Want to add punch to your prose? Follow these 55 simple edits and improve your writing forever!Getting readers past page one, despite your ‘explosive, fast paced hitting-the-ground-running opening’, is what this guide is all about.Applying the 55 easy editing steps to your fiction will allow reviewers and readers to evaluate your novel purely on the strength of your story and not on clumsy and … and not on clumsy and weak prose, overuse of adverbs, repetition, and flabbiness. And in the process, you will learn to become an experienced and competent editor.
Use these 55 steps to:
- Find redundant adjectives and overused adverbs
- Banish boring words
- Learn dialogue writing
- Write characters more effectively
- Discover over thirty overused words and phrases such as that, it, up/down, was/were, had, even, got, etc.
- Reduce overuse of exclamations and the ellipsis
- Use italics, quotations, and capitalisation properly
- Target word pairs and homophones
- Improve your proofreading and editing skills
- Handle numbers and time effectively
- …And discover more about flow, show not tell, writing tenses, dialogue handling and more.
All About Copyediting will not tell you how to write a novel, nor how to write like Tolstoy, or any other author. It will certainly not explain how to write bestselling fiction, how to make money, or guarantee you marketing success. What it will guarantee, is to give your novel the best chance it can get in a tough, competitive, and new publishing world.
BUY All About Editing and edit your way to success!
REVIEW EXCERPTS
“An indispensable guide for amateurs and professionals of any theme of word-based creation.”
“This is a very useful and easily understandeable guide for new writers trying to self publish”
“A very useful tool to have on hand.”
“A must read for any writer to avoid sending a clanger of a draft to a reviewer or publisher! Great value.”
“The style is clear and accessible. This is a book that I have found invaluable as I rewrite and revise my fiction drafts. Highly recommended”
”…gives you simple, clear rules and 55 easy steps to check your book for. It won’t turn a poor writer into a great one, but it will help you avoid common mistakes and give you tools to turn telling into showing”
“An extremely useful guide for editing manuscripts, written as a set of editing tips.”
“This is a great resource for authors. I have used it and it works. I highly recommend this book. Great!”
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Needs Copyediting AND Proofreading
Oh, this book is wrong on so many levels. Where to even start! I’ve been a proofreader for decades and a copyeditor for a little less. No way can “55 easy edits” be all there is to copyediting. In fact, the author seems to confuse copyediting, line editing, proofreading, and even a little developmental editing. He puts them all under one big umbrella he calls “copyediting.” The book itself is oddly and awkwardly written, as if authored by someone for whom English is not their native language. The book is at times repetitive and contradictory. I agree with him about minimizing or eliminating the use of false subjects (there is/are/was/were) and impersonal passive expressions (“it” expressions when the “it” doesn’t refer to a specific noun), which he doesn’t name as such, but then he himself uses them throughout the book. The book is littered with many errors of grammar, punctuation, and usage. He can’t even spell Jane Austen, writing the city in Texas instead for her last name! I wouldn’t trust a book on editing that breaks its own rules and has other errors. I don’t suggest that you trust this book either.
I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.
Well worth reading. 4.5* This a comprehensive tool for anyone who writes and wants to improve their style and accuracy skills. It is also useful for those who edit and proofread the work of others. It is always good to go over material that doesn’t crop up frequently and may belong to an area of our brain which contains all the facts that we aren’t immediately able to remember. Happily recommend this instructional book to all. It’ll be useful for students, writers and professional editors also.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Great Resource for (New) Writers!
What a great resource for new writers to have at their fingertips! This book is full of great tips to use, and pitfalls to avoid that will help a writer craft their first written masterpiece. Best of all, the book has great examples and explanations. It’s a guide I will refer to over and over again as needed.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
This is a nice reference guide with plenty of good clear examples that can trip writers up.
I would recommend this to new and younger writers, creative students and ESL learners looking to elevate their skills
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
“All About: Copy Editing. 55 Easy Steps to Improve your Novel” by K.J. Heritage is a practical handbook that does exactly was it supposed to do, give any author looking for advice sound and no-nonsense tips on how to improve a manuscript. The book, which seems sadly overlooked since its initial release in 2013, is a valuable help to newcomers to editing and those authors who have not yet acquired a routine for editing their own manuscripts. The 55 tips are clearly stated, without superfluous snick-snack, which can make the book seems somehow ‘plain’ at first sight for those accustomed to the process of manuscript editing, but it is in fact very valuable for any newcomer to the task. Clear stated tips on how to avoid some of the most common ‘poor editing’ cases that will surely be welcomed by the targeted audience.