If you have finished writing your book, the next step is editing. Editing consumes a lot of energy and time for the writer but it is necessary to remove unnecessary content and errors. What do you prefer for doing it: Self-editing, hiring a freelance editor, or paying for a book editing service?

If you do self-edit and think about how to find a book editor, do not think that searching for the right editor is chaotic or costs a lot. Finding an affordable and competent book editor will give you a better book providing high value to the readers and having fewer roadblocks during publishing.

Do not get puzzled over finding the right book editor. Instead, follow these 6 steps:

1. Analyze the editing process first

Do you consider editing as simple proofreading? You are wrong if you think so.

You don’t have to pay the same price to every editor for all types of editing. The cost depends on many factors.

Decide what you need first: an editor to simply proofread your book and catch minor errors and typos or an editor to help you in repurposing the whole content.

Understanding your requirements for the need of the editor will help you in finding the right book editor.

Are you aware of different types of book editing services? If not, here are those:

• Line editing: It is the refining of sentences to make them clear, smooth, and stylish for better display.
• Developmental Editing: It involves editing the complete structure of the book. This is a long process and must occur first.
• Proofreading: It is the final checking process to look for typos, repeated words, formatting consistency, and spacing. 
• Copy Editing: It involved checking punctuation, grammar, and word usage while checking for the internal consistency of facts.

Note: Make sure you get it clear with the editors regarding what services they include in their editing services as the terms mentioned above may be used interchangeably. You can consider taking a free consultation call from editors if you are unsure of what editing services you need. 

2. Offer a test drive to the potential editors

While finding a book editor, there are many ways to check the skill set of the editor. 

Most of writers do it by sending a page of their book to the editors and requesting them to edit it. It is one of the most common and accurate ways of analyzing if the editor has the skill to enhance word choices, maintain your tone and catch errors.

But there are other ways too. You can create an editing quiz and send it to different editors. Now collect answers from them and check them with your answer key. Then compare the results and check which editor has scored highest. This will tell you who has a better command of grammar rules.

The point here is not just to find a book editor but to hire someone who is effective and capable of doing the correct job.

3. Consider finding a book editor in your niche

Your expertise in a specific niche is proof of better quality content. If you are just starting out or have little experience, remember that focusing on a particular niche will make you a more successful writer.

Expertise in a niche gives you the authority to answer questions related to that niche and provide them with useful resources after research. The same is the case for book editors.

A good editor understands the market trends in which they are working and the best editors are those who specialize in a few niches to become experts in them.

When you are finding a book editor to revise the content of your book, go for someone who has experience in your niche, especially for developmental editing. 

4. Editors must not ignore even a minute of error

The best editors are expected to pay critical attention to every detail. 

But how will you figure out if the editor catches every minute detail including styling, grammatical errors, or any other typos?

While posting a job application for the editors, make some mistakes in the description intentionally and check which editor is so detail-oriented to figure it out.

This way you can find an editor by placing a random error in the middle of the description. And the editor who goes through the details precisely will find it out. Then congratulations you have found your ideal book editor.

5. Find a book editor in your references or ask for referrals

Asking for references or referrals from people you may know will provide you with editor options who have proven their editing skills and satisfied your known people.

If not from others, you can even ask your potential editors for references from the clients they have satisfied.

What are the questions you should ask while asking for references?

• Would you like to hire this editor again if needed?
• Was there anything that made you dissatisfied with the work?
• What was the type of project you worked on together?
• Did the editor submit the work within the deadline?
• Was the final cost the same as the initial quoted cost?

Almost all book editors have contact information for references, so you can easily ask for it.

6. Do not underestimate newbies or fresher editors

We often consider experienced book editors as the perfect match for our editing work. But you will also realize that these experienced editors with good reviews have high charges for their services.

If you cannot afford to pay a top-ranked editor, consider hiring a newbie editor for your first book. Remember that newbies have the dedication to work since they want to grow, so don’t underestimate it.

If not anywhere else, you even find a book editor in social media groups, online platforms, and many more.

Take a final call now and finalize a book editor

Stop being confused now and move ahead to make a final decision.

Check these pointers before making a final decision:

• What are the charges they are asking for?
• Ask them to send their samples, past work, or references.
• Intentionally make a mistake in your post and ask them to find it.
• Check if they have knowledge about different types of editing.
• Send them a quiz or editing test.

If you come across someone who stands on all these pointers give them a chance without thinking if they are a newbie or experienced. This way you can easily find a skilled and competent editor within your budget. 

Finding the right editor is not an expense but a good investment in your writing business as it will enhance the quality of your book a lot.

Now go and find the best book editor for your services. Mention in the comment section, what pointers will you use mainly to find your perfect match.

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The post How To Find a Book editor? Use these 6 effective methods appeared first on Tricky Enough.

When somebody makes a request like “write my essay for me“, you won’t delegate it to the computer of course, but write it on your own. However, it is always a good idea to check your content with additional tools.

If authors work with such services, they usually use one or two. They also check the text for basic parameters there: uniqueness, keyword density, the number of vague words and phrases. They have favorite services, as well as the ones they don’t like, but not everyone can substantively and reasonably tell about the advantages and disadvantages of each.

