It is tempting to write a book, hit save, and send it off to an editor or publisher without ever looking at it again. It must be perfect, right? You have just put your heart and soul into it.

But not even the most experienced author can do that.
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There are a few steps to take before you send your novel to an editor or publisher, and one of these steps is to use beta readers.

After months, or even years, of perfecting your manuscript, it will have become really familiar to you. When you open the document to work on a chapter or to play with a few sentences, you know what you expect to see.

​Usually we never take much notice of the style and order of the pages that come before and after the main text in a book. But if we want to self-publish our own book, we need to know how to do this, and that can be confusing and overwhelming. Getting it right will help your book look professional and credible.

The title of this blog post may sound a bit like an oxymoron – how can fiction be fact?

Submitting your newly completed novel to a publisher can be a scary prospect. But knowing how to make sure you have a professional-looking manuscript is one step in the right direction to getting a contract. ​

It is difficult to say exactly how long it would take to edit a book, as it depends on various factors, but suffice to say, it is not as fast as some writers think. Most editors have had a client or two who thought their manuscript would be back within a week, and then balked when they found out how long it would take. 

As these memberships all need to be budgeted for, I thought it would be a good exercise to write down all the reasons I continue to roll over my membership.

Anyone writing a cookbook or a food blog will need to know how to format recipes so that the reader has an enjoyable experience making the dish.
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​Who doesn’t have a cookbook in their house? I know I have far too many, but I can’t help myself when I see a new one with beautiful images and yummy recipes. The beauty of a cookbook is that the result of using it is great-tasting food.

For many of my clients it is the first time they have hired an editor to have their writing proofread or copy-edited. Often they have never used or even heard of the Tracked Changes function in Word.
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The Tracked Changes function is an editor’s best friend, but many people get a surprise when they get their document back ​with red and blue lines through it and are not sure what to do next. If you are one of these people, this is for you.

Whether you are writing a novel, a business document or an academic paper, using Styles in your Microsoft Word document is the best and most time-efficient way to make a document look neat and consistent. The Styles 'codes' are applied to the various parts of the document for quick navigation and formatting.

As an author, you want to show your best work when you take your manuscript to a publisher or agent. Your story may be the next best seller, but to be noticed among the masses, it may help to have tidy manuscript – every detail counts. There are several formatting errors that many writers make when using Microsoft Word which are an easy fix if you know how.