This week’s pick is a piece by father and son team, Tom and Johnny Lichtenberg. Tom is one of our more prolific writers here at Free-eBooks.net and extremely talented at that. For this week, I suggest Prisoners of Perfection is the book to be reading.

“I like this piece from author Robert Fuller, who explores the controversial and traditional standoff between the religious camps and the scientific community in a respectful manner that is crammed with critical thinking. I’ve seen far too much animosity and hostility in debates related to this subject and it is a pleasant change to see someone attempting to debate the subject with respect and dignity, casting aspersions equally on both sides. Whatever your personal feelings and conclusions, I have to applaud this author’s approach to very controversial and topical subject.”

– Editor.

Photo by ‘gregwake’ on Flickr

What is it that makes bad writing bad? Well, that is a rather subjective judgement call. According to the writer of this WSJ article, “[i]t’s impossible to define bad writing because no one would agree on a definition.” This is true. Bad writing for me is likely to not be the same as bad writing for you.

To be completely honest, I am somewhat of a book snob. I have been known to turn up my nose, sniff and repeatedly utter “My word!” in a very Miss Marple-esque way when I encounter what I deem to be bad writing; such as stilted dialogue, descriptions that don’t quite flow, run-on sentences, overly flowery metaphors, or metaphors that are not quite believable. None of that is enough for me to I absolutely refuse to read a book, I usually continue reading if the story is good enough.

As far as I am concerned, a lack of understanding or experience in expertly wielding language as a tool (or a weapon) does not preclude being heard (or read). What [ more ]]]>

Photo by ‘gregwake’ on Flickr

What is it that makes bad writing bad? Well, that is a rather subjective judgement call. According to the writer of this WSJ article, “[i]t’s impossible to define bad writing because no one would agree on a definition.” This is true. Bad writing for me is likely to not be the same as bad writing for you.

To be completely honest, I am somewhat of a book snob. I have been known to turn up my nose, sniff and repeatedly utter “My word!” in a very Miss Marple-esque way when I encounter what I deem to be bad writing; such as stilted dialogue, descriptions that don’t quite flow, run-on sentences, overly flowery metaphors, or metaphors that are not quite believable. None of that is enough for me to I absolutely refuse to read a book, I usually continue reading if the story is good enough.

As far as I am concerned, a lack of understanding or experience in expertly wielding language as a tool (or a weapon) does not preclude being heard (or read). What it does is speak to the lack of writing experience in writing which is easily fixed with more writing, more critiquing, and more exposure. That is not to say that there aren’t some especially gifted writers out there, fortunately blessed with certain talent at birth.

If there is one piece of advice to writers that I keep seeing over and over, it is “Keep writing”. Advice I am only now beginning to understand. As a fledgling writer, it is demotivating to write your heart out only to learn upon re-reading that the piece you just lovingly coaxed out of your fingers is as dreadful as it comes. The trick is to keep at it until it’s not so dreadful anymore. And then to keep at it until it’s good. And keep at it until it’s perfect (assuming it ever can be perfect).

It is the very essence of practice makes perfect and a concept I am desperately trying to retrain myself with in my writing. It is also a concept that I take into consideration when I am reading. One series of books that I found got better as the instalments were released were the Snookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. The first two or so of that series struck me as absolutely unpolished; but those improved over time and with experience; and practice. So writers? Don’t despair; it gets better with practice. Keep writing.

As a reader, what do you think makes writing “bad” or “good”? Does “bad” writing make you stop and throw the book out or can you stomach it enough to finish the story?

FE: I notice from your Free-eBooks.net profile that you are a fan of the supernatural; specifically The Vampire Diaries, Angel, Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes, and Star Wars. These are series and stories that I am also a huge fan of, which makes me eager to ask: What are your reading right now? What’s on your nightstand?

RHD: I actually just finished reading my first book on a kindle! My husband bought me a Kindle Fire for my 39th birthday. I was very excited as I had wanted one for awhile now, but just had not broken down and made the purchase. The book I read was by H. P. Mallory, the first book in the Jolie Wilkins series. I love her writing style! Plus, it’s nice to take the time and read a book, [ more ]]]> I asked Rachel D’Aigle to “sit down with me” this week, and have a little chat about her writing, her life, and her process. I am happy to say she was extremely obliging. Thank you again, Rachel. It was a pleasure chatting with you.

