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Let me tell you something that I hope you already know. The publishing industry is glutted with manuscripts looking to get noticed (trust me – I’ve gazed into the abyss). You’ve got to put your best, most polished draft out there in order to get picked out of the slush pile. How can you be sure that you’re putting your best work forward if you haven’t shown it to anyone yet? A freelance editor can help make sure your story shines.

5 reasons to hire a freelance editor

  1. Your manuscript needs an impartial critique
    Maybe you’ve shown your manuscript (your shape-shifting demon romance novel, your young adult contemporary novel) to your boyfriend, or best friend, or to your sister who reads a lot. Maybe they loved it! That’s great. Showing your work to people you care about is a great first step to crafting a better narrative. But you need a freelance editor, someone who’s not invested in you emotionally, and who knows a thing or two about structure and style, to look at your novel before you decide it’s ready for the unforgiving public.
  2. You can always be more concise
    I’d expound further on this point, but I think it speaks for itself.
  3. Did you really think you’d catch all those punctuation and spelling errors alone?
    You may have won Scripps National Spelling Bee, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to catch all the errors in your manuscript. Even if you use spellcheck you’re going to run into trouble. Microsoft Word is notoriously bad at discerning what word you actually meant to use in a given sentence. A freelance editor is better than auto-correct any day of the week.
  4. What about story and plot holes?
    Plot holes are the worst, aren’t they? Sometimes they’re huge and gaping. You can see them but you can’t figure out what to do about them. Sometimes they’re tiny, little discrepancies that you didn’t remember existed in the story, or that you fill in with your story-filled brain but that the reader will still find confusing. A freelance editor can pick out those problems, highlight them for your consideration, and offer you bright and shiny suggestions that will lead you to exciting creative solutions.
  5. You want this story to shine
    The best reason to hire a freelance editor: You want this story to be the best it can possibly be before you share it with your readers. You deserve to be ridiculously proud of your writing. The best freelance editors are invested in helping make sure that happens for you.

Are you ready to take your manuscript to the next level?

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