Julie Broad (founder of Revenue Training Inc.) explains how to hire a copy editor for a self-published nonfiction book. She defines a copy editor’s role (grammar, consistency, headings, preserving voice), provides pricing examples from her two books, and gives a step-by-step hiring process: search online (editor associations, Upwork), filter for genre experience, shortlist 3–5 editors, send sample pages, compare edits, evaluate added value/fit, and confirm timeline and availability.
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Self publishing your first book. Well, one of the key people you're going to want on your team is a copy editor because you want to put out an absolutely professional finished product, right? Well, how do you hire one? Stick around. I've got tips to get a fantastic copy editor for your project. Hey there. I'm Julie Broad, founder of Revenue Training Inc. And creator of havemoreinfluence.com I'm also the author of two self published books, More Than Cash Flow and the New Brand You. Now I can tell you that neither one of these books would have been a success or something that I'm actually really proud of if it weren't for my fantastic copy editor. Now how did I hire her and what does a copy editor do? I'm so glad you asked. That's what I'm going to cover today. So why don't we take a look at what a copy editor does. That this is the person who pours over your manuscript. This person looks at sentence structure, grammar and punctuation. A good copy editor is also looking at consistency, wordings, headings, subheadings. An editor should never change the voice of your work, but they should enhance it. What does a copy editor cost? Well, let me just give you a quick ballpark and then I'm going to tell you how to find a fabulous one. My first book, More Than Cash Flow was 65,000 words. So to give you a sense, my copy editor charges $25 per 1,000 words, $25 per hour to cut content. Because sometimes you end up with a whole lot more content than you need. And the final proofread is $15 per 1,000 words. So on my first book I paid her about $2,500. My second book, the New Brand you'd wasn't as flushed out as my first book was. And it also started off fatter than it's. Then it ended up in the end, so she had to cut quite a bit and I had to pay her to edit those initial 86,000 words. So it ended up costing me $3,610 to get this book edited. Sounds expensive. But without it, it would not be a professional product. It would not be something I'm proud of without her, it wouldn't be something I would want to publish. So it was money well spent. But how do you get a copy editor who is worth every penny? Well, here's how I found mine. Step one. Well, first of all, you're going to go online. At least that's what I did. Now there's Sites where you can go to hire copy editors, like Upwork.com I found mine through a British Columbia, the province where I live in Canada. A British Columbia Editors Society or Editors association page. Here, let me just put it up here for you so you can see it. So I found a list of editors here, and I would do the same approach on upwork if I was going to use upwork. So, number one, going to this online site, I'm now going to filter it using some specific criteria. Now, my books were nonfiction books in the business category. So first thing, I want an editor who is comfortable and experienced in that category. So as you can see on the Editor's association, there's filters you can use in upwork, you could just use searches, type in the words. So first is to review them and find the ones that have worked on a project that is a similar type and genre to the one that you're working on. Once you've got that list now, start going to their websites, going to Amazon and seeing books that they've worked on, and start to dwindle it down to ideally five. People who have worked on similar projects have great testimonials on their website and just seem like they're a good fit for your project. Now send an email to each of them. You don't want to make it too long because you want them to actually read it, but you do want to briefly introduce yourself and your project, give them a sense of how large it is and your timeline. This is really important because you want somebody who is available to work on your project in the timeline that you're striving for. Now, both of my projects editing took twice as long as I had planned and as I had hoped, but that really wasn't on my editor. It was on me. Because, remember, it's not just the time it's going to take them to edit. You then have to review all their edits and send it back to them at least one more time. So if you're busy, editing can drag on for a lot longer than you think. If you're fully to select your editor from this short list of three to five people, you're going to send each of them the same two pages from your manuscript so they can get a sense of your work and then they can edit it and send it back to you. So now when you get these pages back, what are you looking for? Well, for me, I was looking for added value. I wanted insightful suggestions from them. I didn't want them to change the voice, but I did want them to kind of note where there might be an idea to improve. Elaborate or even potentially just cut this out. I wanted suggestions. I also wanted to test their attention to detail. So to do that I used the Merge document function in Microsoft Word and I compared them and some of them didn't catch all the mistakes. My editor caught them all and gave me great suggestions to improve the two pages that she read. Then I also just read their comments. Some people were very opinionated and I didn't really like that. I wanted people to come at it objectively and share their opinions, but I didn't want to feel like their opinion was being forced on me. So overall it was kind of like a gut check. Or am I going to get along with this person when I have to work with them for two or three months? If there's a clear winner, go with them. Unless their pricing is just way too high for you. But in general, if you can find a fantastic editor, they're probably worth the price they're charging you. If there hadn't been a clear winner, I would have then evaluated them based on price, of course, availability. And then I would have done more research into the reviews. I would have gone on Amazon on the books that they've worked on and read the reviews. And if there was comments against the flow, against the structure, grammar, things like that, because Amazon reviewers can be really nitpicky, I would then probably lower my rating of that editor because while the editor can't really control the content at the end of the day, my editor added so much value that I can tell you that there won't be comments about that. Yeah, somebody might find a couple spelling mistakes, but that's probably not my editor's fault. That probably happened in layout or something that I changed that wasn't edited by her at the very end. So a few mistakes is one thing. Regular comments or a few comments about structural issues in the book that would lower my rating of the editor. Once you have your winner, let them know, reinforce your timeline and then try to stick with it because they'll plan their projects around your timeline. I couldn't be happier with my editor, so I hope that you find an excellent one as well. If you have questions, go ahead right here in YouTube, just go ahead and post a comment or come on over to havemoreinfluence.com grab the broad Thoughts newsletter and just hit reply to any one of them with your questions and I just might shoot a video to help you out with your self publishing or marketing and branding questions. Cool. Cool. And of course, if you like this video, do give it a thumbs up. Makes me happy. Lets me know that I'm spending my time well shooting these videos for you. And hope to see you here again next time. Bye, folks. Turn on the mic. Makes a better video, okay.
