Because I live on the other side of the world, I can’t proof my physical books. CreateSpace provides me with a PDF that looks just like my physical book. I spend a long time with this final proof, checking how images look and tracking the blocking.
I catch a lot of mistakes with the PDF proof that somehow slipped through the cracks. Seeing a book in this format is informative.
When editing a physical copy of your book, just highlight, circle, or underline anything you want to correct. Once you have finished reading the whole book, sit down at your computer and fix each error.
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Action Steps
Download an app to transfer your draft to a Kindle.
Proofread your book on a Kindle (or whichever digital reader you want your customers to use).
Get a CreateSpace proof.
Proofread the entire book and make a list of corrections, then go back to your computer and work your way through your list.
Check the start and end of your book and any images or maps.
After you upload your book to Amazon or any other bookstore, be the first customer and perform your final proofread.
Part XXXIV
Beta Readers
I want my stories to be understood and enjoyed by anyone, so I need 'beta-readers' who will tell me when the plot is working or not working, and when my writing is concise or vague.
- Tony DiTerlizzi
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Your Loyal Army
It’s time to start sharing your book with fans outside of your family. There are two types of people who see early copies of my book: beta readers and early reviewers. These terms are not interchangeable.
An early reviewer gets a copy of the book during the proofreading phase. They will see a book that is very close to finished. I mainly want them to leave me positive feedback and maybe catch a few tiny errors that have slipped through the cracks.
A beta reader will see the book even earlier. Most movies these days have massive amounts of computer generated animation. Most superhero movies are filmed on sound stages in front of green screens. Before they make all that animation, they will do rough hand sketches and wireframes of each scene. Beta viewers will watch this version of the movie, knowing that the special effects and animation have not been added. Their job is to point out problems with the film as a whole. I will post a link on the 20K page to one of these early editions of a movie.
A beta reader gets a copy of the book knowing that it’s not complete. Depending upon how early I send a copy to a beta reader, I may ask them to ignore grammar, spelling or even the order of chapters. Later phase beta readers will pay more attention to these issues and send the appropriate feedback.
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Advance Review Copies
During this phase where I'm reading as a reader, I often also send out copies to my loyal early reviewers. Now depending upon the source you have for early readers, you can send a rougher version for certain websites that I use, and I have links to all those places to get early readers. But they will be brutal at you for sending them a version that's not completely finished.
Whereas my inner circle, my loyal readers, I can send them a version and say, “This is the rough draft. I want to send it to you before anyone else. I'm editing it right now, so if you catch anything I miss, please tell me.” Ninety percent of the people you interact with will be OK with this, and those say, “Well you're asking for readers being very honest; that's fine.”
Some people I can send the entire message, and they'll still be like, “This book isn't finished. How dare you!” And even when I say, “Well I gave you a free book and I told you it wasn't finished,” they still get grouchy.
But it just depends. This is just something we deal with as authors. We learn from the people we deal with how we can find good and bad readers, and what the experiences are like.
Not every reader and reviewer you get will be great, but many of your early reviewers will be very helpful. Usually you can send out about two hundred early copies, and only five of the people will get back to you.
What those few send you will be pure gold and make it worth the other people who completely ignored you and just took a free copy. Don't worry about that stuff.
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Give 'em Time
I’m an insanely fast reader. I can read hundreds of pages in a single day, but most people aren’t like this. Beta readers take their job seriously, so they read even slower than usual. Many beta readers will take notes as they read. They are awesome and you can’t rush people.
Some beta readers and reviewers might take months to finish their readthrough. Even though the feedback or review comes in six months after I released the book, I will go through and correct all the mistakes they caught. I am always looking to improve my books, even after release.
I try to send out beta copies at least two weeks before I plan on publishing a book. This gives them plenty of time to finish and send feedback before that date. Not everyone will finish in that time and I’m totally fine with that. As long as two or three of my readers do, I will have a really tight final draft on launch day.
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Where to Find Them
Finding beta readers for your first novel can feel like a bit of the chicken and the egg. You can’t find readers until you publish the book, but you can’t publish the book until you’ve had some beta readers.
Some editors offer beta-reading, and it’s not too expensive. A beta reader for a one-hundred-thousand-word book could be under a hundred bucks. That’s affordable for most new writers and won’t crush your bank account.
