Dear Self-Published Authors — Yes, You Need an Editor

Photo by ASTERISK KWON on Unsplash

At the very least, you need a proofreader.

I’m speaking from the perspective of a self publisher. You people who don’t edit your work give the rest of us a bad time. I have been specifically asked if my work was professionally edited before.

(Truth is, it’s better edited than when I was with a small press).

And I get it. Maybe you can’t afford the thousand bucks or so a developmental edit typically costs.

But you must at least hire a proofreader or copy editor. And I’m not just saying this because I’m available. I’m really not.

I just read a book that I won’t name and shame, but it won’t be getting a review. Why?

There were very few sentences in this work that did not contain some kind of typo or grammatical error.

It was unreadable.

Digital publishing has made it much easier and cheaper to self publish. Because of this, any fool can poorly format a book and post it.

Don’t be any fool. I am ninety percent certain this author just published their first draft.

Here are some other tips:

Get a Good Cover Artist