While we are not English Teachers, we’ve written our own books and self published them. Samples can be found on this web site
Finding Personal Success by Doug
40 Year Old Snowbird by Tracey Parnell
Topics can be anything! Legacy books about you and your family, travel books, childrens books, “how to” books, mysteries, cook books, short or long stories, anything!
The key is that we can show you how to publish for less then $50 and in less than a month. Also, you can purchase one book or hundreds, but you decide how many you want. Using our system, you can also revise or add to your book at any time.
Writing and Editing Your Book
Doug Ross
At the core of your book is the written word. Spelling, Grammar and Expression are basic needs for any book to which you affix your name as author.
Don’t you want to leave a legacy for your future generations? There are many kinds of books. We aren’t here to tell you what to write about. It could be a mystery novel, or a biography of a family member, it could be a travel book, cook book, stories you imagined, a “how to” book about a skill you have and want to share, anything! Even if you aren’t going to be a Pulitzer Prize winner, wouldn’t you want your book to read well and look good? We can help you self publish a nice book at very low cost, and your greatest task will be writing it.
“There are ways others can help you.”
So how well do you have to write? That is up to you. Maybe you’ve always been a writer, got good grades in English; people you’ve written letters to might have praised your style or the ease of understanding what you are writing about. You might also think you are not a good writer, have trouble with spelling, grammar, or expressing your ideas. Fear not! There are ways others can help you, and this brings us to the topic of editing.
Editing
The wisest way to write is to use MS Word. It has many features to help writers be successful. Editors fix writing. You can pay a freelance editor to help you upgrade your own writing. You may have a relative or friend who is a better writer than you are and who would proof read and help you to improve. You can, and should, use a spell checker and grammar checker program no matter what. You get that with MS Word. There are those who will proof read for you, and find small errors others may have missed, or who will see that you wrote “there” when it should have been “their”. We provide you with a list of local editors for you to contact as needed.
“You can ask somebody to ghost-write your book!”
You can even hire a ghost writer! We’ll talk about a web site where you can ask for somebody to ghost-write your book (guru.com), and many editors also ghostwrite. You give them the outline, and what you want, and let them wordsmith it. Finally there are trade magazines for writers that give great advice and samples of different kinds of writing. We’ll get you started there too (Writers Digest samples will be available for you to see). And, there are author’s support groups where others like you can support your efforts (Author’s Connection).
When does a website come into play?
When using a web site like Createspace.com the editing function is your challenge. You send them a finished PDF file, with your choice of cover using one of their templates or your own design, and they put it together, and send you back a “proof” copy. This is a copy for you to examine, proof read, to see if it has any errors. The errors can be spelling or grammatical, but also can be about style, how the font looks, and the spacing. You correct your original MS Word manuscript, convert it to a PDF file, and resubmit it.
I had a book in which after three proofs I had removed all errors, changed a few sentences or phrases, and felt it was all ready to go. I was finally sure I would be satisfied, but when I got the proof, I found a side heading all alone at the bottom of a page, but the first paragraph was on the next page! What I didn’t realize is that I removed enough characters to take the subheading from the next page and move it back. Everything else was fine. I had to decide whether to live with it.
If it had been a legacy book for my family, or my autobiography, I might have let it go, but I wanted income from this one, so I corrected it and sent it again. Correcting proofs stretches the time until you can promote your book, or even give it away to somebody who might write you a glowing review. You don’t want them to say that it was a great read but you screwed up the spacing! It’s worth the time to get it right!
The challenge is to get your book to the level you will be proud of and without delays. How to do that is all related to quality and speed of editing.
Given what I have just written, I highly recommend that you try self publishing. It is easy and you will be very proud when you can hold your book up and say, “I am an author!”