“What services do you use for checking texts that you write yourself and which you order to others?” – we asked this question to SEO experts, product managers, marketers, IT consultants.

According to the survey results, we compiled a list of the most mentioned services and then began to dig and systematize the data: what is good, special, and useful for those who want to refine their website content.

HandMadeWritings

An excellent essay writing service that can both help you with producing and proofreading your texts. According to their official website, the service aims to match the most qualified writer to your order. For this, handmade writing hires the most seasoned experts from various disciplines.

Grammarly

Automatic spell checking, punctuation, stylistic mistakes online. You can choose the rigor of text analysis (from a personal letter to scientific papers). In addition, the program checks what is written for plagiarism and immediately shows whether a similar text exists on the Internet.

If you just need to comb your work slightly, and you are familiar with English grammar, this resource is the perfect solution. You receive the finished result (all comments and recommendations for correcting errors) within a couple of minutes. The work will be banished according to the 250 basic rules; they will offer synonyms and remove unnecessary words.

Regardless of which use case you choose: installing a browser extension, online version, or connecting a selected tariff, the check is carried out equally quickly and clearly.

Previously, the free version worked only seven days, and then you would be charged a lot of money (from $ 30 per month to $ 140 per year). Now they have released a basic version with all the necessary features for free!

In the paid version, there are a few more features, matching of synonyms, integration with MS Word, 24/7 support, and plagiarism check. It is useful for those who write serious texts in English.

Content-Watch

The service identifies non-unique texts, plagiarism (distinguishes it from correct quoting), and is constantly being improved. Considering the algorithm, it is only known that this is the company’s own development, and it can not only detect copy-paste but also determine poor-quality rewriting.

Advantages:

• There is no check queue, the check itself is carried out quickly;
• You can configure to ignore specific sites;
• Very simple minimalistic interface, important information is always in sight;
• You can check the texts and web pages, a list or by mask;
• Basic spelling checker at the Word level;
• There are paid options for webmasters, including constant monitoring of content – if you drag the article, you will immediately find out about it. There are also discounts.

Disadvantages:

• Just five checks per day for unregistered users. The volume of texts – no more than 3000 characters.
• It is inconvenient to check large texts. The window is small;
• There is no deep check, only a standard one;
• If you start editing the text in the scan window, tags are removed from all non-unique fragments at once;
• Often, the service produces different results when checking the same text within a few hours.
• Registered users have the opportunity to make up to 20 checks per day; the volume of one text is up to 10 thousand characters. For authors, in most cases, it is enough. Studios, webmasters, customers will have to purchase paid access to check more tests.

Language tool

Online service that checks texts for spelling and grammar. There are extensions for OS, browsers, Google Docs.

Declared advantages:

• Checks style, punctuation, grammar, logical errors, spelling, typos, extra punctuation, and repetitions;
• Offers correction options for most bugs;
• Many supported languages. There is automatic detection. There is even gradation of American and British English.

ProWritingAid

A useful tool for writers: reduces editing time and improves readability.

ProWritingAid is a world-class editor that should be available to any writer. Improves your writing so that your editor can concentrate on the content and style, and not work on readability.

Help in correcting grammatical and spelling errors is always helpful. But sometimes it is necessary to get feedback that exceeds the quality provided by most automated tools.

After loading the text into the application, the software will generate a list of suggestions for improving the style of the document. ProWritingAid also offers simple options like anti-plagiarism and grammar check.

Scribus

For authors who not only write unique texts but also develop the design of publications, Scribus is the ideal application.

Why? This is a free, high-rated publication application available for most operating systems (MacOS, Linux, and Microsoft).

The disadvantages include some problems for beginners due to the professional orientation of the software. However, the layouts can be controlled by adjusting slightly to the software.

Zoho Writer

The application is a free alternative to Word and has a simple interface. You can even sign in to your Zoho Writer account from a smartphone and enjoy the versatility of formatting and editing options.

Want more? For those who still use Word, Zoho Writer also has a handy plugin that can merge two programs together.

Many authors do not like Microsoft Word. Especially it is not loved by those who do not need a lot of unnecessary functions, only complicating the work with texts.

Netspeak

A service that will help you find words for your text. All words are displayed by frequency of use. You can specify a word and pick up synonyms for it, words for phrases and similar phrases. If you do not have enough vocabulary – and you definitely feel its lack – use this service.

Just the word

A resource that will help not only pick up words, but also check the frequency of their use and even find words of certain parts of speech.

Collins English Thesaurus

When choosing words without a thesaurus, you basically lose a great resource for improving content quality. No matter how many words you know, the thesaurus knows more, so choose and memorize new words, and learn to use them in context.

Conclusion

Developers provide authors and customers a lot of tools to help better their website content. All services have flaws, but we will forgive them for this. While the development and support continue, the services will be improved and bettered, and the development of AI systems will sometimes bring them to incredible heights. We will only envy their flight of thought.

And it’s very cool that now any author can choose an online assistant who helps to identify and eliminate errors and weaknesses that are specific to his texts.

This article provides an extensive list of freelance applications and sites that help organize remote work or offer tools for text management. Although this list can be supplemented with a much larger number of useful resources, the ones mentioned above are the most popular and highly rated.

The post 10 Writing and Proofreading Services To Refine Your Website Content appeared first on Tricky Enough.