How much should you stifle previously sending to a publisher?
I wrote my first book awhile ago (yay me!) and I've started to edit. I think I'm going to go through and verbs up whatever grammar and spelling and odd sentences, but is that ample or should I look at content too? My mom keeps telling me "that's what they have editors for" but I don't want to look unprofessional. This is my first time doing this. Any suggestions?
Answers:
when you are 100% sure its what you want, and everything flows. No spelling punctuation ect. so three for four times you and someone should read it over.
Your book will be competing for (agents or) publishers with books which have be so extensively edited that they contain no spelling mistakes, no errors in grammar, no poorly chosen words, no awkward phrasings, no extraneous words, only a partly dozen ellipses and a dozen exclamation points throughout the whole thing, and plots that are tight, complexly drawn, and involve fully rounded characters.
Going over it to fix grammar mistakes simply is not satisfactory, not if you hope for a shot at real publication.
Your mom is mistaken.
I'm not a fan of hiring anybody to edit. Instead, work on acquire those skills yourself so you can be your own editor. This will not happen quickly (those editors people remuneration work hard to get those skills), but if you aspire to paid publication, this investment within yourself will be well worth the effort.
Since there's no deadline, why not edit the book as much as you possibly can, as you revise more and more about editing, even if it takes a year or two?
I reckon hiring an editor would be your best bet....good luck!
Congrats for writing a book! Yes, you must thoroughly edit your work. Then, you have need of to have an agent submit it to a publisher. There are many websites giving advice to aspiring professional writers on the various steps involved on how to get their books published. Good luck.
Never pay anyone. It's the sign of a true amateur. Professional writers go and get paid. A small publishing house, only literary agents submit to large publishers similar to Random House will have guidelines for an unsoliciated submission (without a literary agent). Most only want a query memorandum, writing credentials (past publishing experience), If they are interested, they will ask for the first chapter and a synopsis of the entire book. If they accept your idea, even small publishers have editors to verbs you copy and guide you through the book producing process. What counts and the only thing that counts is talent.
Hire a professional editor. Just pick up your local yellow pages or google it.
Congrats on writing your first new-fangled. I'm right there with you. I wrote the first draft to my first novel surrounded by 3 1/2 months this summer. I'm currently writing the sequel and will begin editing my work when I finish the first draft to the sequel. Honestly, I don't think they're good adequate to be published, as I'm still learning, but I've learned a lot while writing them. I already hold an idea for the third novel I'm going to write, and can't wait to bring back started on it. Hopefully, one day I'll become a published author.
AskMaryn offers good proposal. You WILL be rejected if your novel has too many sentence structure errors; it's a sign of poor writing. It WILL be rejected if your characters and plots are not well developed. It WILL be rejected if there are plot holes. It WILL be rejected if your storyline is fatally flawed. Yes, a publisher will relieve it's author improve it's book to make it more markedly viable, BUT, you must have something for them to work near. If you have to rewrite the whole thing next they'll reject you and publish someone who has shown the ability to write a nearly perfect and marketable original. You have to prove that you have what it takes to be published. The editor isn't going to hold your foot and guide you with baby steps on how to write a good innovative - that's your job to learn on your own if you want to become commercially published.
NEVER EVER submit work that's poorly written, has masses grammar mistakes and flawed plotlines because you will have just frivolous your chance at getting your work published. What I mean by this is that once send a enquiry letter to an agent or publisher about your book and they reject it, then you can Never enquiry them again regarding this same project, so that will be a missed opportunity.
Publishers know that everyone who submits their work won't always have something that can be straight published, but you have to give them something to work with. Publishers, and agents, will other suggest changes to your manuscript, but they're not going to take on work that needs to be completely rewritten, but work that's nearly idyllic, but not quite there. THe changes could be anything from rewriting the finish to deleting a subplot.
It's good that you're not taking your mom's word and running with it. And, yes, you will look unprofessional if you dispatch something that's badly written. BUt, I've read from publishing editors (they have weblogs) that 90% of the people who's manuscript they read have horrible grammar and that alone will get it rejected. At lowest possible show that you know how to write a novel, and just putting words on a piece of paper doesn't prove anything.
You also hold to be very careful with the fundamentally first novel you've written. Usually, people's first novels aren't publishable. Many people hold to write several unpublishable crap before they start writing gems that stand a chance of being published. Even Stephen King wrote 4 unpublishable novel before he finally got his first one, Carrie, published. The more you write, research, study, and read then the better you'll become at writing. Edit it, and bowdlerize it some more. Look for continuity, edit for grammar, and make sure your plots and characters are powerfully developed before you send it off. Then gag it some more. Let family and friends read it and provide feedback, and also let other writers critique your work and provide feedback. Writers are more reliable, especially authors or those who are aspiring authors because they've most likely studied the elements of innovative writing for their own projects and know what to look for that your average reader (family/friends) wouldn't think about.