There are a few places to find beta readers without spending any money. There are beta reader groups on Goodreads and Facebook. There are also a few platforms where writers critique each other to share the love. As you leave more critiques, your earn points and people will return the favor. I will leave links to more places to find beta readers on the 20K page as I discover them.
When you are using a stranger for a beta reader, the book should be as far as you can take it on your own. Don’t send a draft with broken grammar to one of these readers; they should receive a version of your book that is after at least one rewrite.
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Action Steps
1.Find at least twenty potential beta readers
2.Join three beta reader groups
3.Join Scribophile and start earning points by critiquing other authors. Build up your points before you need them.
4.Send out the best draft you can to twenty beta readers and wait for feedback over the next two weeks.
5.Give very clear instructions about what feedback you are looking for.
Part XXXV
Honored Reviewers
Reviewers are the worst laughers in the world.
- Chris O’Dowd
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Trusted Friends
An early reviewer is someone that you can send a final draft of your book to. When you send out a copy of your book, it should be good enough that people will leave positive reviews. You are not focused on error-correction anymore. You want to build a little buzz for your book.
Early reviewers might catch a few mistakes here and there, but that is not their primary purpose. Most early reviewers should give your book a five-star review. If they don’t think your book is worthy, they should email you and explain why. Then you can fix those mistakes before the general public gets their hands on your book.
Don’t bother asking your friends and family to be early reviewers and editors. They are too close to you, and you won’t get the feedback you need. Most people will pretend your book is fine just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. They would rather avoid that awkwardness than point out any significant problems in your book. I never ask friends and family for reviews; Amazon doesn’t allow it anymore anyway.
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Early Readers
I have some very dedicated fans that I love very much. There are certain people that I send free copies of my
books to. People who leave great reviews on Amazon get invited to become early reviewers, and if they do a great job, they get invited to be beta readers.
To get onto my radar, just leave a detailed, high-quality review of one of my books and then email me. I get one or two emails a week like this. I keep track of them, and they are my honored reviewers.
Anytime a reviewer e-mails me I always reply. I take a look at their blogs and writing projects and share some feedback. Some of my reviewers work their way up through my product chain. I have products that are very expensive. My top training programs cost thousands of dollars. A good reviewer can work their way through my entire product line without spending a penny.
When a reviewer leaves valuable reviews, records videos, and sends me private feedback when they see a mistake on my website, they get moved up a tier in my honored reviewer program. You should reward your readers in the same way. Every time you see a great review on Amazon, click on the reviewer's profile. Many of them include a link to social media or an email account. You should reach out and thank that reviewer to start the relationship.
Some early reviewers are amazingly critical. One of the early reviewers for my first set of Blueprints had me tearing my hair out daily. He is like a mistake-finding missile. No matter how small the error, he catches every single one. But when he has finished going through a product, I have absolute faith that it's flawless.
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Fix Every Mistake
Most early reviewers will email you their feedback rather than leave a bad review. They know that you are early in the creative process and will help you improve your book. It's much better to get any criticisms via email.
There's nothing worse than putting a book on Amazon and then finding out there's a terrible mistake or receiving a brutal one-star review that you spend the rest of your career trying to recover from.
Sending out review copies is critical. As long as you are at least two weeks pre-launch, you will have time to correct any of the errors that come in. Sometimes you send out an early copy only a week before your release date. In this case, reviewers might not get back to you until after your book is live; you can still make changes before most readers see your book.
Using Kindle and CreateSpace, you can make changes to your books on the fly. As soon as someone sends in a mistake to me, I go and fix both my digital and physical editions. I update both versions, knowing that no one who purchases the book after this point will see those mistakes.
Early reviewers are worth their weight in gold. Their feedback will make your book magnificent. They will find mistakes that you might not see on a dozen readthroughs. You don't have to wait until you start selling your book to get people to read it.
I usually ask my early reviewers to email me all their feedback. After the book is live, I ask all the people who sent me great feedback to copy and paste it into a review on Amazon. This will help give your next book a little boost. Launching your book with a few positive reviews will give you a major advantage over the competition.
