In the beginning, when you are just starting out with a self published book or novel, it is all too easy to get lost in the project and worry about how to write your own book. The self published author should not worry about this at all. First, the editor for hire will do an exhaustive reading of your manuscript to find the topics, plots, characters and other essentials of your story. Second, after the editor has found the beginning of your story, he or she will put together a rough draft that outlines the plot, character descriptions and other sections of your manuscript. Most authors have at least one or two self published works they feel would be useful as a guide for future work, and if so the editor will read these to develop his or her own ideas for developing a story set in the particular field or period that you have chosen for your work.
At this point the editor will have worked out the title, who the character is and whether this will need to change in the final manuscript. He or she may decide to add some additional scenes or reword a few things. If so, he or she will provide you with a synopsis of this at this stage. You will then know how much material you have to include in the book. This is the stage where you start to write.
It is important to keep in mind that your editor’s job is not to create the book for you. Your job is to be prepared to do all the grunt work such as proofreading, editing and adding extra scenes or pages if necessary. And most important of all, to ensure your manuscript does not have spelling or grammatical errors. (It would be dreadful if the editor could not see how to correct these errors! ).
Most writers are used to being self published and have no idea what to expect when working with an editor. The truth of the matter is that the editor is there to help you make the best book possible, and although he or she may be working off a published manuscript, his or her goal is not to “write your book”. The editor’s goal is to produce a book that is well balanced, written in good English and has the structure of a quality book (however many writers feel this is not necessary and do not follow the structure). The editor is not writing your book, he or she is editing your work.
In order to understand how to write your own book it is very important to be honest with yourself about what your intentions are. Many authors spend months working on their manuscript before they begin to self publish. If you intend to self publish you will need to learn how to write your own book so that you do not waste valuable time and energy on a project that is not generating any sales. If you have already self published, and find that you are not seeing any sales, it is a good idea to continue your editing of your book until you can generate more interest.
While you are learning how to publish your own book it is important to keep in mind that you will have to go through the process once you complete your book. Many authors choose to self publish their book after finishing it, but you should also realize that a book cannot be self published forever. Your first novel might never get any sales. If you continue to edit and rewrite your work, you will eventually need to hire an editor or ghostwriter once you finish your book to continue producing quality books. So as you learn how to write your own book it is advisable to edit and rewrite throughout the writing process.
Irene is an aspiring author who is looking forward on publishing her first book. Aside from that, she writes as a freelance on various magazines and runs her own blog.