How Editors Help You Write And Publish Your Book

Some book editors shy away from meeting or knowing more than the minimum necessary about writers. This ensures the printed word is the one thing that colours their appraisal. This is crucial. Friends and family, internet correspondents, fellow members of your creative-writing group, and the queue at the supermarket all receive signals from you as pursue your idiosyncratic path through life. Your voice, deportment, clothing, job, attitude, and all-round presence contribute to an image that is both precious to you and will, on the whole, be respected by those you meet. All this counts for zilch when you submit work to a publisher for the first time; your writing has to 'do the talking'; nothing more, nothing less.

And talk it does! Every word in your book proposal letter, book synopsis and extracts of writing reveals something to a professional reader. In many cases, a writer's fate is sealed in seconds as a sloppily constructed sentence raises a storm warning about the inevitability of what's likely to follow.

Leaping off cliffs should be left to lemmings. If you want your book manuscript to make an impression with proper publishers (the ones who pay you rather than the reverse), a book appraisal will highlight those aspects of your submission that will irritate, and those that delight. No more, no less. You shouldn't receive a twenty-page, academic de-construction of your output. This should be left to writing colleges; they do excellent work for apprentices; professional book editors guide gifted writers onwards so that their work offers immediate commercial appeal to book publishers. This is a business; you have to be businesslike.

Book appraisals needn't cost the earth. An experienced book editor can spot in seconds what will scupper a piece of writing. But their time has to be paid for, and their reports need to be short, candid and capable of being understood to have value.

If you are seriously interested in getting a book published, make sure you acquire the appropriate editor who will act as your guide and editorial assistant as you prepare to submit work to publishers. Ideally you will contact book editing services that will, without obligation, give your book writing project the boost it deserves. You'll be surprised how quickly progress can be made.