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I'm Interviewed by indieBRAG . . . again!

 

I am so excited to share this interview! The B.R.A.G. Medallion is a hallmark of quality in self-published books, and several of my awesome clients have been awarded this honor. IndieBRAG interviewed me earlier this year about cover design, and I was thrilled to be invited back to talk about editing. I'm sharing a handful of questions here, but there are many more, and I'd love for you to head on over to the indieBRAG blog and check it out!

How did you get into editing?

I was having a bit of a professional crisis in the corporate world, unsatisfied with my job, but in a down economy, there were not a lot of appealing options available. So I asked myself: If you could do whatever you wanted to do, what would it be? And I said: Well, I want to read books all day, but who’s gonna pay me to do that? At that point, I had an established book review blog and a growing network of readers and writers. So I started doing a little research and discovered there was a market for editors in the booming business of self-publishing. But not coming from a publishing background, I didn’t have the credentials to properly get started, so I enrolled in the Copyediting Certificate Program at the University of California San Diego and spent the next eighteen months getting valuable, intensive training in the art of copyediting. And as a book reviewer, I felt I had a pretty good eye for determining what did and did not work in the books I read, so I decided to offer developmental editing as well. I have been so very fortunate in that I was well received from the very beginning and had a great network of friends in the industry to refer clients to me. I have been editing full-time since 2011.

What is the importance of writers having their work edited?

If a writer is serious about their craft and wants to have a long and successful career in publishing, it’s so important to enlist the help of professionals. If you’re going to query agents and publishers in the hopes of a traditional publishing contract, you have to do everything in your power to stand out against the competition, and that often means getting a lot of feedback before you’re ready to hit the send button with that final draft. A professional editor can offer objective advice based on years of experience and market knowledge that critique partners often can’t provide on their own. And if you’re self-publishing, you owe it to your readers to provide them with the best possible reading experience. I can’t speak for all readers, but I know when I’ve purchased a book only to discover that it’s full of errors that could easily have been corrected in a copyedit, I feel like that author was just after my money and not invested in establishing a lasting relationship with me as a fan of their books. In self-publishing, that old adage has never been more true—you only get one chance to make a first impression.

What are your goals as an editor?

My goal is always to help an author put out the best book they possibly can and to support them however I can, whether they’re self-publishing or seeking traditional publication.

Click here to read the full interview!