EDITING, FORMATTING AND COVERS - WHEN ONLY THE BEST WILL DO.

It's all very well pouring your heart and soul into your new WIP, but even when the end is in sight, you haven't finished by a long mile. You can polish and tidy as you go along, cutting out any unnecessary frills and furbelow's. But that still won't be enough. Many of us are too close to our own work. We can't always see the faults or plot flaws like the fact that your MC has gone from being over six-foot-tall and dark to five-foot-eight and blonde, over the passage of ten chapters. The fact he was born in June but now celebrates his birthday in October and drives a sporty BMW when he began the story driving a bog-standard Vauxhall Astra. You get the picture. You might have started writing the story in question four years ago, when petrol was dirt cheap and he didn't think twice about filling up his tank, whereas now it takes half a week's wage to fill it. All these things need careful thinking about and this is where a good all-round editor comes in handy. He'll spot the things you've missed and help you put them right. I'm very lucky in that I have one. Editor, that is. Click here  John Hudspith is one of the best free-lancers in the business today. He amazes me with his ability to just change even one tiny thing that makes a world of difference. I often think - why didn't I see it? It's glaringly obvious once Johnny's pointed it out.

We met on click here YouWriteOn, an online authors' critique site, in 2008 where I'd uploaded the first two chapters of my novel, click hereThree Steps To Heaven. At that time I hadn't a clue about the mechanics of writing, POV, structure, tone, and all that jazz. All I know is that I had a story I wanted to tell. So I took the plunge and uploaded the first two chapters. I had a couple of reviews in the first few days. They were favourable enough, no one said chuck it in the bin anyway, but I didn't feel I was getting the feedback I was really after. Then the third review came in and I actually almost missed out! It was a review from Johnny and was the most helpful I'd ever seen. Not only that, he'd kindly sent a word doc with further help to my email address. Now earlier that day, prior to reading the review, I'd deleted a load of spam and guess what, I'd deleted the word doc. I didn't recognise the incoming address you see. It had found its way into the spam folder and got binned along with the usual Viagra and loan offers! I contacted Johnny and he kindly sent me the document again. It was amazingly helpful. And that was it, the start of a great working relationship. Johnny has now edited another three novels for me and under his wing my writing skills have grown beyond anything I could ever have imagined. My books all sell very well, and the many five star reviews coming in on Amazon and Goodreads are beyond my wildest dreams.

Apart from well-edited text, a book also needs a really great cover. I mean, you wouldn't send your kids out looking scruffy, would you? And your book is an extension of you, your baby being sent out into the world for people to judge. They'll love it or hate it; you have no control over who buys it. But if it's well presented, at least it's in with a fighting chance of being looked at. And that's where a good cover designer comes in. I was introduced to click here JD Smith by Johnny when I decided to self-publish "Steps". I had an old fifties-style juke box in mind and Jane produced something I think is perfect. A wrap-around juke-box that goes from front to back. Jane has since designed the covers for all of my novels. She seems to get exactly what I'm looking for from my very brief, brief! I always get several choices to choose from and many people comment how much they like the covers. 

So all in all, if you've finished your book, but want to know it's as good as it can be, before you send it out to agents or go as I did down the Indie route, may I suggest you think about using my lovely editor. And when you are ready, ask Jane to design the cover of your dreams. I can promise you will not live to regret it.

To take advantage of my new, competitively priced formatting service for Kindle and Smashwords, with guarantee to The Premium range, contact me for further details at. pam.waltonhowes@btopenworld.com

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