So, you’ve finished your ebook? Great job! But now you have the arduous task of editing your book ahead of you. Lucky for you, I’ve made this useful guide for you, so you’ve come to the right place. Here’s a short answer for the impatient ones:
You can make your ebook better by doing line edits (where you move around the words and change vocabulary) and moving around your story so that it fits better. Tools such as ChatGPT and Hemingway Editor can be useful in this process.
Now that we only have the patient ones left, here’s a little more info:
- Do line edits. These could be making a sentence sound more natural, or it could be using better vocabulary in your ebook. It might also include making it “flow” better. This is the part where Hemingway Editor comes in. It can tell you stats about your text, ways to make it easier to read and (if you’re willing to pay) can help you rewrite sentences with AI. For example, it will tell you how much passive voice that you are using and show you where it is so that you can fix it. It can help you to remove words to make your text simpler to read, plus where it is on a grade scale for its readability. 9 is ideal, but most AIs produce text with a much higher number, such as 14 or 15. By the way, try to avoid using AI while writing. That’s because it makes the editing process a lot longer.
- Do deeper edits. These include moving parts of the story around so it is easier to understand, or changing a character’s personality to fit their actions better. They usually involve changing the story a little, which is why they are considered to be deeper edits. Sadly, this is not something that you can hire a freelancer to do. They can only do line edits, because they do not know exactly what you mean if the story is confusing.
- Add visual elements like photos and icons. This is a great way to improve an ebook. Adding a few images can make your book look more better and icons can make your point more obvious.
- Fix grammatical and spelling mistakes. This one is obvious, and easy to fix. Just chuck your book into a Grammarly document and you’re good to go.
- Get feedback. After you have completed this list, try to get some feedback from beta readers and your family and friends. They will give you the information you need to know to make your book as good as it truly can be.
Do I need to hire a professional?
Probably not! Chances are, a little bit of AI and some hard work on your part can do it as well or better than a professional can do. Using Hemingway Editor to edit your entire book is a very long (and boring) process, so be prepared. However, it is well worth it if you’re going to promote your book well (there’s a guide on that here).
Using a little bit of ChatGPT to go through a chapter at a time is also a good idea, but you should try to do it before the line edits. This is because ChatGPT sounds like… well, ChatGPT. It is a bit too formal and uses far too advanced vocabulary and sentence structure for an easy-reading ebook. It is good to help you with making deeper edits, but you should not rely on it for anything else.
If you do want to use it to make some deeper edits, I recommend taking a chapter from your ebook, then copying and pasting it into the prompt. Ask it to move the storyline (in just that chapter) around to make it easier to understand and give you back the result.
The paste the result into Hemingway Editor and try to make it sound better. Follow its guidance, but if you think that a word should be there when it tells you to remove it, then chances are that you are correct. Make sure you follow your own brain’s instructions more than Hemingway Editor’s. If all goes well, after an hour or two, you’ll have a completely finished chapter.
How do I know if my ebook is good enough?
There are two ways you should think about this.
Firstly, you can adopt the philosophy that your ebook can always be improved. So you should just keep trying to make it better until you can’t anymore.
Secondly, you should get feedback until your beta readers can’t see a way to make it better. Once they haven’t spotted any problems, then you know that it’s good enough.
If you want my advice, I would recommend trying both. Don’t stop once your beta testers can’t spot any problems and instead focus on making the mediocre stuff great. Once nobody can say that there’s anything that isn’t amazing in it, then stop.
Thanks for reading! Here’s my blog for additional help!