writing

Yes, at the strong suggestion of a friend, I hired a copy editor for my book. Now, if you pick up my book and read it, you are going to find some errors in there despite the fact that I hired a copy editor. First of all, let me tell you that this is going to cost you some money. I researched a lot of editors and the prices ranged from five hundred dollars to fifteen hundred dollars, depending on your needs. This was the biggest expense I incurred (other than the hours of my time) with my first book. I was discouraged when my book was printed and I found errors in it. And while I learned a lot from my editor, the biggest lesson I took away from that is that I needed more people to look at my book after the editor sent it back. If I would have had three or four more people read through my proof copies, some more of those errors would have been found.

When I finish a self edit of one of my books, I know that if I turned around and read it again, I would miss a lot. I have been very mindful of giving myself a break after editing my second book. What I’ve been doing is editing it and then handing it off for someone else to read and mark up. When I get it back, I read through it again and make changes after I’ve been away from it for a little while.

Last month I was part of a street team of blogger that promoted Tamera Alexander’s newest book, A Beauty So Rare. A group of about fifty of us spent a month on Facebook getting to know each other. It was nice hearing ideas, suggestions, and encouragement. Tamera Alexander asked if any of us in the group were writers and suggested joining ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers). At her suggestion, I looked into it. I was amazed at the level of information a person can get their hands on for the price of membership. In ACFW there are critique groups, monthly courses (this month’s course is a timely one on proofreading), and regional email loops. They offer a yearly writer’s conference with many popular authors and even more classes. I’m already planning to make the 2015 conference in Dallas.

I’ve sold a little over fifty copies of my first book and given away at least that many. I’ve made less than a hundred dollars off of royalties. Thankfully I have a stable, full-time job that allows me to use my free time to write and edit. I lucked out and didn’t have to pay someone to create a cover for my first book. My sister offered to do it for me. I graduated from college with a degree in English so I didn’t have to hire a copy editor as opposed to a content editor. A copy editor will charge one to two cents per word while a content editor will charge five or seven cents per word. Costs will add up and you probably aren’t going to make five to seven hundred dollars on your first book, maybe not even your second book. The majority people who will purchase that first novel are going to be your friends and family, and unless you have thousands of friends, you’re not going to recoup your costs.

With Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads things are a little bit easier than they probably were five or ten years ago, but you will definitely need to keep getting the word out there. I learned that you can sign up as an author on Goodreads and do a giveaway of your books. This was by far the best way I have found for getting word out. I ran my first giveaway for a month and had over six hundred people enter the giveway while half of those people added my book to their “to read” list. Now, I’m not sure how many of those people will ever get around to reading my book, but they are now aware of it.

Those are a few of the thoughts I’ve had since my first book came out in March. I hope that sharing them here might help you along your journey.

My first book, Remembrance is available on Amazon. You can click the book cover to the left to order. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know if you have other things you learned from self publishing.