Yes, publishers have editors who will cut your work, but they are only used for work that has potential. Inherently flawed plots, under-developed characters and plots, and bad language rules does not show potential. It shows that the novel is as badly written like 99% of the other manuscript they receive, and you will be rejected. Good luck.
You can get feedback from other writers at http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums - you have to register to see the Share Your Work forum.
Also, many literary agents and publishers own weblogs that you can follow. http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com and http://pubrants.blogspot.com are two blogs by literary agents. They give GOOD advice about how to bring back published and what they look for in manuscripts. Read and learn how the industry works. They also connection to other good resources.
Oh, this is a tough one to call. Pixar continues to make change to their movies up until the last few hours before they start printing the films to send to theaters (a couple weeks since you see their films).
The truth is that you'll never be perfectly satisfied with any story. If you set aside a manuscript for a few weeks or moths you'll want to tweaking something again. It always happens.
Fortunately, your story doesn't have to be faultless before sending it to a publishing company because the publishing company will pair you with an editor who will aid you to create the final draft of your book. They have a lot more experience and skill to help you cause the best decisions for your book.
You should edit the major plot until it is severely good. You should edit the manuscript through enough drafts that you wouldn't be feeling guilty by any part of it. Then you should edit the first three chapters until they are irresistable. The first three page should be clean--no punctuation, grammar or spelling errors. Publishers usually have editors read incoming manuscripts, and they don't want to work on a manuscript that have too many errors. Making the first three pages perfect puts them at alleviate enough to keep reading the first three chapters. If they close to the first three chapters, then they'll ask you to mail them the rest of the book, which they know will want some editing.
For other suggestions on editing and finding a publisher, go to your local library and find the book Writers' Market.
Good luck!
Addendum:
Some parts of your book you'll only need to check for spelling/grammar errors because they worked the first time. Some parts may rob up to 6 drafts before they sound right. Some chapters you may completely re-write several times. Each quantity of your book will need different kinds of editing. Remember that when you make any change you'll have to re-check punctuation and grammar before showing it to a publisher or agent.
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Answers:
when you are 100% sure its what you want, and everything flows. No spelling punctuation ect. so three for four times you and someone should read it over.
Your book will be competing for (agents or) publishers with books which have be so extensively edited that they contain no spelling mistakes, no errors in grammar, no poorly chosen words, no awkward phrasings, no extraneous words, only a partly dozen ellipses and a dozen exclamation points throughout the whole thing, and plots that are tight, complexly drawn, and involve fully rounded characters.
Going over it to fix grammar mistakes simply is not satisfactory, not if you hope for a shot at real publication.
Your mom is mistaken.
I'm not a fan of hiring anybody to edit. Instead, work on acquire those skills yourself so you can be your own editor. This will not happen quickly (those editors people remuneration work hard to get those skills), but if you aspire to paid publication, this investment within yourself will be well worth the effort.
Since there's no deadline, why not edit the book as much as you possibly can, as you revise more and more about editing, even if it takes a year or two?
I reckon hiring an editor would be your best bet....good luck!
Congrats for writing a book! Yes, you must thoroughly edit your work. Then, you have need of to have an agent submit it to a publisher. There are many websites giving advice to aspiring professional writers on the various steps involved on how to get their books published. Good luck.
Never pay anyone. It's the sign of a true amateur. Professional writers go and get paid. A small publishing house, only literary agents submit to large publishers similar to Random House will have guidelines for an unsoliciated submission (without a literary agent). Most only want a query memorandum, writing credentials (past publishing experience), If they are interested, they will ask for the first chapter and a synopsis of the entire book. If they accept your idea, even small publishers have editors to verbs you copy and guide you through the book producing process. What counts and the only thing that counts is talent.
Hire a professional editor. Just pick up your local yellow pages or google it.
Congrats on writing your first new-fangled. I'm right there with you. I wrote the first draft to my first novel surrounded by 3 1/2 months this summer. I'm currently writing the sequel and will begin editing my work when I finish the first draft to the sequel. Honestly, I don't think they're good adequate to be published, as I'm still learning, but I've learned a lot while writing them. I already hold an idea for the third novel I'm going to write, and can't wait to bring back started on it. Hopefully, one day I'll become a published author.
