Susette Williams is a Best Selling Author. She loves writing various genres, both for children and adults. She usually can't resist the urge to let her ornery sense of humor shine through in one of her characters and has always believed that laughter helps you deal with the obstacles life puts in your way. Susette and her husband have six wonderful children, all with intriguing and different personalities, like the characters she creates in her novels. Visist Susette at: http://www.susettewilliams.com, or at FaceBook: http://ow.ly/gUuCo, or at Twitter: https://twitter.com/SusetteWilliams |
Self-Publishing With SusetteHow Do You Revise or Edit Your Book? |
|
Not all indie authors have sought traditional publishing or joined critique groups. Perhaps they didn’t realize that organized critique groups existed. Some have relied on friends, family members, or on occasion they came across an editor who helped them revise their stories. If you are an author, self-published or not, this article should be of interest to you. While I loved my critique groups and partners over the years, most critique groups lasted maybe one to three years. On average, that’s about the same amount of time a youth pastor serves in one church. There’s nothing you can do. Things change and shift. If you experience this, don’t take it personally. Find another group or individual to work with. To help you get started, I have compiled a list of some online Christian critique groups. You will need to have a Yahoo profile to join any of them. I hope one of them will be right for you. Each critique group has their own guidelines. When I moderated critique groups, I generally set a limit of submitting no more than three chapters a week, and each member had to critique two chapters of other’s stories for every chapter he or she submitted. Which meant, if you submitted three chapters of your work, you had to critique a total of six chapters of other members’ work. Why twice as many? Because I found that it was beneficial to have more than one set of eyes reading a story. Every critique partner sees different things. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. One may notice descriptions of settings and people, or lack thereof. Another may be great with grammar. It also allowed you to see if more than one person didn’t like something in particular within the story, or how it made them feel. One thing to keep in mind, you are sharing your work and others are sharing theirs for the purpose of critiquing. Never ever share someone’s story with anyone else! While you may be privileged to read other author’s work, it is their copyrighted work and should not be shared outside of the group. Unfortunately, I have seen this happen, though the person sharing didn’t realize it was unprofessional. Also, when giving critiques, try to say something positive, not just point out the negatives. It is important to encourage critique partners. Christian Critique Groups on Yahoo Groups (Read group guidelines.): 
Burkburnett Critique (Must be a member of American Christian Fiction Writers.) Christian Children’s Writers List Christian Fantasy Writer and Reader Christian Secular Fiction Writers Christian Freewriters (Christian poets) Dallas Christian Writers Guild Fellowship of Christian Writers (FCW) SDCWG_Critique (San Diego Christian Writers Guild Online Critique Group) If none of these groups works for you, check your local library to see if they know of any groups in your area. Also, if you belong to any writing-related groups on Facebook, Yahoo Groups, etc., you can ask if anyone has openings in his or her critique group. There are also some paid writing organizations such as ACFW, RWA, SCWBI, etc., that may connect members with critique groups. You can also do searches on Facebook (not as easy to find) and Yahoo Groups to find critique groups. Whether or not you use a critique group, you may wish to use editing software to tweak your manuscript so that it is as polished as possible before you submit it to a critique group, publish it online, or submit it to a publisher. I have tried a couple, but I do not thoroughly trust recommendations for all the changes the editing software suggests. For example, the free version of Ginger, though nice, wants me to put ‘the’ in front of a character’s name sometimes. Use your own judgement or ask others for advice if you are not sure that a recommended change is correct or not. AutoCrit Editing Wizard (free online critique available—submit 400 or 500 words three times a day) (paid membership levels for yearly membership) Ginger Software (free version available) (paid version that reads your work in a male or female voice, with US or UK accent) PerfectIt (free trial) Scrivener (Write, Structure, Revise) Whether you self-publish or seek a traditional publisher, it is always important to submit a well-polished manuscript. While you can always upload a revised manuscript, you can’t rewrite the bad reviews you’ve already received. My new book, Self-Publishing Tips & Marketing Resources, is a wonderful tool to help both the traditionally published and indie authors. It is filled with more than 200 links and resources to help you find free places to market your books, Twitter resources to improve your tweeting experience, writing resources, and much more, including my personal story of how I made $5,500 the first month after I released one of my books. Author Website: http://www.susettewilliams.com 
|