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If perhaps you've penned a manuscript - or any other kind of book - and therefore are now wanting to know precisely how to proceed with publishing it, stop! Did you even re-read your text, fixing flaws and enhancing any weak sections in the manuscript? Your response to this is most likely "certainly". But have you read through your work multiple times? Just as before, you'll probably say "certainly". But have you hired someone who specialises in book proofreading to look at your book with a fine-toothed comb? The response to this particular question for a lot of writers is a no. If you are one of those writers and have thus far did not have any luck with your manuscript, it might be where you're making a mistake. The thing is that, you can be the number one novelist on this planet, but considering that you penned the draft, you are definitely not going to recognise all of the errors in the book. You shouldn't simply rely upon word processing software either; it will detect spelling mistakes, however it doesn't grasp that if you've left out a word, or position expressions in the wrong order, or unintentionally deleted an entire sentence. The difficult reality that a large number of writers find not easy to face is simply that they also can't trust in their own eyes to find a lot of these fundamental errors: as a writer, you are simply too involved in your own work to be able to stand back and review your book objectively. You might read a sentence through while not being aware of that misplaced word, because your mind knows what should be there and fills in the missing words for you. It's quite annoying, yet it happens. And then there's the big, nasty, novel-destroying mistakes that you may not take note of - or not want to acknowledge you've spotted: the yawning plot holes, the unnatural dialogue, the undeniable fact that your antagonist is totally not himself for most of chapter 5 devoid of explanation. Having another person to go through your novel and make a note of anything they do not understand - or anything they believe doesn't add up - is going to be very helpful for you. A great many authors employ friends and relations to 'proofread' their manuscript, though what often happens is usually that the relation or good friend returns to the writer spouting about how outstanding the novel is, without addressing some of the problems in the text or supplying any sort of constructive critique. This might be basically because they don't like to hurt you, but usually it's basically because they don't know what they're looking for - if they've never done editing in the past, how can they have any idea on what to do? The solution to this is ask the help of a qualified proofreader to look through your work for you - indeed, they will cost you money, although that investment won't be going to waste. In fact, it might be the best money you ever invest in your novel, including what you may dedicate to your marketing strategy. An expert will be able to check work without bias, be truthful in their suggestions, and - even more importantly - they'll know what is expected of drafts in the book printing trade. They will know the grammar conventions you should be staying with, they will have an understanding of plot as well as structure work, and they'll manage to suggest where you can improve that you can never have thought of all by yourself. Search over the internet for experienced proofreaders as well as editors - many will offer you several solutions for various degrees of editing, and you're likely to find one that's within your means. There's a lot more to producing a good book than just getting the words on the paper, so a good proofreader could make or break a book. If you're searching for someone who provides a novel critique service, click on this link to find out more.
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