Smart Writers Seek Smart Editors for Their Best Work

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I want to talk about this issue of self-editing and the necessity of hiring a professional editor. Yes, I know! I have already touched on these topics at least twice in my blog, but honest to gosh, the writers’ pages on social media are still awash with writers fretting over how they can’t afford to hire a pro editor for their manuscripts. I always give them the same polite advice: if you don’t have the money right now to pay a professional editor, wait until you do.

That’s great advice, but it is unappreciated. Some bad advice I see offered includes:

“If you’re smart enough to write a book, you’re smart enough to edit it.”

“Just use lots of beta readers and let them catch the typos and mistakes.”

“Grammarly and spell checkers are all you need.”

Let a Pro Editor Read Your Work

I’ll stop here, because my head is starting to pound. Now look, I’m not saying that self-editing, beta readers, and automated grammar and spelling programs are bad. They’re great. Writers should self-edit, find beta readers, and use the latest writing-assistance technologies. But these are not replacements for experienced human editors.

And it’s tough to be in a profession where people are often telling you that you charge too much for what you do or “Your work could be done just as well by my next-door neighbor Charlie who reads a lot and my Aunt Margaret who was a substitute school teacher for 10 years.”

Even Editors Get the Blues

Everyone who writes needs editors and proofreaders. Editors and proofreaders need editors and proofreaders. I will give you a real-life, personal example I should be ashamed to share.

I sent an email to a small business in my town last week, noting that it creates training manuals and policy and procedure handbooks for its clients. When my career started, I did that work, I tell them. I’m an experienced writer, editor, and proofreader, I tell them. I crafted a compelling case for them to consider me for freelance writing, editing, and training. I read through it three times, tweaked it a bit each time, read it one final time, and clicked SEND. Immediately after I did, I stared at it as if for the first time and saw this:

My resume is attached but here some highlights that might interest you.

Holy s**t. Are you kidding me? Do you see it? I left out the word “are” after “here.” Each time I had re-read it before sending, I swear that word was there. Well, it was there—in my mind.

And that’s what happens with self-editing. You see what you think you wrote, not what you actually wrote.

I debated how to handle it and decided to acknowledge my faux pas in a follow-up email. I went for a humble, self-effacing approach and hoped I would get points for noticing the mistake and having the courage to point it out.

Face it, I’ll never hear from them. And I probably shouldn’t. I didn’t follow one of my own pieces of advice: step away from what you’ve written for a day or an hour or even a few minutes and come back to it with fresh eyes.

You Need an Editor? Hey, That's What I Am.

Like any area of business, editors have best practices and standard pricing. I can assure you, my rates are comfortably in line with other editors doing the same kind of editing and with the same amount of experience. I’m not the most expensive and I’m not the least. So it pains me when someone tells me that I get too much money for what I do, the implication being, editing and proofing are skills that can be done just as well by the average man or woman who can read and write.

Low water pressure, high water pressure, leaky pipes, clogged shower or toilet drains, and corroded pipes—these are the most common reasons people call a plumber. The cost of a plumber ranges from $175 to $450 for a typical job, with the average cost per hour ranging from $45 to $200. We have all complained about the cost of hiring plumbers. Yet we hire them anyway. Why? Because they can do something we can’t do that needs to be done.

I submit that editors are the plumbers of the written word. I might even have a bumper sticker made:

Clean the clogged pipes of your manuscript. Hire an editor.

I like it. What do you think?

Not a Weekend Project: How to Build an Author Platform, Part 2

Recently, author, teacher, and psychologist Terri Lyon wrote a blog for Strike The Write Tone on her experiences creating an author platform for her book What's On Your Sign? How to focus your passion and change the world. Part 1 is here. As promised, Part 2 discusses her evaluation of the effectiveness of her efforts to create an audience and generate sales.

Tracking Analytics

OK, I'm a numbers gal, so this part of building a platform was kind of fun for me. Seriously. But I love to help with numbers, too, so let me tell you what I did. You can copy it if you want.

