You’ve written a book. Maybe it’s the first draft, or a finished manuscript. But have you had a human pair of eyes on it? I’m not talking about asking random beta readers to give it a read, or asking your friends and family to have a look. What I’m talking about is a genuine, professional, human editor, who knows how to help get your book ready for publishing.
A human editor will look at your voice and retain it, while making sure your plot is plotting, your characters are not going off in tangents and are sticking to their arcs, the middle isn’t boring as hell and timelines are all in order.
But perhaps more than that, an editor will become the reader and give writer’s suggestions on improvements to help make your book stand out and lead to 12 hour reading sessions with limited toilet breaks and a snack table that is to die for.
There are many AI tools that purportedly are being used to edit books. But after you spent hours, days, weeks, years, writing your book with your very human mind, does it not make sense to have a human editor, and a good one, edit your book?
We think so.
A human editor will laugh, cry and gasp when reviewing your manuscript, and hopefully, in all the right places. They will take a bird’s-eye-view of your manuscript, from a neutral stand-point, and tell you what needs to be fixed, what could be improved and ask the hard questions. All while retaining your unique voice.
Another important job of human book editors is checking your prose. Again, it’s important while checking prose to retain a writer’s unique voice. At the same time, we want to make sure readers do not get confused (unless that is the point) by an authors prose.
There is also the part of editing that makes sure all the loose ends are tied up and character A is not flying off on a tangent at the end of the book, and their journey and outcomes make sense. This can be done by planting little plots of gold throughout your manuscript and making sure the red thread of each character arc is working and in line with the overall structural arc of the book.
Many author’s don’t use writing style guides, such as The Chicago Manual of Style or New Hart’s writing guide if you’re in the UK. Some authors say they use their own writing style guide but then fail to produce it. It’s fine if you use your own writing style, but keeping track of it and informing your editor how your writing style actually works is of the utmost importance and can save both your editor and you a lot of time and money.
What is the point of this article?
The point is, machines rarely understand human nuance the it comes to writing books, flash fiction, short stories, or longer novella’s. Your voice could be stripped, your prose damaged beyond repair and the overarching arcs lost when a machine edits your work.
A human editor sits down with your book and reads it from the point-of-view of a reader within your genre. Editors want your book to succeed, provide readers with a respite from their daily lives and be immersed in your world.
But book editing is expensive
Finding a good editor could be the difference between your book sitting on Amazon KDP with zero reads and changing your life to enable you to write full-time. Book editing can help your book be the best it can be and give readers an amazing experience.
That being said, we realise editing can be out of reach for many authors, which is why we have tiered editing packages. We want your book to be read and while we need to pay our rent (and buy more books — it’s a healthy addiction), we also want to get your books into the hands of readers.
If you have a manuscript and are not sure which editing stage it’s at, or want us to edit your book, feel free to get in contact, or send us an email contact@naomiannelittle.com, to discuss your book. We specialise in developmental editing of fiction books, but can also work with non-fiction books for the right author.