AskMaryn offers good proposal. You WILL be rejected if your novel has too many sentence structure errors; it's a sign of poor writing. It WILL be rejected if your characters and plots are not well developed. It WILL be rejected if there are plot holes. It WILL be rejected if your storyline is fatally flawed. Yes, a publisher will relieve it's author improve it's book to make it more markedly viable, BUT, you must have something for them to work near. If you have to rewrite the whole thing next they'll reject you and publish someone who has shown the ability to write a nearly perfect and marketable original. You have to prove that you have what it takes to be published. The editor isn't going to hold your foot and guide you with baby steps on how to write a good innovative - that's your job to learn on your own if you want to become commercially published.
NEVER EVER submit work that's poorly written, has masses grammar mistakes and flawed plotlines because you will have just frivolous your chance at getting your work published. What I mean by this is that once send a enquiry letter to an agent or publisher about your book and they reject it, then you can Never enquiry them again regarding this same project, so that will be a missed opportunity.
Publishers know that everyone who submits their work won't always have something that can be straight published, but you have to give them something to work with. Publishers, and agents, will other suggest changes to your manuscript, but they're not going to take on work that needs to be completely rewritten, but work that's nearly idyllic, but not quite there. THe changes could be anything from rewriting the finish to deleting a subplot.
It's good that you're not taking your mom's word and running with it. And, yes, you will look unprofessional if you dispatch something that's badly written. BUt, I've read from publishing editors (they have weblogs) that 90% of the people who's manuscript they read have horrible grammar and that alone will get it rejected. At lowest possible show that you know how to write a novel, and just putting words on a piece of paper doesn't prove anything.
You also hold to be very careful with the fundamentally first novel you've written. Usually, people's first novels aren't publishable. Many people hold to write several unpublishable crap before they start writing gems that stand a chance of being published. Even Stephen King wrote 4 unpublishable novel before he finally got his first one, Carrie, published. The more you write, research, study, and read then the better you'll become at writing. Edit it, and bowdlerize it some more. Look for continuity, edit for grammar, and make sure your plots and characters are powerfully developed before you send it off. Then gag it some more. Let family and friends read it and provide feedback, and also let other writers critique your work and provide feedback. Writers are more reliable, especially authors or those who are aspiring authors because they've most likely studied the elements of innovative writing for their own projects and know what to look for that your average reader (family/friends) wouldn't think about.
Yes, publishers have editors who will cut your work, but they are only used for work that has potential. Inherently flawed plots, under-developed characters and plots, and bad language rules does not show potential. It shows that the novel is as badly written like 99% of the other manuscript they receive, and you will be rejected. Good luck.
You can get feedback from other writers at http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums - you have to register to see the Share Your Work forum.
Also, many literary agents and publishers own weblogs that you can follow. http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com and http://pubrants.blogspot.com are two blogs by literary agents. They give GOOD advice about how to bring back published and what they look for in manuscripts. Read and learn how the industry works. They also connection to other good resources.
Oh, this is a tough one to call. Pixar continues to make change to their movies up until the last few hours before they start printing the films to send to theaters (a couple weeks since you see their films).
The truth is that you'll never be perfectly satisfied with any story. If you set aside a manuscript for a few weeks or moths you'll want to tweaking something again. It always happens.
Fortunately, your story doesn't have to be faultless before sending it to a publishing company because the publishing company will pair you with an editor who will aid you to create the final draft of your book. They have a lot more experience and skill to help you cause the best decisions for your book.
You should edit the major plot until it is severely good. You should edit the manuscript through enough drafts that you wouldn't be feeling guilty by any part of it. Then you should edit the first three chapters until they are irresistable. The first three page should be clean--no punctuation, grammar or spelling errors. Publishers usually have editors read incoming manuscripts, and they don't want to work on a manuscript that have too many errors. Making the first three pages perfect puts them at alleviate enough to keep reading the first three chapters. If they close to the first three chapters, then they'll ask you to mail them the rest of the book, which they know will want some editing.
For other suggestions on editing and finding a publisher, go to your local library and find the book Writers' Market.
Good luck!
Addendum:
Some parts of your book you'll only need to check for spelling/grammar errors because they worked the first time. Some parts may rob up to 6 drafts before they sound right. Some chapters you may completely re-write several times. Each quantity of your book will need different kinds of editing. Remember that when you make any change you'll have to re-check punctuation and grammar before showing it to a publisher or agent.
Related Questions:
PLEASE!! Read my book!?
I am an aspiring young author, I'm 14 years old and am now writing a book call The Inconsequent Sisters. I believe it has a lot of potential. So if you could please go on the website worthy of publishing.com and type contained by The Inconsequent Sisters, and plaese read it. For some reason my computer won't let me...
I am looking for Social Psychology, 7th Edition contained by an online paper form? or pdf form? be can i find one?
I am taking a social psychology class. although, i find that viewing the texts on my computer way easier than using the formal textbooks. is at hand any p2p places were i can find the pdf form of this...