You
have spent a lot of time -- your own blood, sweat, and tears -- putting your special book together. Your soul is in that book.
It's as special to you as if it were your own child.
Don't
let your book lose its impact by putting it out in anything less
than a totally professional format.
If
you ever hope to sell another book, particularly to the same
people who bought one of your earlier ones, it's absolutely
critical to keep your customers' respect and credibility by
ensuring your book has the highest level of
professional writing, layout, design, copy flow, and more.
Snicko.com offers book editing services at all levels.
Tailored to your needs and your budget.
In
getting ready to set up Snicko.com and start a rip-roarin' EBay
business, I read dozens, perhaps hundreds of ebooks and online
articles. Some of
them are very good, others are little more than hype to get you to
purchase some other product.
But
the one thing most of them have in common is they have not
been professionally edited. There are frequent problems with
-
spelling
-
grammar
-
syntax
-
concept
flow
-
layout
-
design
|
-
illustrations
-
photos
-
captions
-
headers
and footers
-
white
space
|
The writers have no idea what widows and orphans are,
or if they do, they don't grasp the concept. Tables of contents
are missing or unusable. Internal hyperlinks are nonexistent or
confusing.
Does
your book have any of these problems?
Are
you absolutely certain you can do professional-level work on all
the items in the list above?
Here's
an example of a problem I have seen recently. Look at the difference in the following two
illustrations from an Excel spreadsheet:
See
the difference in resolution, how clear each picture is? I have
seen several books that have illustrations indicating their
authors seem to think this doesn't make any
difference.
Believe
me, it does.
For
another example, all too frequently, I see text such as this
"...when
you bid, don't get to carried away..."
or this "...when
the item has it's picture nearby..."
Did
you catch the errors? Those are some of the easier ones to
catch.
There
are many much more subtle errors, each of which can cost you
credibility, and more importantly, they can COST YOU SALES!
Don't
let it happen to you!
Invest
in professional book editing services from Snicko.com.
I
offer several levels of service, from basic spelling, grammar,
syntax, punctuation, and word usage editing, up through layout and
design, illustrations, and concept flow, even cover design.
My
normal editing rates are a quite reasonable $50 an hour, for any
services.
Special
Introductory Snicko.com Offer
As
a special limited time offer, I will do basic editing
services (spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation) for only $5 a page! No
matter how long it takes. This averages out to at least a 40%
discount off my normal rate.
This
offer will be withdrawn sometime in the first half of 2004, and will not be
repeated.
Please
see our Services section,
below, for what each level of service includes.
To
order Snicko.com book editing services, please email me at weo1@snicko.com
and we'll discuss your project.
How
We Work
Currently,
our mode of operation is using Microsoft Word, but we will be
happy to see if we can accommodate whatever method you choose.
Here's
a sample of how I work with a client. The client sends a
file in MS Word, and tells me they'd like Basic Services implemented,
and Full Copyediting on approval.
First,
I go through the manuscript and make all Basic Services
changes right in the document. Then I'll turn on Word's Track
Edits feature, and make the Full Copyediting changes.
The
changes made show up in the document in red.
Where
necessary, I'll insert Word Comments into the document to explain
my change suggestions, so the author can make a decision based on
having the proper information.
Note: One of the most critical criteria I use
in editing is maintaining the "voice" of the author.
Each author has his or her own special way of saying things, a
way that is unique to each person. I take special pains to
preserve this unique manner of writing, so the author's imprint
is retained in the book.
I
then send the document back to the author, who reviews the changes
and either accepts or discards them.
The
client and I continue the exchange process until the editing is complete.
Who
I Am
I'll
keep this short and sweet. I'm a trained copywriter with two
master's degrees, two national writing awards, and years of
writing experience.
I'd
like you to trust that I can do a great job for you, but I
understand you need more than just words.
So
here's what I'll do: when you hire me to do your editing, I'll do
your first segment (Chapter, section, division, etc. -- up to 15
pages) and let you look over my edits before deciding whether to
continue. If you decide my work is not for you, there will be no
charge and no obligation.
So
you see, you have no risk at all! You get to decide whether you
like my work before making any commitment.
List
of Services:
Here's
a list of the editing services I offer, and what each service
includes.
| Type
of Services |
What's
Included |
| Basic Services |
The basic services include checking for
spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation, and word
usage.
For example, usage of "to" or "too,"
or the proper usage of "its" and "it's"
or possessives and plurals. |
| Full Copyediting |
Includes the basic services, above, as well as
proofreading, continuity checking, and style checking.
For example, basic services would not flag a change of
person from "I will..." in the first paragraph to
"We will..." in the fifth paragraph. Full
copyediting will catch that.