FE: I notice from your Free-eBooks.net profile that you are a fan of the supernatural; specifically The Vampire Diaries, Angel, Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes, and Star Wars. These are series and stories that I am also a huge fan of, which makes me eager to ask: What are your reading right now? What’s on your nightstand?

RHD: I actually just finished reading my first book on a kindle! My husband bought me a Kindle Fire for my 39th birthday. I was very excited as I had wanted one for awhile now, but just had not broken down and made the purchase. The book I read was by H. P. Mallory, the first book in the Jolie Wilkins series. I love her writing style! Plus, it’s nice to take the time and read a book, and get out of my own writing brain for a day or two. Note to my younger readers though, its an adult themed book.

FE: All writers struggle with challenges be it the more commonly known “writer’s block” or other real life challenges such as a day job or family. What were your biggest challenges to date and how did you overcome them?

RHD: I have had many challenges. Most are, oddly enough, outlined in a new novella called My Glamorous Life as Self-Published Author. It delves into my experiences in self-publishing, mainly focusing on the many mistakes I made during the first few years, in hopes that others thinking of self-publishing can get an up close and personal look into the life they are about to enter, and also learn from my mistakes and successes.

My biggest challenge occurred when I finished my first book, back in 2006. It was the book that would eventually become the first book in the Fated Saga series. I jumped into self-publishing after racking up over 300 rejections from literary agents! I make this sound like a short process, but this took a couple of years, many revisions and edits, learning how to write query letters, bouts of depression and nearly giving up on my publishing dreams.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until after I had given up signing with an agent or publisher and decided to self-publish, that I realized my book still needed a lot of work! I made the rookie mistake of publishing too soon. Mainly in the editing department. I had always prided myself on being top-notch when it came to English and grammar, but after taking about ten years off from writing, I had NO idea how much I had forgotten. I needed a huge refresher and a ton of help!

Once I felt like I got a hold of this issue, my next biggest challenge was and is, time! Being self-published means you have to do everything! It is not just writing a book… that’s the easy part! You have to figure out how to make book covers, create websites, how to publish, market and so much more. When I started out I was working a full time job and a part time job. Never mind all the normal life events that happen… just recently I was able to reduce my schedule to two, part time jobs. So I’m just working full time now, and trying to write. It’s not where I want to be yet, as I do very much want to be a full time writer, but I’ll take whatever progress comes my way.

Thankfully, I have yet to experience any bouts of severe writer’s block. More like writer’s exhaustion… I cannot count how many 16-18 hour days I have put in over the years. Basically, I just try to keep moving, because once I take a break, I crash. Hard! And it can take weeks, sometimes months to get back into the groove.

FE: Is My Glamorous Life as a Self-Published Author a manuscript you would be willing to share with the Free-eBooks.net community?

RHD: I do plan on doing so. It is currently in the publication stage, I am working on final details now. I hope that it helps readers understand my writing background better and give them an idea what its like living in the world of self-publishing and how much that world has changed just in these last six years, since I first jumped in. This is the official description:

My Glamorous Life as a self-Published Author: A personal, honest and humorous sneak peek into the life, dreams and nightmares of a self-published author. This began as a blog, containing memoirs of my first three years in the Self-Publishing Industry, during the years of 2006-2009. It has since been expanded upon and turned into a book delving into those first three years, and also includes an addendum for the following three years, through to 2012… including successes, failures and hard lessons learned about myself, my writing skills and the publishing industry. If you’re thinking of self-publishing, and have yet to delve into this world, give this a read first. At the very least, avoid my mistakes and learn a little more about the world of self-publishing.

(NOTE: My Glamorous Life as a Self-Published Author is now listed in the Free-eBooks.net library.)

FE: You mention struggling with editing as one of your challenges. Editing is something most people take for granted. A lot of our readers expect eBooks to be written in flawless language and are very vocal about their disappointment when they are not. So my question is: do you currently hire someone or have a set person who helps you with editing? How do you get your editing done?

RHD: Editing is a difficult task for me. Well, it is getting easier. To put it bluntly though, I took ten years off from writing and when I came back to it, I had no idea just how much I had forgotten. I was suddenly lost in a sea of words and rules I could not understand or remember. I started my process with creating my own personal editing guide, with all the best tips and most common mistakes made by new writers. This helped me a ton. But it was still not enough.

No matter how much you edit or how much experience you have writing, you need more than one pair of eyes to read your manuscript. There’s just no way to catch every error. I am very lucky now to have befriended a retired school teacher that proofreads my writing for me.