Choose what you want to measure that will tell you whether your platform is growing. Here is what I chose and where I get the information:

• Average website visitors per day (Google Analytics)

• Website bounce rate (Google Analytics)

• Referrals to my website (Google Analytics)

• Page Speed (WordPress plugin)

• Website Grader

• Number of people on my mailing list (MailChimp)

• Facebook friends (available from your Facebook profile)

• Facebook engagement (Facebook Insights tool)

• Twitter followers (Twitter profile)

• Twitter impressions (Twitter analytics)

• LinkedIn connections (LinkedIn Profile)

• Number of public appearances per month (interviews, talks, workshops, etc.)

I teach basic statistics to graduate students, and Google Analytics overwhelms me. My tip: just use the basic dashboard information. You may get sophisticated enough to ask more detailed questions such as "why am I getting fewer clicks from South Americans reading with a screen resolution of 414 x 280?" Trust me, you can get that information, too.

Good grief, how much time is this going to take?

Spend 1 Hour on Social Media

I spend about an hour each morning on social media and networking. My social media include Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and LinkedIn. I follow people, answer questions, respond to comments, share articles, and praise excellent posts.

Keeping up with people I already know or want to meet is important, too, so I work on this every morning.

Finally, I check my websites to make sure they are working well. My blog is at Life at the Intersection and my book site is What's On Your Sign? Anyone who has a website knows that little things can send you down a rabbit hole of CSS, HTML, plug-ins, and metrics. This is just "Oh good, it is running and nothing is broken. People are still visiting. Yay!"

Spend 1 Hour Blogging

I spend an hour each day researching and writing blog posts. Since I know my schedule ahead of time, I save articles in a bookmark folder for that month's posts (this is a way not to lose those essential links when you have 4534 tabs open.)

Use Buffer to post automatically to all your social media platforms. Buffer has a free version, but I sprang (must contact my editor to see if sprang is a word) for the ability to schedule posts in the far future. [Editor’s note: Sprang is, in fact, the past tense of spring. Who knew?]

My blog posts automatically feed to my Amazon and Goodreads Author Pages. I post my blog as an article on LinkedIn.

Spend 2 Hours on Projects

In the afternoon, I focus for a few hours on something off this list. Some tasks need to be done. Otherwise, I just decide on based on my mood at that moment.

• New writing.

• Personal development.

• Website tweaking. This is where you go down those rabbit holes, solve a problem, then forget to write down how you did it. A year later you have to do the same thing. Sigh.

• Financial stuff (once a month).

• Analytics metrics update (once a month).

See, it's not that hard.

Summary

I'm at month 16 of my author platform. My evaluation shows excellent success in building some portions of my platform. It also shows some areas that need more attention.

It's been 7 months since I published. The evidence suggests that if I keep up my efforts, I will see more significant results 20 months from now.

But, darn it, I wish I'd started sooner. Perhaps it's not too late for you.

Resources

· A Definition of an Author Platform by Jane Friedman

· Google Alerts. Use this tool to set alerts on content you wish to follow.

· Feedly is a content manager for blogs and RSS feeds.

· Buffer. Manage your social media posts in one place.

Bio

Terri Lyon is the author of “What’s on Your Sign? How to focus your passion and change the world” and The What’s On Your Sign? Workbook.” Available where books are sold.

Teacher, Psychologist, Activist, Animal Lover.

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Visit Terri's website, whatsonyoursign.com

Not a Weekend Project: How to Build an Author Platform, Part 1

If you self-publish, you won't make many sales without an author platform. If you want a contract with an agent or a publisher, they will first check to see if you have a platform. Pre-orders help with sales rankings, but without a platform, you won't get any.

I know, I am a self-published author and here’s my story.

The life of a writer, especially a part-time one like me, is not glamorous. I spend so much time in front of my computer that I use an alarm called Stretchly to make me stand up occasionally. Otherwise, I'd plant myself in my chair and keep chugging along, gradually getting stooped over and as gnarly as a bonsai tree.

Oh, it's not writing books that keeps me in my chair. It is all the tasks associated with being an author—maintaining my author platform.

What is an Author Platform?

An author platform is the social media, brand, and presence you use to market your book. As James McCrae says, "In today's DIY multimedia world, authors are expected to be online personalities and savvy marketers."

I am not a personality or a savvy marketer. But I have a platform. My focus is on being the go-to person for my book topic, activism.

