Non-Fiction Book Content Editing Breakdown

You already know you need an editor for your book. You do know that, right? And hopefully you know there's different kinds of editors and typically the first one you're going to hire is your content or developmental editor. They're the editors who make a book better. So hopefully you know that. But what you may not know is what that content or developmental editor is thinking about when they read your book. If you're wondering what is going on when your content editor is working on your manuscript, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book broad founder of the fabulous professional self publishing services firm Book Launchers. Today I'm super excited to introduce someone really, really special. She's the very first content editor we hired at Book Launchers and I'll tell you a fun fact about that process in a moment. For now, let's get right to meeting Kelly and finding out what she is looking for when she dives into a content edit. Please meet our master of manuscripts, Kelly Reagan.

I kind of start by looking for a couple things right off the bat. So kind of think first page or at least first chapter. So I'm really looking to see if I can quickly identify what the book is about. You'd be surprised how many times I'm four or five chapters in, I'm like, where is this going? What's happening? I want to be able to tell also pretty much up front you know who the book is for. So we do hand off meetings sometimes and sometimes they're there is some stuff written out about who the, who the reader, the ideal reader is and who the author really is, you know, hoping to target here. But if I can't tell who that is in the book and I don't have a clear sense of who might be reading this, like that's another indicator that, okay, we might need to do some more work on the front end. And then I'm also looking to see if I can quickly identify why the author is an expert on the topic. And that doesn't have to mean that you have a PhD in something. It can totally just mean you have personal experience and you know about something in detail. But the reader is gonna wanna know pretty quickly why they should be taking you seriously and why your book is better than Joe Schmo on Facebook who says whatever.

So this is the first time I've pulled Kelly out from behind the scenes to share some of her wisdom with you. Make sure you give her some love in the comments after you're done watching, not just because commenting the day a Video is released, gets you entered to win this beautiful hashtag noboringbooks mug, which Kelly embodies the no boring books hashtag, but because Kelly deserves it for being brave enough to share with you. Anyway, back to the content edits. Kelly explained that she kind of looks at the book like you might look at a house. She starts with the foundation of the book. How solid is that foundation? She's thinking, what are your arguments based on? Do you have supporting evidence? Has anyone else in the world discovered the things you're saying you've discovered? So you have backup in her words, not mine. She's a shark in the water looking for a drop of blood.

I'm kind of playing devil's advocate and looking just kind of like a shark in the water. Like looking to find weak points that maybe we can punch up and address. Make bulletproof. I like to say in my comments. Cause, you know, good editors have saved me many times from looking like an idiot. And that's what I'm hoping to do. And then beyond the foundation, and there's kind of this structure. I'm kind of thinking of a house. You know, there's that foundation. You want. You want it to be factual for nonfiction. Then you want to, you know, how each book looks or feels is going to be different depending on what story you're trying to tell. And so I'm looking to see kind of what is the best way to frame this story is the information presented in an interesting way and what would make it more compelling. Sometimes that is more personal examples. Sometimes that is looking for additional research or, you know, examples from other just things in real life that you can pull from to illustrate your point. Sometimes that's even creating a kind of hypothetical example to. And that's usually not my favorite way to go just because that's my journalism brain. But sometimes it works really well to have a hypothetical kind of person going through this journey that you create kind of a little story for to make a book about maybe a really intense process more interesting so readers aren't like getting bored by the framing of it.

Now, she alluded to the interesting fact about her. So let me tell you a quick story about Kelly. Way back when I first started Book Launchers and my core team was just two other people we were hiring to add content editor to our team of contractors. I had a very clear vision of what I wanted our books to be. We didn't have the cool noboringbooks hashtag yet. Double hashtag. We didn't have the cool no boring books Hashtag yet. But I had that philosophy that nonfiction books don't have to be boring and that we were going to create books with marketing in mind from the beginning, as we were testing out content editors, many who actually work for major publishing houses or had a lot of years of experience doing this role, I was really disappointed to find that very few really made changes to the test manuscript that were actually making the book engaging and interesting. They didn't suggest things that would hook the reader. They focused on structure, which is important, but good structure isn't the same as creating engagement. Then along came Kelly's test. She was a journalist, a trained writer, but not an editor. She'd been edited a lot, but she hadn't been the editor. And yet she nailed the test. I could see clearly she knew how to hook the reader and create engagement and create the foundation that she's talking about today. We've been working with her ever since, and currently her role with us is as Master of Manuscripts. She has played a significant role in some of our most successful books and does a lot of developmental editing, writing, and quality control for our team and our authors. To wrap this up, Kelly had one piece of advice to help you prepare your book for content editing. And essentially, it comes back to the hook of your book. But sometimes the word hook can feel fancy. So here's Kelly's take on getting your first draft done and getting it ready to go to a content editor.

One of the most helpful pieces of advice I really have received throughout my career as a journalist and a writer is that you should be able to answer this question in a sentence or two. And if you're struggling, you gotta figure it out, because that will have ramifications throughout the whole thing is, what is this book about? I know I mentioned that a little earlier on, but it is so important. Asking this question kind of repeatedly throughout the process will help you keep focused with each chapter. I'd recommend asking yourself this question and then kind of thinking through how this chapter helps to support that main point. Kind of like a thesis or something, you know, maybe writing high school papers.

One of our clients described going through the editing process at Book Launchers, like being put face to face with your worst troll. But it's being done in private, so now you know you can stand up to any troll in public. After hearing Kelly's explanation of what she's doing as a content editor on your book, I can understand why our client described it that way. But the big difference is we're on your side when we're working on your book, we pick your book apart so that nobody else does. Sweet. That was fun. If you want to meet more of Book Launcher's experts who work behind the scenes, smash that thumbs up button on your way down to comment and try it. It feels so good. Now, if you don't know what editors to hire when the book editor breakdown is a must watch, or the latest and greatest from the channel is almost certainly a great watch for you as well, either way, I can't wait to spend more time with you. So please click on over and I'll be waiting with tea and coffee in our fabulous NoboringBooks mug.