And I agree, as from personal experience, readers are turned off by poor grammar and writing skills. They might overlook the occasional typo or misused word, but they hate being dragged out of a story because they just can’t get passed the errors.

FE: I remember seeing your books on Free-eBooks.net when I first started working with the website just over a year ago. Unless I am mistaken, you were in the process of writing the Fated Saga series at the time. Would you care to elaborate when and how you found us or how you were introduced to us and what the experience of being with us has been like over the year (or years)?

RHD: If I recall correctly, I found the site by chance, as I was searching for sites I could post my books to, in hopes of getting useful feedback from readers. I was trying out self-publishing but was having a difficult time reaching my target audience. I remember that I posted the first book and then sort of forgot about it. It wasn’t until months later that I logged in to see what was happening and low and behold, my book was in the top 10! I was shocked to say the least! Not soon after, it was number 1! Mostly, this gave me hope that I really had written a book that readers wanted to read. I had lost hope for awhile and had many moments that I thought, maybe this is a dream I need to give up… I am glad I did not! The biggest lesson is, in the publishing world things take time. Forget those few lucky few that get that instant overnight success… be patient! Which is the hardest advice to follow, as per personal experience…

FE: Free-eBooks.net and the crew at Paradise Publishers are dedicated to helping up and coming authors to write and get their work out to the world. What would you say has been the biggest takeaway you have from the experience with us? And what would you tell other new authors that you wished someone had said to you in the beginning.

RHD: As per self-publishing in general, I wish someone had told me to slow down and take my time. To not make rash decisions based on personal feelings, desires or based on one person’s advice. Get a lot of feedback before acting on advice. That said, would I have listened? Maybe not, I am rather stubborn! But I made my share of mistakes and I have paid the price. I’m also a better writer and have learned a lot about myself, my writing and the publishing industry.

As per new authors, especially in circumstances like my own-no budget for anything- get feedback and do the very best job you can in regards to editing. I also recommend to write. No matter how busy or how much stuff you have to get done, don’t forget to write. The most success I have had these last couple of years is not by my marketing efforts, but by publishing new books.

I also do not recommend starting out your writing career with a series. Write a few stand alone books first. Find your voice. Find your style. Hone your craft without the pressure of needing to write the next book in the series…

FE: Most writers admit their characters all resemble themselves in some key ways and that their own personalities tend to influence how and what they write. How would you say that your own personality has affected your writing and do you believe that key aspects of yourself can be found in your characters?

RHD: In the Fated Saga series, the two main characters of Meghan and Colin Jacoby have always been loosely based on myself. I see Colin starting out as a portrayal of my more reserved and shy self as a young child, and Meghan starting out as the stronger, more responsible, yet always a little uncertain, older self.

The gypsy theme, my characters being travelers, stems from my own life as well. From the age of three months to around twelve years old, I lived a nomadic lifestyle. My parents were members of a religious cult and were also migrant workers that traveled around the east coast, working. We did not “settle down” until my teen years. I put that in quotations because even once we settled down, it was never for more than a couple of years at at time.

The other characters in this series are all loosely based on people I know. Not one character in particular is one person, they are all combinations of people and accumulated experiences. Some of the events are also based on real events from my life. For example, in book two of the Fated Saga, Meghan’s repeated vision/nightmare regarding Jae Mochrie… this dream is an actual dream I used to have as a child, in regards to a dear friend, who was abused by his father. This dream was an accumulation of my angst over the fact that I was always just out of reach when it came to helping him…

FE: You recently signed on with an agent of sorts. Can you tell us a little about the experience of finding an agent and, as a result, where you see the Fated Saga series and Rachel D’Aigle a year from now?

RHD: What I have actually been, is lucky enough to attain a few sponsors. I would love to have my own agent. It would be a dream come true! To be honest, at the moment I’d probably take an assistant more so than an agent. But for now, I am thrilled to have my sponsors. Basically, after seeing that I was having some success and getting great reviews overall, I had a few people approach me that were willing to invest a little money to help me further my writing career.

What’s changed? Everything and nothing! I am still in control of every aspect of the books themselves. The writing the marketing etc. But I now have some much needed financial help to get things done. I also feel a great duty to return their belief in me, by doing the very best I can to return their generosity… so henceforth, I’m fully into self-publishing and selling books. Through sites like yours I have spent the last year or so building a reading audience, and their responses have helped me reshape the books and feel much more confident in the product I am now selling to readers. That confidence is something I did not have when I attempted self-publishing previously, and it makes a difference. You need to have confidence in the books you publish. Period.

