Nothing about writing is easy.

As authors, we struggle to knock out our first draft, and then wrestle with multiple rounds of editing. Once we're (mostly) happy with our book, we have to market it, competing with millions of other releases every year.

As I speak, I'm in the middle of this process right now: managing marketing, finalizing my first two books for release this fall and writing my third book in my series.

For the past few months, I've mostly focused on marketing: completing my reader magnet (Slice of Sin), setting up a mailing list and doing newsletter swaps with other authors in the field.

One consequence of this marketing push is my editing has fallen behind. Both my first and second book came back from my copy editor in the beginning of May.

They've been sitting in a folder, waiting for me to review my editor's changes, make a few of my own and ship off the finalized manuscripts to my proofreader.

This month, I decided to change that. I sat down to do my final edit and was immediately overwhelmed. Reviewing over 225,000 words was a daunting task.

Remembering my advice on eating an elephant, I took a step away and came back with a plan.

A Guide to Surviving Editing:

I broke my editing plan down into three steps with strict timelines.

1) Line edit suggestions:

I set aside a week to review my copy editor's suggestions. While I could have accepted all the changes without reviewing, I wanted to take the time to accept or reject each suggested change.

2) Tweaking scenes:

Time away from my manuscript gave me context that I wanted to add to certain scenes in my story. My copyeditor also had a few suggestions. I set aside two days to do this.

3) Formatting:

My story was originally written in a web novel format. To get it ready for release as a novel, I needed to add indents, double check my spacing and condense my shorter paragraphs. I gave myself two days to do this.
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​Bringing it all together:

At my time of writing, I'm in the middle of Step 3. Once I finish, I can finally send my first book over for final proofreading, format it into an eBook and create an advance review copy (ARC) for your reading pleasure.

If you haven't already, sign up below to join my ARC team to read my first book months before the general public:

Until next time,

J. W. Weld

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P.S. Next week, I'll talk about new favourite book series.

Stories you might like:

An Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves Retelling Get the Story

Before the Saga, came the stories... Get the Story

Journey with Daphne on an adventure filled with goblins, dwarves, and magic Get the Story

Buried names never stay buried. And destiny never forgets. Get the Story

Jo is hungry, begging and stealing. And just a child. How can it get any worse? Get the Story

Some secrets can kill. Get the Story

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