Self-Editing for Self-Publishing, with Beth Jusino

There are LOTS of books out there. In bookstores the big names take up all the big space, but on the internet, Amazon gives the same size page to everything. You can self-publish and get an Amazon page for your book, but your self-published book will be one of the million self-published this year! Marketing will help people find it, but marketing, and even the world’s most gorgeous cover, won’t sell it unless you’ve written a good book. (After all, readers can “look inside” on Amazon as well as at the bookstore!)

On average, self-published books sell between 100 and 500 (print) copies, with low sales often resulting from an author rushing to release the book too soon. Beth Jusino’s self-editing session will help us turn our books into “good books,” before we release them, and will show when we need to pay for outside help.

When is a book not a good book?

1. When you read it and feel like something’s missing.
2. When there are too many typos for you to keep reading (some typos are almost inevitable)
3. When dialog feels fake
4. When characters don’t grab the reader
5. When the reader doesn’t care

Why do authors release books that aren’t good?

1. They’re tired of editing; they’ve read it so many times; they’ve had enough! BUT
2. When you’ve had enough, it’s time to
   1. Let the manuscript rest
   2. Take a rest yourself
   3. And let someone else look at what you’ve written.

Who is “someone else”?

1. Not your mom or your best friend
2. Not someone whose emotions might be tied to you rather than your writing

Will my book make it?

1. Will the high school basketball star play professionally?
2. Will the agent pick your book as one of the two chosen this month from 3,000 submissions?
3. You’ll have a better chance if you’re ready and make good choices.

How can I make good writing choices?

1. Read what your future readers are reading
2. Work out what shelf their books are on; that’s where you want yours to end up
3. Work out what has succeeded recently (not what succeeded in Dickens’ day)
4. Ask yourself:
   1. How did this writer handle point of view
   2. How did they draw in the reader
   3. How did they tackle that problem that’s really annoying you.
5. Don’t publish alone. Your reader should never be the 1^st to read your book.
   1. Join a critique group
   2. Submit writing to stress-free contests (such as our monthly contests)
   3. Learn to give and receive feedback (by commenting on our contest entries)
   4. Enter outside contests which deliver feedback
   5. Go to conferences, join associations…
   6. If you need outside help:
      1. Go to https://edsguild.org/
      2. Click on “find an editor” and work out exactly what sort of edit you want… which will be easier when you’ve read the rest of these minutes…

So…

What comes after you’ve written THE END? Whatever type of writing you’re doing – prescriptive nonfiction, narrative (fiction, non-fiction), memoir (both)… you’ll need to edit or hire an editor.

First comes Content/Developmental/substantive editing. This looks at your overall manuscript (think forest, not trees). Ignoring spelling, grammar and punctuation issues, it asks does this book work?/ is the reader engaged? Specifically:

1. Does the book address a felt need? – not can you make the reader passionate, but do you draw them in from existing passion? Are you answering a question the reader would ask, or one you’ve made up for yourself?
2. Does the book promise an answer? In fiction, backstory in the first five pages leaves no room to say where the novel’s going. In non-fiction, lots of explanation without direction has the same effect.
3. Is it unique?—not something you have to explain, but something you have to make the reader feel—answer the “What’s in it for me?” question.
4. Does the author have authority?—“Why should I trust you?” Again, more important to prove you care and have reflected on the topic, rather than statement of qualification. In memoir, you’re automatically qualified, but do you care enough to make someone else care?
5. Are there irrelevant chapters?—author going off on a tangent ’cause it’s interesting, but might not interest the reader.
6. Are there repetitions?—we recap when talking. Reader recaps by leafing back through pages so author doesn’t have to.
7. Is it convincingly heading toward a conclusion? Will the reader know what to do with the information. In fiction, a story might feel complete when it answers the question posed at the start.
8. Is the author’s voice consistent? Not jokey one page and legal the next
9. Are there enough examples, stories, subplots to make it interesting?—we’re driven by story
10. Is it real?—don’t write fake news; check your facts; but note, in non-fiction or memoir you can combine characters and create whole new characters to protect the guilty or innocent.

Those questions were geared toward non-fiction. In fiction, the story needs a plot; the plot needs a conflict; the conflict needs to last through the whole book and be resolved at the end (not the middle).