A year from now, I expect to have finished the Fated Saga series. I have many more books to write, more books than I might ever have enough hours in my lifetime to write. I also very much hope to be a full time writer within the next year. Of course, I have been saying this since I initially finished my first book back in 2006, however, I am now closer to this dream than I have ever been…

FE: You spoke about establishing an audience and how Free-eBooks.net helped you do that yet recently you pulled all the Fated Saga eBooks from the library save the first one Awaken. Can you tell us what happened to result in that decisions? Do you think you will ever re-list the series with Free-eBooks.net?

RHD: This one’s hard, as I realize some readers are upset about it. When I initially posted Awaken, I had intended on posting only book one and maybe book two, onto the site. I was searching for feedback because I was struggling with self-publishing and selling books at the time. I had essentially taken the books off the self-publishing market. After seeing Awaken hit the top ten, I think it was at this point that I decided to load up more from the series. I really did not expect it to be as popular as it was. But I wasn’t trying to sell them at that time either, as they were in the midst of getting a makeover of sorts, based on the feedback I’d received from this site and from others.

It was a very hard choice for me to remove the series. But it was simply time for me to proceed with my writing career, which meant unfortunately to stop offering them for free and selling them through outlets like Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

That said, will they return at some point? I cannot say for certain right at this moment. After getting my sponsors, I definitely feel obligated to return their investment. I am currently writing the rest of the series, which will most likely entail three additional books. It is possible they may return, I just cannot guarantee at this moment, if or when that might happen.

Personality is defined as those unique qualities that make up who we are. In my case, some of those qualities are my passion, my dedication, my sincerity, my tendency to over-think as well as my propensity for caring deeply about everything and everyone dear to me. These are qualities I believe and hope that people think about when they think of me. Yet I know that others see me differently than I see myself. This is borne out when I happen onto someone’s description of me. In the beginning, I was surprised at how people saw me, but I think over the years I have come to appreciate what [ more ]]]> I had occasion to reflect on personality and the influences of our personalities in our writing this past week. Particularly, I was thinking about how we see ourselves and how that differs from how others see us, and how our personalities are reflected in our everyday activities. In the case of writers, it is patently impossible to write without infusing the words with aspects of our personality in one form or another.

Personality is defined as those unique qualities that make up who we are. In my case, some of those qualities are my passion, my dedication, my sincerity, my tendency to over-think as well as my propensity for caring deeply about everything and everyone dear to me. These are qualities I believe and hope that people think about when they think of me. Yet I know that others see me differently than I see myself. This is borne out when I happen onto someone’s description of me. In the beginning, I was surprised at how people saw me, but I think over the years I have come to appreciate what effect my personality can have on others and when I hear people describe me now, I am not so surprised anymore. Incidentally, it’s great fun to ask your friends and colleagues to describe you as they see you and compare the differences in how you see yourself. Try it out.

Undeniably, personality changes over time; it’s a benefit of the acquisition of knowledge and experience. Think of how you see a particular issue today and look back 5 or 10 years and try to remember what you thought of that issue then. Maybe a more controversial topic will have a clearer memory formed – politics? religion? We won’t discuss them here, but for the sake of remembering, think how your views on something like politics or religion may have changed over the years. Even if you think the same about an issue but your reaction to being challenged on it has changed, that indicates a change in personality.

Our personalities are influenced by many different factors – our parents, our peers, life experiences, our career choices, and so on. We are a sum total of everything we have experienced, every impression we have formed, and every personality we have come in contact with in our lives. It should be no surprise, then, that everything we do or say now, and even write, is a reflection of our personality influences.

It has been said that every character a writer ever wrote about includes some aspect or more of themselves. Sue Grafton said, in an interview posted on her website, the main character in her series of novels – Kinsey Millhone – often checks the acknowledgement of a book first as a direct reflection of what she, Sue, herself does. When Stephen King pens the screenplay adaptations for his books, he writes himself into a small role in the script. Janet Evanovich is quoted on her website as saying: ” I wouldn’t go so far as to say Stephanie is an autobiographical character, but I will admit to knowing where she lives.”

I think most writers will agree with me in saying that their writing is simply an extension of themselves and their imaginations. So my question to you, dear readers, is twofold. If you’re a writer, do you notice bits and pieces of yourself floating onto the page as you write? And if you’re a reader, do you find that you feel you are getting to know your favourite author better the more you read their books? Let us know in the comments below, or on our Facebook fan page.