Also, I'll find such contradictions as "It was a dark and stormy
night..." (thanks, Snoopy) on page one, and
"...she stared at the billions of stars in the clear
sky..." on page three. How could it be dark and stormy,
then suddenly clear? |
| Copyflow Editing |
Copyflow editing is the most sophisticated of
our offerings.
The best-written piece is totally transparent to the
reader. This means the readers aren't aware they're reading.
The information flows straight from the page to their
brains without stopping at their eyes.
Copyflow editing helps you ensure there are no reader
stumbling blocks, no places in your text that cause the
reader to stop reading and try to figure out what you meant.
This includes suggesting changes to sentence structure,
sentence length,
where paragraphs are separated, and several other areas of
attention.
It also includes checking that the chapters are divided
appropriately, that information flows properly within and
between chapters, that there are proper transitions and lead-ins to
changes of subject, and that all information is necessary,
neither redundant nor superfluous. |
| Layout and Design |
This kind of editing has to do with formatting
the elements of your piece, making them look just right on
the page:
- Introduction, foreword, copyright notices
- Table of Contents
- Chapter Titles
- Subtitles
- Paragraph layouts
- Lists, bullets, tables
- Insets, sidebars
- Illustrations, photos
With Layout and Design editing, we suggest fonts, point
size, margins, separators, page headers and footers, page
numbering, and appropriate use of white space. |
| Illustrations and Photos |
While illustrations and photos are not
important for fiction, they are absolutely essential for
how-to books.
Badly done illustrations and photos can detract from your
book, rather than add to it as you intend. They can scream,
"AMATEUR" to your customers, and cost you future
sales.
Illustration and Photo editing ensures each element is properly
positioned and anchored, it makes sure each has a proper
caption, and that labels, highlights, arrows, circles, and
other devices are included when appropriate. It also ensures
the proper flow of text around the elements.
Most importantly, this sort of editing will make sure
that each photo and illustration has the proper resolution,
balancing it so each element is clear enough without
being so large that it bloats your file size. |
| Cover Design and Book Images |
Whether you are producing your book for print
or electronic media, the design of your book's cover will
greatly affect your sales.
For ebooks, current experts tell you over and over again
that a great book cover will boost your sales tremendously.
It's true.
Ebooks need more than just a book cover. They also need
something called a "book image." This is the book
cover image, with an image of a book spine added, along with
elements for book pages, a back cover, and a shadow, so that
your book cover appears as a regular, hard-copy book. See
our examples here.
Book images are important for using on your website, or
anywhere
you want to sell your ebook.
You can purchase the software to make your own cover and
cover image. I've seen it from $29 to well over $100. If you
get the software, you then need to learn to use it, then do the work to create the
cover. Then you have to either use one of the templates they
supply, or tap your artistic abilities to
come up with an original design.
Or you can hire someone else to do it for you.
There are
a lot of sites on the internet that will do a
"Professional Cover" for you for $50 to $120. They
are pretty good, but again, you're probably limited to their
template designs. How many other people have that same
design?
The best way (of course I'd say this) would be to hire me to do an original book cover for you.
I will design your cover, working with you to get exactly
the cover you want, and provide you with two final products: a
book cover image you can use on the first page of your ebook,
and a book image (that looks like a hard-copy book) you can
use on your website.
And here's a deal you can't pass up: If you contract with
me for $500 worth of other editing services, I'll give you
the first version of your cover for only $100! If you use
$1000 or more of editing services, your book cover and image
services are absolutely FREE, up to three revisions!
To see some examples of book images I have designed and
their associated covers), look at our Bookstore
page. |
| Ebook Production. |
One of the final steps in producing an ebook
is to convert it from your working format to final
distribution format.
Mostly, this means a compiled HTML file (good for shorter
books, pamphlets, or how-to's) or Adobe's Portable Document
Format (PDF) file.
Personally, I prefer PDFs because they are readable on
any sort of computer with Adobe's free Acrobat Reader
software.
You can purchase the software to do the conversion
yourself, or you can let me do it for you.
If all you want me to do for you is convert your Word
file to PDF format, I'll do it for $25 flat. I will also
include edit protection, and non-print capability if you
want.
However, if you hire me to do $150 or more in other
editing services, I'll convert your document to PDF for free. |
Conclusion
Okay,
there you have it.
You need book editing services. I offer book
editing services. Fast,
affordable, reliable, and professional.
Satisfaction
guaranteed, or your money back.
Email
me today, and we'll talk about your project. There's no
commitment, no obligation, and every chance we will make your book
tremendously better.
