their writing.

Be open and enjoy the process.

Development editors have the honor of making a good book great. They make a book the best it can be, while maintaining the integrity of the author’s words and intent. Development editors take an unbiased and critical look at a book—word by word, line by line, chapter by chapter.

Why Would You Need a Development Editor?

Whether you’re an author of fiction or non-fiction, an autobiography or a biography, a children’s book, a cookbook, or a textbook, every book in every genre can benefit from a development editor’s eye. Blogs, eBooks, and website content are no different. Development editors can add significant value to an author’s work.

In-house editorial development is part of the process of higher-education textbook publishing. This is where I got my start as a development editor. However, as I expanded my business, it came as a surprise to me that this important component is not a part of the typical in-house process at a trade-book publisher.

Traditional trade-book publishers look for projects that are ready to sell. Plug and play. Final. They are not interested in working closely with most authors to massage content to make a best seller. They want a best seller to arrive on their desk. The precious time of an in-house development editor is reserved only for projects that will guarantee a return on their investment.¹ It is incumbent upon the author to work with a development editor, prior to submitting the work to a publisher or even an agent.

What Will a Development Editor Do For Your Work?

A development editor (sometimes called a content editor or book doctor) will work with an author to ascertain the goals of a project, the intended market, and any unique information that might be relevant to the work. Upon a thorough review of the project, the development editor will offer specific comments related to the development of the premise, story, character, and voice. They will suggest specific revisions to the content itself to improve style, dialogue, pace, and narrative.

The complex process of development editing is forensic in nature and is unique to the needs of each work. The development editor’s expertise is to polish the content of a project and make the content, or more importantly the author, look good.

What Will a Development Editor Not Do?

Development editors will read the book from the perspective of the book’s target audience. They are not necessarily content experts. If the target audience requires the development editor to be a content expert, then it’s best to hire a development editor with an expertise in that field. But in many cases, the target audience is an average reader and a traditional development editor will meet your needs.

Development editors are also not necessarily copyeditors or proofreaders who will fix every typo and correct every grammatical error. They may correct some of these errors as part of their process, but that is not their focus as they develop a book.

Why Should You Hire a Development Editor?

Most great writers will agree that it’s impossible to effectively edit your own work. Hiring a development editor can be invaluable to the success of your work.

There are great writers who need very little input from a development editor. But that input can mean the difference between a great book and a best seller. Likewise, there are brilliant professors who are not natural writers; they are content experts, not writing experts. Best-selling fiction authors might have the most creative story in mind, but have difficulty formalizing a cohesive story on paper.

It doesn’t matter how savvy you are as a writer, the eye of a development editor can be critical to the success of a project. Depending on the state of your work, a development editor might only need to tweak a few things. Or they might need to pull apart your work and put it back together. Don’t be alarmed or offended in any way. That is the development editor’s job.

As more and more authors look to self-publishing as an option for seeing their work come to life, a development editor can be an invaluable part of the adventure. ²

Who Should You Hire As a Development Editor?

Hire a development editor you trust. If you don’t know the development editor, ask for a sample of what they can do for your work. Each project is unique and should be treated as such. Once you decide on the development editor of your choice, trust their instincts, relax, and enjoy the process.

When Should You Hire a Development Editor?

An author usually hires a development editor when the work is complete. However, the ideal time would be to work with a development editor at the beginning of your writing process to identify the best course for the goals and outline of your work. A good development editor will work with whatever strategy makes you comfortable.

Happy writing!

Sources:

¹ http://www.alanrinzler.com/blog/2012/07/03/what-should-you-expect-from-a-developmental-editor/ and http://ww.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/288447.html

² http://www.underdown.org/publisher-expertise.htm