I have exciting news for you, our readers, today. For today, Paradise Publishers launches our newest venture: social publishing on Foboko.com. Foboko takes an innovative approach to writing and publishing with its super helpful, step-by-step wizard that takes you by the hand and shows you where and how to get started, and guides you through the whole book writing process up to and including publication.

With so many revolutionary changes in the eBook industry lately, we believe that our Foboko.com will fit right into this new era in indie publishing. We tip our hats to the pioneers such as J. K. Rowling with her bold move to make the Harry Potter eBooks available from her own website Pottermore.com and to Tor for announcing that they would be removing DRM from all their eBooks.

Feedback from our beta period has been positive and full of energy. Educators are excited about it stating they are thrilled with the idea of Foboko and that they [ more ]]]>

I have exciting news for you, our readers, today. For today, Paradise Publishers launches our newest venture: social publishing on Foboko.com. Foboko takes an innovative approach to writing and publishing with its super helpful, step-by-step wizard that takes you by the hand and shows you where and how to get started, and guides you through the whole book writing process up to and including publication.

With so many revolutionary changes in the eBook industry lately, we believe that our Foboko.com will fit right into this new era in indie publishing. We tip our hats to the pioneers such as J. K. Rowling with her bold move to make the Harry Potter eBooks available from her own website Pottermore.com and to Tor for announcing that they would be removing DRM from all their eBooks.

Feedback from our beta period has been positive and full of energy. Educators are excited about it stating they are thrilled with the idea of Foboko and that they look forward to incorporating it into their curriculum to help their students.

If you have ever wanted to try your hand at writing, but were never sure how or where to start, Foboko.com is a ready-made solution for you.

Trust me, you’re going to love it!

Vacation means different things to different people but I think for most readers it usually means more time to read more. With physical books, you’d go vacation reading shopping; browse the bookstores and libraries for as many books as you can carry in your arms, or in your luggage. And if you’re like me, you’ve been collecting books for a few months, preparing for vacation time when you can sit down and read them all.

For others, vacation means less about reading and more about how much they can see and experience in as short a time as possible. Which is fine too, but I think that even those people should slot some time for a read here and there. Exercising the body is supremely important, yes; exploring and [ more ]]]> I’ve been on vacation for two weeks and I only managed to put a small dent in my reading list while I was off. Of course, this last vacation was more about entertaining visiting family that it was anything else, but I had still hoped to get in more than half a book.

Vacation means different things to different people but I think for most readers it usually means more time to read more. With physical books, you’d go vacation reading shopping; browse the bookstores and libraries for as many books as you can carry in your arms, or in your luggage. And if you’re like me, you’ve been collecting books for a few months, preparing for vacation time when you can sit down and read them all.

For others, vacation means less about reading and more about how much they can see and experience in as short a time as possible. Which is fine too, but I think that even those people should slot some time for a read here and there. Exercising the body is supremely important, yes; exploring and experiencing almost as much so. Yet I think that expanding the mind shares as much importance as physical exercise and exploration.

Of course, as readers, we probably see even less of the outside world when we get reading time – wouldn’t you agree? So tell me, readers: Do you make up a reading list for your vacation reading? Or is vacation time for you to get out and smell the flowers, splash in the pool, and drink margaritas all day (and night) long?

Before the Kindle Fire was announced, it had been labelled ‘a potential iPad killer’ in the media. As I watched the live [ more ]]]> Recently, I heard from a friend who bought a Kindle Fire a few months ago. At the time, I had asked him to remember me with some feedback about his experience with the device. And that feedback was not good at all. Aside from the fact that his device died soon after receiving it, he comments that the device “usability was stripped to almost nothing for international users, there was poor application functionality, and multiple interface glitches.” It wasn’t the first time I had heard negative feedback from a friend regarding the Kindle Fire. Another friend had much the same to say about it and more. After rooting the Kindle Fire and installing a custom OS, he remarked that the hardware was inferior and that in his opinion the Nook tablet was a far superior device. The former gentleman has set his sights on a Nexus 7 and the latter has settled in with his brand new iPad.

Before the Kindle Fire was announced, it had been labelled ‘a potential iPad killer’ in the media. As I watched the live blog of the announcement by Jeff Bezos, I realised that iPad killer it was not. I might have mentioned that fact a few times on this blog, if you recall. I have always maintained that the Kindle Fire was never intended to be a general use tablet of the calibre of an iPad, but a content delivery system for the Amazon Prime ecosystem.

