10 Easy But Essential Self-Editing Tips
A quickie course to help writers edit their manuscript
Editing's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. And, frankly, the best person for the task is you, the author.
Sure, you can hire an editor to clean up your mess, but here are some great reasons for learning a few handy, essential self-editing tips:
- The messier your writing is, the more money you'll have to spend to get someone else to clean it up. Learning to self-edit saves money.
- As with anything we do, we should give it our best. If we want to call ourselves professional writers, we should take pride in mastering our craft. And that means being an accurate and proficient wordsmith.
- When you've gotten in the habit of self-editing, it will make writing every book so much easier. Weak, sloppy writing hinders and slows creativity. Learning some editing techniques will smooth the way and save you time in the long run.
While this short course doesn't cover every single editing tip, it will give you 10 quick and easy tips to get you started on the road to a cleaner, tighter, better manuscript. Take the challenge and see if applying these tips shows marked improvement in your prose!
Your Teacher
Kathy Ide has been a published author since 1989 and a full-time freelance editor since 1998. She is the author of Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors and ghostwriter of both fiction and nonfiction books. Kathy has also been a full-time freelance editor/mentor, working with new writers, established authors, and book publishers.
She is the founder and director of The Christian PEN: Proofreaders and Editors Network (www.TheChristianPEN.com), for aspiring and established editors, and the Christian Editor Network (www.ChristianEditor.com), which matches authors, agents, and publishers with professional editorial freelancers.
You can find out more about Kathy on her website/blog at www.KathyIde.com. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Goodreads, and ShoutLife.