1. Is the conflict clear—a moment of instability in the first five pages
2. Avoid episodic conflict; is there one conflict that keeps building toward the end.
3. Is your protagonist active; sitting in an office listening to other people say is less interesting than going out to find out.
4. Are there irrelevant scenes? Cut those that don’t advance the plot. Skip the bit where they talk about what they’re going to do, then just do it.
5. Is the story logical—motivations that make sense, earlier references that become clear later (readers can work things out—don’t spoonfeed them)
6. Is the resolution logical—twins switched at birth and magically reunited is not logical.
   1. If the book is part of a series, the conclusion must still be satisfying on its own, not “just” a cliff-hanger/ must resolve the initial conflict while the overall one is unresolved.
7. No cliché characters; good guys have flaws; bad guys have saving graces
8. No unimportant secondary characters; reader must care if they die; they shouldn’t be interchangeable.
9. Is the dialog natural—people don’t speak in paragraphs. Don’t keep using names. Don’t distract the reader with too much he said/she said. Use body language.
10. No narrative intrusion—try “his body tensed…” rather than “he felt angry.” Show don’t “label:–try “the house appeared out of the mist” rather than “he could see the house above the mist.”
11. Is point of view consistent within scenes? Where is the camera? Don’t tell anything the pov character can’t know—like what happens in the room after they leave… 3^rd person omniscient is hard!

Next comes copy-editing (with line-editing lying halfway between the two). Copy editors edit for

1. Clarity
2. Accuracy
3. Readability

Might create a style sheet for capitalization, use of acronyms, character and setting details, etc. If you’re not hiring a copy editor, you might want to make your own style sheets. Could even include maps, floorplans, etc.

1. Check for missing facts? Did someone speak who hadn’t entered the room?
2. Don’t repeat things? Did he see her for the first time, then see for the first time again?
3. Are details consistent? If you reference chapter 3, is it still called chapter 3. If eyes are blue are they still blue? (But really, no one looks at eyes)
4. Are details accurate? How long would that conversation take? When was that tool invented? Where does the train stop?
5. Avoid distractions: Your best friend just might tell you which words (or punctuation… ellipses perhaps) you overuse. Avoid exclamation marks!
6. Are sentences clear? Avoid amusingly misplaced modifiers.
7. Avoid wordiness? Don’t use two words where one will do; too many adverbs just distracts instead of describing; emotion can get lost in wordiness. Can often cut 10% of your words at this stage.
8. Avoid awkward moments in dialog… who said what?
9. Avoid clichés; overused phrases lose their meaning—fine in dialog but not in narrative voice.

Next comes the proofreader, or you proofread for yourself—reading backward might help! You can view content editing as looking at the forest, content editing looks at the tree. Proof reading looks at the leaves. If you’re going to lay out the pages for print, proof reading might come after page layout. Keep a dictionary open to ensure consistent decisions, and look for

1. Typos that escape spellcheck
2. Wrongly used words—fewer vs less, further vs farther…
3. Missing words—the brain inserts what you meant but the reader doesn’t
4. Consistency of language, terms used, etc
5. Formatting—one space after sentences, no space between paragraphs…
6. Punctuation—use of ellipses, quotes, commas, exclamation points (avoid them!)

And then, if you’re self-publishing and laying out your own pages, you’ll need to look for (perhaps while proofreading):

1. Widows and orphans – pages with only one word on them, lines with only half a word.
2. Headers and footers—are they consistent. If no header on first chapter title page, make sure there’s no header on chapter two title page too. Are page numbers in the same place. Do you start at the real page one (as opposed to the front matter, which should be numbered in roman numerals)
3. Are stylistic decisions about subheadings, font sizes, drop capitals etc consistent? Is the text left and right justified? No space between paragraphs
4. Are the graphics clear? Remember people read ebooks on phones; will the graphics still be clear? Clever sidebars and boxes really don’t work well on a phone.
5. Do chapters start on forward facing pages?
6. Are fonts and spacing consistent from one chapter to the next?
7. Are italics, quotation marks, apostrophes etc used consistently?
8. Is the table of contents correct?
9. Is the cover text (front and back) correct (not just pretty).

So… do it yourself/do some of it yourself/pay someone else… whatever, make sure it all gets done and it will be worth it. You will have a better product to sell/something to be proud of.

Thank you so much Beth for a really great talk! Don’t forget to visit her website at http://bethjusino.com/ to find out more. And don’t forget to visit our website at http://portlandwritersmill.org/ to keep up with old minutes, notes from talks, contests, voting and more.