Until today, I won’t deny feeling a little disappointed in the Fire as a device. I felt that either Amazon deliberately allowed the public to assume it was a general use tablet, or they naively thought it could take the place of a general use tablet. In either case, it spoke of a fundamental disconnect between what the public was expecting and what Amazon thought the public wanted.

Fortunately, when I was asked to recall what the first generation Kindle was like and how much of an improvement the second generation Kindle was on the first, I realized that all was not lost. “The next Kindle Fire will be better. He’ll learn from people with more discernment than he. Just as he did with the first Kindle”, my friend reminded me. Whatever else Amazon intended with the first generation Kindle Fire, they wanted to deliver a product to their customers that they saw as innovative. And as with the first generation Kindle, we can expect that they will take whatever feedback we offer in return and improve on the device so that the next generation will better fit what customers want to see in the device.

Although, I strongly doubt that those improvements will include offering a more generalised tablet experience, I am almost sure that the hardware is likely to be more robust and the interface will be less clunky and buggy. Whether the content available to international users is expanded or not remains to be seen. That aspect of the Fire remains outside the influence of Amazon and in the hands of the respective media houses.

I’m not one for advocating using the general public as beta testers for your new device, and this is exactly what has happened with the Kindle Fire. To be honest, there is no true way to get a solid impression of what works and what doesn’t without placing the product in the hands of the customer. Software beta tests are largely free, but it would certainly be corporate naiveté to give away devices to the general public and ask for their feedback. The best possible outcome from a disappointment like this one, is to view it within the context of other such product offerings. And in light of what the Kindle dedicated eReader has evolved into, it doesn’t seem particularly unreasonable to see the first generation Kindle Fire as only a beginning and that the best is yet to come.

The one caution I might leave with you is that it be remembered that Amazon is not in the business of making tech gadgets and that expecting an all purpose, general use tablet is a bit of a stretch. Their business is all about what they can provide you themselves, without the input of any other third party content providers.

Yet, I also know that I am not the only person who can be completely turned off of a book if the grammar is faulty. And even if the occasional subject-verb agreement is fine with you, a confusing or complicated sentence just takes away from the enjoyment of the book. If you can’t understand what is happening in the book, then you aren’t likely to continue reading it. Constantly misusing “your” for “you’re” is a very simple representation of incorrect grammar. Sentence construction is just as much a part of good language usage as is the correct selection of a word.

We writers tend to be blind to our grammatical flaws when we’re writing. It takes a very thorough and [ more ]]]> If you pay a visit to Grammerly’s Facebook page today, you’ll notice that their cover image is a tribute to the Grammarly community’s biggest pet peeve: Your constant use of “your” instead of “you’re” makes me wonder whether your keyboard is missing some keys. It seems I am not the only one who gets a little annoyed when someone misuses the language.

Yet, I also know that I am not the only person who can be completely turned off of a book if the grammar is faulty. And even if the occasional subject-verb agreement is fine with you, a confusing or complicated sentence just takes away from the enjoyment of the book. If you can’t understand what is happening in the book, then you aren’t likely to continue reading it. Constantly misusing “your” for “you’re” is a very simple representation of incorrect grammar. Sentence construction is just as much a part of good language usage as is the correct selection of a word.

We writers tend to be blind to our grammatical flaws when we’re writing. It takes a very thorough and extremely objective eye to go through our work and be able to correct our own errors. I have to admit that I would love to have a copy editor of my own sitting around. My articles and posts are sometimes littered with grammatical errors that I cringe at when they are pointed out to me. As an author, I would imagine that after spending months, maybe even years, crafting my masterpiece, the last thing I want is for someone to tell me they couldn’t get past the first page because the language was so bad. It’s just counterproductive to give your readers something that they can’t comprehend.

A copy edit of your work is never a bad thing; nor is it too much of an expense if the end result is that your readers don’t even notice the language and are able to focus on and enjoy the story. And while some of the experts say that a professional copy edit is a good expense to incur, when you are on a limited budget (or a non-existent one), sometimes all it takes is someone you know who has a discerning eye for language. Maybe a friend, a colleague, or even a family member can tell you when something isn’t clear enough about what you’ve written.

Consider this: every time you scan your work after submitting it that first time and find yet another grammatical or usage error is another potential reader lost. Put your best foot forward the first time and do a thorough edit first. If you’re having trouble locating someone to help you edit, ask around. You might be surprised how many people are willing to help you edit.