What Is Text Blindness?

As an editor, I almost always encourage my clients to review my work carefully, and to have others on their team look at the content as well. That’s not because I’m not confident — I’ve been in this gig for almost two decades. It’s because my own brain inevitably will start to work against me.…

Read More

What Is Proofreading?

You’ve got your book draft done. Now you need editing. But did you know there are three different types of editing? And yes, you probably need them all. Editing usually starts with developmental work. Your editor will look for holes in logic or plot and try to make the manuscript idea stronger overall. The second…

Read More

Why You Need a Writer AND an Editor

Editing. Writing. Same thing, right? Nooooooo! If you’re considering having someone help you put together a book, you will need to hire BOTH a writer AND an editor. As this video explains, the skills they bring to the project are different, and you need to tap both to get the best final draft possible. Watch/Subscribe…

Read More

Should You Hire an Editor for Your Own Writing?

Good writers and editors work with manuscripts all the time, polishing them to the point of being ready to publish. But if you have a book of your own, should you trust yourself to edit it? As I share in this video, there are two opposing, important points to consider. Watch/Subscribe What I DON’T discuss…

Read More

Why You Shouldn’t Judge Writers Who Make Mistakes

A couple of weeks ago, I had an editor I’m connected with online leave a comment on one of my posts. I’d made a spelling mistake in my very first line, and it had distracted her. (Not surprising, given the nature of her work.) I corrected the error and thanked her. Not everybody is so…

Read More

Rewriting: When Should You Stop?

Over the past few months, I’ve worked with a number of clients who, for one reason or another, needed the work I did for them rewritten. This often had nothing to do with the quality of my work. Sometimes their editors requested something different. Sometimes the client realized they wanted to go in a different…

Read More

What to Do When Your Draft Genuinely Sucks

Taking Dictation

Image by Anuj Chawla from Pixabay Every writer I know understands that producing a book–or even an article or blog post–is a process. It’s rare for people to spew one version of something, hit publish, and have the world applaud. Instead, most of the time, content goes through multiple, painstaking rounds and is shaped over…

Read More

Good Writer? Here’s Why You Get Rejected Anyway

Rejection from publishers is something that virtually every good writer will experience in their career at some point. In fact, some professional writers acquire so many rejection letters could paper their walls with them. It’s difficult not to get discouraged by these personally hurtful little pieces of mail. But rest assured: Rejection letters often have…

Read More

An Editor Can Transform Content (If Writers Let Them)

In the writing world, an editor is often the stinky cheese in the refrigerator of fairness and creativity. But why? What a good editor does During the editing process, it’s the editor’s job to tweak content in multiple ways. They check that everything is relevant to the topic and accurate, and that the flow of…

Read More