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 anyone who can give you a good recommendation, look at several different editors’ websites. Review the services they offer, the prices they charge, and their previous clients’ testimonials. You can even ask to contact former clients so that you can ask their opinions directly.