Hire a Copyeditor

Hire a copyeditor if you’re self-publishing a book.

I’m talking about paying a professional who actually knows how to apply a style guide.

Asking your language-nerd friends to check your work is good, but they cannot provide the same service as a trained editor who may have worked on dozens of books.

I’m working with a pro editor for the first time.

Last week, she sent me the copyedited manuscript of my new book, “Tiny Book Author: There’s a Tiny Book in You Waiting to Be Written,” where she made 295 revisions, including 145 insertions, 116 deletions, 30 formatting changes, and 4 comments/queries.

Most of the edits were about punctuation, spacing, and font formatting, so it took me only a couple of hours to revise.

Without her help, my book would be full of stylistic inconsistencies.

I’m also collaborating with a professional book designer to create the cover. When I was working on my first tiny book, “Any Language You Want,” I designed the cover by myself using Canva. That was a bad idea. (I explain why in “Tiny Book Author.”)

But why am I telling you all this?

I’m telling you this to say that designers, editors, and publishing professionals exist for a reason. If you can afford to work with them—even just one—do it.

I’m also hoping to make you curious about my new book.

Raising curiosity and sharing bits of their creative process is something that indie authors should start doing well before releasing their work into the world.

More on the topic in my new book. 😁