Mistake #1: Starting Late

When I wrote my first book, What's On Your Sign? How to focus your passion and change the world, I had no idea I'd need an author platform. A few months into the writing process, I read an author platform article, which advised me to start building my presence three years before I publish. Rats. Mistake #1. Here I sat, two years and four months too late.

Mistake #2: Continued Procrastination

Then I made Mistake #2. I should have started my author platform that instant. But I didn't. Since I was already late, I decided I might as well get the book finished. I was way more motivated to do that anyway. Starting my author platform motivated me about as much as cleaning the kitchen sink drain.

I was wrong. Take my advice. Stop reading this blog post and start your author platform. Now. Bye!

The only reason you should be reading this sentence is that you already have an author platform.

Start Your Author Platform Now

You’re still here. Fine. Let’s get busy. Getting your author platform up and running is critical; better late than never. I'm not gonna lie—it isn't that much fun. But once it is up and running, keeping it vibrant and up to date is pretty straightforward.

Excellent articles about what elements should be part of your author platform can be found at here. So, instead of discussing those, I want to tell you why it takes three years to get up and running, so I can convince you to stop reading this darn post and get started.

Elements of an Author Platform

The goal of an author platform is to find people who will:

1. buy your book,

2. encourage others to buy your book,

3. share your posts, and

4. recognize your name as the go-to person for your topic.

You do these by creating a platform using these elements: a good brand, blog, social media presence, and in-person event. Let’s look at these.

Blog

“What, I have to write more, every week?” Yep. Your blog is part of your brand, and you'll use it to attract readers to your website and send them to purchase your book. If you wrote a book about clothing in the Middle Ages, you want people who Google "clothing in the Middle Ages" to see your website pop up on the first results page. Google will only put you on their first page if you are a reliable provider of information on clothing in the Middle Ages. That is what takes years to develop.

When you are planning your blog, start with your expertise. Be clear about what topics you will be the go-to person for. Women's clothing in the Middle Ages. Men's clothing in the Middle Ages. Cloth making in the Middle Ages. You get the picture.

When you have enough posts on a subject, you can tie them together into a resource page called a pillar post. Yours will be "Clothing in the Middle Ages." This post will provide a summary of the amazing content you have available on your website. And scattered throughout will be buttons your website visitors can use to buy your book, subscribe to your email list, and connect with you on your social media channels. Keep grouping your content around pillar posts. For example, your pillar post on "Women's Clothing in the Middle Ages" will list your posts that contain more detailed information. What women wore on their heads. Women's underwear. Footwear.

Planning your content this way will save you from veering off into posts that are unrelated to your brand, like recent fun vacations, a child's graduation, or getting a new puppy. You know, life.

Social Media

There are many excellent articles about which social media platforms are right for you. My focus is on getting you to start. Right. Now. It takes years to build a social media presence.

For example, on Twitter you find people who might want your book and follow them. Twitter etiquette means they will probably follow you back. Find 20 people a day who might want your book and follow them. Start interacting with your new followers by liking, commenting, and retweeting. At least three interactions per day. Tweet your blog posts and cool information about clothing in the Middle Ages.

Facebook does not let you advertise or sell, so you'll open a Facebook business page. Here you can post neat information about your book. You'll build a following here by asking people to follow your business page. Having lots of regular Facebook friends helps in this regard, so start friending people who might buy your book, and then ask them to follow your business page.

I've found success with blog parties. These are places where you share your blog post with a group and then read and comment on others' posts. I've met some neat people, discovered great blogs, and learned a lot. Try Esme's Senior Salon and Blogger's Pit Stop.

Next week, Part 2 will discuss how to track your platform's analytics (that's a dirty word to some). And evaluate how well -- or not -- you are performing.

Resources·

A Definition of an Author Platform by Jane Friedman

Google Alerts. Use this tool to set alerts on content you wish to follow.

Feedly is a content manager for blogs and RSS feeds.

Buffer. Manage your social media posts in one place.

Terri Lyon is the author of “What’s on Your Sign? How to focus your passion and change the world” and The What’s On Your Sign? Workbook.” Available where books are sold. Terri is also a teacher, psychologist, activist, and animal lover.

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In addition to my business Strike The Write Tone, I am a contract editor, writing coach, and ghostwriter for The Cheerful Word of Hendersonville, NC.