Publishing E-Books For Dummies

Hiring a Professional Editor or Proofreader

Perhaps you’re an excellent writer, but you’re also busy: You absolutely don’t want to spend hours and hours reviewing your e-book to hunt down every typo. Or maybe you have great content, but you know that your writing skills could be improved — and you want to get professional support.

As an independent author, you can easily hire a freelance editor or proofreader to help you, and I highly recommend it. Yes, it’s an investment, but it makes a significant difference in the quality of your finished e-book.

If you can’t afford to have your whole manuscript edited, look for an editor to take on a shorter section — perhaps the first three chapters. Review these edits carefully, and look for patterns in the errors you make. For example, if you have a lot of misplaced (or missing) apostrophes, look out for them in the rest of your e-book.

All editors and proofreaders do their jobs a little differently, but you can generally expect editors to make suggestions about flow, style, and organization and proofreaders to concentrate on typos and punctuation. Before you sign a contract or hand over money, specify what you expect your editor or proofreader to do.

When you’re looking for a good editor or proofreader, ask around for recommendations — you want to hire someone who’s reliable and who delivers quality work at a fair price. If you don’t know ...