How do edit and format a manuscript.

Hey my dear authors,

Welcome one more week to what I hope will be the answers to all the questions that keep you awake at night wondering how to move forward once the words that soon will become a messy draft and slightly further a manuscript can become a physical book.

First of all, DO NOT PANIC! Everything will be fine, you just have to focus in one step at the time, yes you want your book out and sell copies, but everything has a process, the sooner you centre yourself and work everyday on the correct process, the sooner the paperback, e-book or hardcover copy of your book will reach the world.

There are big questions new indie authors have;

– What program I can use to write my story?

– Where can I edit my messy draft?

– How can I format my manuscript?

– Where can I publish my book?

Well, let me tell you, the world of indie authors is bigger that you could possibly imagine, so the sooner you join us the better, in every single platform you will meet many of us happy to support and give you advice, so don’t hesitate to do it.

These might be my first blog you read or just the next, either way I want to share what I did with Samuel, my debut novel and the changes I will do for future books.

I start as usual, thousands of notes, diagrams, characters family trees, breakdown of story and much more.

Then I move to Word Document and I just bring all the ideas at once, I sometimes take an specific scene and work from end to end, others I just write ideas and later on work on them, it will depends.

Once I found myself with free time I use my account in https://prowritingaid.com I do multiple checks on the story, work on the final manuscript once you finish is a nightmare and overwhelmed as it’s too much work, slowly slowly will take you on a organised journey that will let you focus in one at the time thing.

Once the story have a sense, I know chapters, and things can be slightly organised, I move that crazy draft to one of Derek Murphy template, in his website https://diybookformats.com

When you click on DOWNLOAD NOW, you will be ask to register for FREE and he will give you access to five files ready for you to transfer your manuscript or to start writing, with five chapters with different fonts and styles. 

Take your time having a look and playing around, he gives you the .DOC and .PDF files, so you can see how things will look once you are done. 

And he gives you access to a full tutorial on how to use the templates. 

It’s these too much, I have incredible news, I do work on other indie authors formatting, so send me a message Contact or found me in the comments box and I will take that heavy weight out of your shoulders, supporting each other.

With Samuel I used a editor and proofreader that I found in https://reedsy.com/

Was she good? yes. Did she took long? yes. Was the manuscript ready to publish? No, I found multiple errors once I translate my manuscript and I did edit it again by myself and the help of https://prowritingaid.com with my annual membership.

This took me longer than expected but I was sure that I have a manuscript that I was happy to publish and I wouldn’t have to re-edit in the future.

(These was my experience, it doesn’t have to be yours.)

Once the full editing was made, congratulations you are ready to convert your Doc into a PDF and move to the platform or platforms of your choice to publish your manuscript in paperback and hardcover.

That will be covered in another blog.

But WAIT! What about e-Books?

I use Vellum, it’s the most popular app at the minute for any indie author that I know. It comes with a monthly or annual cost, but it gives you the file you will need for every single platform that support e-Book publication on a simple click.

There is one more app, it’s https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview?utm_source=bing&utm_campaign=mt-scrivener-brand-2021&utm_medium=search&utm_content=brand

I haven’t used it and can’t give too much information, I know many author love it rather than Word Documents for the sense of having their documents in one place and organised, but it comes with a cost too, so if you want to safe that bit, just stick with the traditional Word Document.

Thanks so much for passing by one more week,

Love, Nadia xx