How to Write a Book: Part Three

Stephanie Partridge
Sep 14, 2021
6 min read

Updated: Sep 16, 2021

You are amazing; you just followed steps ONE and TWO and wrote your story! Some people stop here and are ready to publish, but not you. No, you want your book to look and read like a well-written professional work of literature. Let's take a few more steps and get there!

You could go straight to Kindle Direct Publishing and submit your book right now and be done! Viola! You could start sending out letters to publishing companies to tell them about your amazing book and why they should publish it. However, there are literally hundreds of books published every day right at this point and they are junk. With the boom of self-publishing, people can now publish pretty much anything and sell it for whatever price they want, just because they can. I know you are better than that though! I know you want to send something out to the world that is the very best you could possibly produce. Do you have it in you? I think you do! Put on your brave face, and lets put in the time and work that it takes to take your book from good to great! If you can be patient with yourself, swallow your pride, and be willing to put in the time-you CAN give the world a great work from your heart for everyone to enjoy! Let's do this thing!

“Put on your brave face, and let's put in the time and work that it takes to take your book from good to great.”

Self editing checklist

(not to be confused with formatting)

1. Spellcheck- I know this is obvious, but seriously - do it!

2. Read through- Read the whole book front to back. Check for missed information, repeat phrases, run-on sentences, clarity of information, and basic flow of writing. You will also want to ensure your voice stays true through the entire work. Are you speaking third person or first person? The reader shouldn't have to jump back and forth. Another big thing to do is delete, delete, delete! We often write sentences to relay our messages in ways that just bore the reader and cause them to subconsciously skim over parts that you deem as vitally important. (a.k.a. We often write sentences to relay our messages in ways that just Too many words bore the reader and cause them to subconsciously skim over parts, that you deem as very important. Get to the point, cut the rest.)

3. Find and replace- Now that you've read your whole book through-you may have noticed a few overused words.

Use your "Find" feature to evaluate each time that word is used, deciding if it is necessary. Do NOT do the quick automatic find and replace, because that won't solve your problem. You need to replace words manually and with great care. This is when you should open up a Thesaurus and get creative. You may decide to change the word, or rephrase the whole sentence.
Here are some common overused words: amazing, really, just, little, thing, that, good, awesome, bad, keep, like, more, fun, want, very, crazy, sad. When I did this the first time I found that I had used the word 'little' over 70 times in my 50,000 word manuscript! I cut it down to 29.
When you do a "find" search for 'that' make sure to change the word to who or whom if referring to a person.
This is a fun one: open your Find box and hit space two times than replace all with a single space. Yes, the world no longer accepts two spaces after each sentence. It messes up the formatting when publishing. Some publishers won't even look at your book if it has double spaces between sentences.
Another tip is to be consistent with the use of numbers in the text. Many writers will say if it is under one-hundred, write it out in word. If it is greater than 100 you can use numerals. Others use the under ten rule, and 11 or greater for numerals. It's up to you, just be consistent. It's a bit harder to do a find and replace with numbers, so you'll need to go through this page by page.
Grammar checking: I am horrible at this, so I guess I should follow my advice better. Do a search for common grammar mistakes and make sure they are correct. Here are common words that are misused: then/than, their/they're/there, accept/except, affect/effect, lie/lay, bring/take, ironic/coincidental, imply/infer, farther/further, done/finished. If you aren't already, you will now become great friends with my buddy Google.
Okay, this is another one that I am not good at naturally. Limit contractions. It is better to say is not instead of isn't. Catch that - I said "it is" instead of it's. :)
And of course, do not put emojis in your text, ever. Unless you are me and do not care about rules. ;)

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4. Step away from the words, that's right. Step back! - There's this magical thing that happens after you've stared at something long enough; you see it the way it should be rather than the way it is. You simply cannot objectively look at your work when you've been in it too deep. The best thing you can do for your book is to give it a rest for a few days, or even a week would be better. If you think of something that you just HAVE to fix or change, then write it in your notes, but don't open that document. When enough time has passed, your new eyes will catch things you never saw before. Trust me.

5. Phase one of editing is complete! - It's time to let someone else look at your writing. You are not quite ready for a professional yet. What you need is a few people who can give you honest critiques. If you have family members or friends that you trust to be brutally honest- ask them. (If you don't have family or friends you feel comfortable asking, try searching for writing Facebook groups. Look up your genre and you will likely find some kind of writing group where people share chapters and books in exchange for you doing the same for them.) Be sure you are prepared for their brutally honest critiques too. They may point out parts that don't make sense, they may hate a paragraph that you re-wrote four times to get it just the way you liked it, they may love something that you accidentally included and they want you to expand upon it. This is the hard part. The fact is, this is your book and you can do what you want with it. You can ignore advice and keep things the way you like them. Just keep in mind that this book will be someone else's entertainment. Sometimes you have to be willing to share what other people need/want, more than what you were willing to give them.

I had a hard time with this at first. My first final draft of my manuscript was a series of journal entries. That was it. I was completely happy with what I had and felt that it was as good as it could get. Then I heard back from my first four beta readers. They were cordial, but it was clear - my book was crap. Nice sentimental journal entries, but nothing to keep a reader interested. Being a memoir, I felt that if I added or took away from my journal entries- the work would no longer be authentic. This was a harsh reality I needed to face. I took my journal entries back from the beta readers, made the editing changes they suggested, and then I re-wrote half of my book. I added chapters. I used several journal entries to paint a picture and tell a story, rather than just listing events. To my surprise, the changes actually made it more authentic and relatable to readers. What! They were right? Yep! I was discouraged by the analysis at first, but I am SO grateful for their critiques and the changes I made because of their brutal honesty.

Create Relevant Content

Writing a blog is a great way to position yourself as an authority in your field and captivate your readers’ attention. Do you want to improve your site’s SEO ranking? Consider topics that focus on relevant keywords and relate back to your website or business. You can also add hashtags (#selfpublished #howtowriteabook #writinghelps) throughout your posts to reach more people, and help visitors search for relevant content.

Blogging gives your site a voice, so let your business’ personality shine through. Choose a great image to feature in your post or add a video for extra engagement. Are you ready to get started? I think you are!