Clean Up Your Manuscript

There is more to self publishing than just writing a book and publishing it.

Once upon a time, if you wanted your book published you had to seek a traditional publisher, and even then it was hard to be noticed unless you were a celebrity or popular public figure of some kind. Today, being a published author is much easier thanks to self publishing platforms like KDP Amazon. Consequently, writers are coming out of the woodwork and publishing if not just one, multiple books, but they are missing a few steps along the way.

“As the writer and publisher of your book, you have a reputation to maintain too, so clean up your manuscript before publishing it."

Writing and completing the manuscript are just the first steps. That completed manuscript is actually your first draft, which you should not even consider publishing. It's not ready. You need to put that manuscript aside for a week or two and then critically read it over, making any necessary changes to content and grammar if you can spot the errors. Then, you need to find a reliable editor who can go through and suggest changes (content and/or grammatical) that need to be resolved. After that, have someone proofread it to catch any errors that may have slipped through. Once you are happy with the final script, you are ready for the publishing process.

There is nothing more undesirable to a reader than grammatical errors. Your writing will look sloppy and the reading process will be painful to the point where the reader will put your book aside no matter how great the storyline is. Traditional publishers clean up your book before putting it on the market because they have a reputation to maintain. As the writer and publisher of your own book, you have a reputation to maintain too. So clean up that manuscript before you put it on the market.