Editing of manuscript

[hotwired]

This is a question for Steve, but anyone feel free to chime in, please!

I am on my second book. the first was a "how to" for opening and / or running a successful lawn care / landscape business. I did everything myself; editing, publish-on-demand vs. traditional, marketing, etc. However, even after several layers of editing, I still notice "new" layers of mistakes or phraseology that I find awkward.

My new book will appearl to a much wider audience, and is called "Hold Daddy's Hand: A father's ageless book of wisdom for his daughter". So obviously I want to make sure everything is as "right" as can be.

Do you have any suggestions for editing? Outsourcing vs. do-it-yourself? How much is enough...when do you say, "Okay, that's enough! It's good enough!"

Thanks so very much. I just got your book yesterday via fedex and am eager to chew into it.

[Adrienne]

I find 3 different ways of editing to be helpful.

1. After i finish writing it, i set it aside for a at least a couple weeks. I then read thru it (often out loud which causes you to slow down and read word for word more) and make changes including grammar etc, but mostly content wise.

Once i have the content and flow wise, I read it again looking for punctuation etc.

2. writers groups. There is nothing like a good writers group. They help with flow, grammar, word choice, etc. I find this to be a fun and useful step. I moved a couple years ago and still have not found a writers group here i like.. but they really are worth their weight in gold.

3. I have not done this because i have never tried to publish my work, but you can hire someone to read it over and make corrections. Basically hire a proof reader.

I also find giving a paper copy to my close friends is really helpful. They are honest with me, and my best friend is a language arts and history teacher. She is really good at marking up paper

When do i say enough is enough?
Basically when i can give it to a pickier friend, and their feedback is something like, great story i loved it and they dont say anything about being annoyed by errors. Often even here, i will set it aside for a few months (as i said, i dont publish so i have the luxury of time) and look at it again. Book 2 in a series i write, i set aside for a year before i did editing on it because i had so many ideas for book 3 that i did not want to stop the creative flow of ideas.

If you were to ask me to pick the top 2 things i do that i think make the most difference, it would be the writing group, and having my best friend read it.

Adrienne