No matter how many times you read your book, you are always going to find tiny mistakes and sentences you want to change. Even a year after release, I get emails about Serve No Master, where someone notices a little mistake that ten thousand other readers missed. They catch where you used a period instead of a comma, or where there are two spaces between words instead of one.
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Sometimes it Hurts
There’s nothing worse than thinking you have finished your book, only to discover that you're not even close.
After my first rewrite of Serve No Master, I sent out the early release copies. I was on the ball this time and sent out these copies a few weeks before my launch date. A few reviewers pointed out tiny grammatical mistakes, but on the whole the feedback was all positive. Except for one email:
Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for book, which I am super excited about reading. Time is running short for your launch day and I wanted to let you know that I have noticed a lot of grammatical errors, and I’ve only reached page 41. I don’t have the time to highlight them all for you unfortunately, not before your launch day. And besides, that is not what you want from me as a reviewer any way. Editing is a time consuming endeavour and it isn’t something I would do for free! Not on this large a scale...
I’m loving your style and anecdotes so far and finishing your book is on my top priority list this week, however, at this stage, I don’t see how I will be able to give you a five star review with so many errors. :-( which is frustrating because that is the least important thing really, content is the key and so far you’re killing it.
Anyway I wanted to give you a big heads up so you can go through it again before launch day.
Out of two hundred reviewers, this is the one that still sticks in my mind nearly a year later. After reading this email, I wanted to curl up into the fetal position and spend a few hours crying.
I had two choices: pretend I hadn't seen this email and launch my book as it was, or do something. I chose action.
I purchased Grammarly ten minutes later and spent the next thirty-six hours editing and rewriting nearly every one of those ninety-four thousand words. I lost track of time and my cortex nearly fused. This email came in on Monday, and the book was scheduled for release on Saturday.
I decided to do whatever it took to turn this negative review into a positive. This was a learning experience that I hope you never have to repeat. When I came out the other side, my book was far better, and I improved my editing process. That book has been a massive success, and I credit a large part of that to this brutal email.
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Seeking Criticism
With your early reviewers, you are looking to rack up some positive reviews for your book launch, but you also want them to point out any mistakes that have slipped through the cracks. Do not attach any emotion to your book at this point.
When you get a negative review, it’s tempting to react emotionally. You want to lash out and tell the reader that they are an idiot and wouldn’t know good literature if it slapped them in the face. You might be right, but that is not productive. Don’t let a review hurt your feelings. If you need to cry for a few hours, do that and get it out of your system. Then pick yourself back up and improve your book.
The editing is the toughest part of this entire process. It can feel like you are judging your work and letting others determine if you are worthy. Don’t get caught up in that mindset. The book is not complete until you publish it. The end of the first draft is just that, a draft.
If you think of beta readers and early reviewers as part of the creative process, you will save yourself from a lot of emotional turmoil.
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Action Steps
Build a list of early reviewers.
Head over to the 20K page to find more resources for finding early reviewers.
Organize all your early reviewers so that you can easily contact them about your next book.
Prepare yourself emotionally for criticism and use it to forge your book into something amazing.
Part XXXVI
Hiring an Editor
Most of my success, I feel, comes from being a good editor as opposed to a great writer.
- Tucker Max
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Dollars to Donuts
The editor question comes down to one of finances. If you can afford one and find a reasonable price, go for it. Your book will come out the other side far better than it went in.
I usually wait until I’m at the end of my process before bringing in an editor. I don’t want to pay someone to fix all my grammatical mistakes only to realize that I need to rewrite a few chapters. For me, the editor is the final polish. The editor is the last person who sees my book before I release it into the world. My editor is the final gatekeeper.
I don’t use an editor for every book that I release, but for my larger releases, I like to bring in a professional. I don’t want a book about writing to
have mistakes. I know that you’ll give me a brutal review if it does.
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The Final Edit
The last thing I do before publishing a book is send it to my editor. If he's busy and can't look at a book until after the release date, I don't push back my launch. I can update the book a few weeks after publishing it and most of my readers will never notice.
Most editors and proofreaders will edit a sample of your book ranging from five hundred to one thousand words. You can find a few editors using the links on the 20K page and find one with a style you like.
20K a Day: How to Launch More Books and Make More Money Page 33