Draft & Edit Your Self-Published Book

This is the first of several articles in my new Self-Publishing Series. In this post, I’ll talk about the various steps that I used to draft and edit my recent book, Agile Discovery & Delivery. Starting with a couple of things to think about before you even start writing.

Create a System

Most articles on publishing a book will probably tell you to just start writing. But, I feel there’s an important step before you write that could make all the difference: set-up a successful system. I believe that if you set-up the right processes, you’ll be able to build in good habits from the start. Without the right set-up and support, you’ll have an uphill battle the entire way. So, what do you need to put in place before you start?

A Daily Goal

You need a goal. I’m not necessarily talking about the grand, final goal. That one is pretty easy: you want your book published. I’m talking about a goal that helps you create momentum. The best way to eat an elephant, as the old joke goes, is to eat it one bite at a time. The best way to write your book is to write it, one word, sentence, paragraph, or page at a time, steadily day after day. You have to show up for yourself. So, start by picking a goal that will get you to the computer every day. A lot of successful writers I know use the goal: write for 10 minutes a day. It’s short enough that even on your worst and busiest days, you can fit it in. On your best days, you’ll blow past those 10 minutes and keep going, minutes or even hours passing in what seems like seconds. Some writers have a page goal or a word count goal. Whatever you choose, pick a goal that is small enough to achieve every, single day. No goal is too small. It’s the showing up that counts.

If you can carve out space at the same time and same place every single day, you will form a habit. I have to admit that I never did that. I have a full-time job and a part-time job teaching a course at UW-Madison and so I snuck my writing in whenever I could, depending completely on what was happening that day. It didn’t matter, my goal to write 10 minutes a day still worked and part of the reason it did was because I also had a community of writers waiting to read my work, cheering me on.

Accountability

I had started numerous books throughout my life, but didn’t finish a single one until I found a writing group. I needed the accountability. When I first began writing my book in October 2021, I joined an online group of writers called Writing in Community that later turned into a new community for all kinds of entrepreneurs called Brainstorm Road. We showed up once a day to update the community on the work we’d done that day. Soon, people would show an interest and comment on my work. They would answer my questions and share their experiences. I found other people doing seriously interesting things and found myself wanting to check-in with them every day too. Knowing that people were expecting me to show up pushed me to show up. It was exactly what I needed to keep going.

I highly recommend finding an accountability group or person to help push you every day. There are plenty of local and online groups for writers out there. Brainstorm Road is one of them. Once you join one group, you’ll learn about others. You can use a partner or life coach to gain some accountability too. But I recommend a writing group, as you’ll be able to find plenty of writers who have published before and can give you amazing feedback and tips along the way.

First Draft

Once you have your accountability system and goal in place, start writing. Write a little bit each day. My goal was 10 minutes a day, and I cranked out my first draft in less than 4 months! Most days I wrote for less than 30 minutes, sometimes much less than 30 minutes. I was amazed by how quickly the first draft flowed out of me.

It’s important at this stage that you also employ a strict NO JUDGING rule. Your first draft will be crap no matter what. Read that again. The easiest way to never finish it is to try to make it perfect from the start. Just write what comes to your head and let the editing process take care of fixing it for you.

Continual Feedback

One of the reasons I really valued my online writing group was that I got a constant stream of continual feedback throughout my first draft process. Each day I’d write and post what I wrote. Then, I’d tag a few people and ask for specific feedback. Their ideas, encouragement, and presence were overwhelmingly positive! I started to make more time for the writing platform because I wanted to not only hear their feedback, but read their work and give back. The encouragement along the way gave me the confidence I needed to keep going. It also taught me a lot. For instance, I thought my target audience was limited to early-career software engineers and entrepreneurs. What I discovered was that a lot of other tech-adjacent people were really enjoying my work. People who worked in marketing, sales, strategy, or even those who had a family member in tech were getting something out of the book. I wouldn’t have realized that without the writing group’s feedback.

Developmental Editing

Now is the time to take your crappy first draft and basically rip it apart. I know that sounds awful, but that’s what you’ll end up doing over the next few iterations. Take a week or two off from writing at this point, so you can approach your work with fresh eyes. Then, read it through a few times, noting where it flows well and where it doesn’t. Think about what shouldn’t be there and what might be missing. Developmental editing takes longer than you’d think. But, you don’t need to do it alone.

Beta Readers

Once you have your first draft ready, it’s time to bring in some Beta Readers. Beta Readers are people in your target audience who are willing to read through your book and give you specific feedback. I read through my work a few times before I felt comfortable enough handing it over to readers. Eventually, I got over myself and reached out to five Beta Readers who gave me an enormous amount of wonderful feedback. I found them in my own network, but I was also prepared to ask people in my network for introductions.

One thing to note is that people are busy. Give your Beta Readers plenty of time to read your work (a few weeks or a month, depending on the size of your work) and reach out to more than you need. Some of your Beta Readers simply won’t come through for you.

Beta Reader Feedback

I gave my Beta Readers the manuscript in a Google Document, along with a few specific questions that I wanted them to answer. The best Beta Readers answered my questions and posted specific comments in the document right alongside the text. Here’s what I asked my readers:

General Questions:

1. Is the content of all sections clear? Does the content make sense for our target audience and meet the main objective? 
2. How does the book seem to flow, overall?
3. Is there anything you would add?
4. Is there anything you would subtract?
5. Are there places that could use a case study, story, diagram, or example?

Specific Questions:

6. Does the opening draw you in? 
7. Do chapters 7-9 belong in the book? Would they be better off in an appendix?
8. The Essentials of Agile Software Development is a working title. What title might cause you to pick-up this book if you saw it while browsing? What do you think of “A Beginner’s Guide to Agile Software Development”?
9. Would you recommend this book? Why or why not?

I then took the Beta Reader feedback and incorporated what I wanted to, then left the rest. After all, this book is yours and if you don’t agree with a comment, you don’t have to change a thing.

Hiring An Editor

One of the very best things I did as a self-publishing author was to hire a professional editor to look through my work. My editor came highly recommended from one of my co-authors who worked on The Badass Sisterhood Anthology with me. You can ask your fellow writers for recommendations, or you can go to a platform like Fivrr or Tessera Editorial. If you hire from a site like Fivrr, you can read reviews and see what kind of work the editor has done in the past.

I ended up spending around $1250 on my editor and it was some of the best money I’ve ever spent. Her insights and recommendations were incredible and my book wouldn’t have been half the book it turned out to be without her. There was around a month of lead time and then she spent a week with my book (which is on the shorter side – 170 pages). Editors’ schedules are all over the place and good ones will likely have quite a wait so it’s a good idea to reach out to them early. Prices also vary greatly based on experience and length of your work.

Once I got my book back, it took me a while to decide what changes I wanted to make and incorporate them. Then, I read the whole book a couple more times through to make sure the whole thing flowed the way I wanted it to.

Line Editing and/or Proofreading

Now, we’re getting close to the end of the editing process! The book flows, you’re relatively happy with it, and you’re not going to add or subtract anything major at this point. Now is the time to line edit and/or proofread.

Line editing and proofreading are two different things. Line editing is having an editor go through your work, sentence by sentence and basically scrutinize every word. They shorten your sentences and replace words and phrases with ones that better fit the text’s meaning. Proofreading, on the other hand, is focused on grammar and punctuation.

I didn’t hire out my line editing. I used the paid version of the Hemingway app to help me get rid of long, passive sentences and generally tighten up my structure. It worked OK. I probably would have really benefited from a good line editor.

The very final step I did before formatting my manuscript was to hire a proofreader. This one, I knew that I couldn’t do well myself. I was way too close to my work. I found my proofreader on Fivrr. It was the first time I’d ever used Fivrr, but what I really liked was that each freelancer had been reviewed just like a book on Amazon. So, by the time I’d emailed a few questions to my proofreader and read her reviews, I felt pretty good about her. Many proofreaders will also do line editing or developmental editing. They’ll offer rates based on how long your book is and what kind of editing you need. I ended up spending around $900 for my proofreader. Again, this was some of the best money I’ve spent! She was very highly rated, and yet she fit me into her schedule about three weeks after I emailed her. And she really went above and beyond. She pointed out wording issues along the way and fixed up all of my terrible sentences. I really can’t say enough about the two people I hired during the editing process.

A Never-ending Process

And with that, I felt like the text of my book was complete. Could I have kept editing the thing to death until it was the most perfect work of art to ever grace this Earth? Sure, but I’d never get there. In fact, there’s definitely a point of diminishing returns when it comes to editing and I felt like I did a good job of going right up to that point and stopping.

Next week, I’ll talk more about graphics, the cover, and permissions. Thanks for reading! I hope you found something useful here. Comment or send me a note if you have any questions.