Although I’ve never personally emptied my bank account on self-publishing a book – not yet anyhow – I have to say that there has to be a line where expenses just can’t be cut: editing and/or proofreading. Sure, I know the cover is important, as are promotional activities and the like; however, if you spend your entire budget on those things and people buy your book and it’s lacking the grammatical sense that a middle school paper should have then you’ll be looking forward to those reviews that say what an amazing cover it had, right?
Look, I’m a reader so I know that the cover is the first opportunity you have to pitch your book to a potential reader. According to The Book Smugglers (thebooksmugglers.com), 79% of those who took their survey said that the cover mattered to them. In addition, 48% said that those same covers played a “major role” in whether or not they actually purchased a book. Those are pretty high numbers if you think about it.
Because, umm duh I’m a reader. I know how important a cover is in deciding whether I buy a book or not. It’s the first thing I look at. And honestly, I’m sweating over the cover of a book I’ve yet to write because I know that shelf appeal, be it in a brick-n-mortar store or online, is literally one of the most important decisions you have to make as an author. However, if I’ve purchased this book with an AMAZING cover and ten pages into this book with this AMAZING cover I’m wondering if this author has ever even read a book then we’ve got problems.
At the end of the day, I’d rather have a book that is readable than one that is pretty. I’d rather have a book with a million dollar budget for proofreader and editor than for a cover. According to our favorite freelance editor, Jason Bradley, “your proofreaders…caught the most common errors by reading up on certain mistakes to look out for…”
In a day and age when most people read on some sort of e-reader, how long does that cover really matter? I might pick a book off Amazon based on a cover but a) I’m not going to finish it based on the cover; b) I’m not going to tell the girls at book club about it because of the cover; c) I’m not going to blog about it because of the cover; and d) I’m definitely not going to give it a top review based on the cover.
Just as Jason says in summation, “I can look at a diamond and think it is the most beautiful stone I have ever seen and yet not be sure why it differs from the one beside it…In the same way, a reader can say, ‘The idea was a solid one, but the author failed in execution’ or ‘I never felt connected to the characters and ended up not caring what happened to them’ or ‘The story just didn’t do it for me.’ While those are valid reviews, they don’t really pinpoint the spot in the manuscript where changes need to be made and they are not simple fixes but are some of the many things a professional editor can help you with. By making suggestions or bringing up points you might not have thought of, they help shape your story into one that can get higher ratings and garner more readers.”
Jason reminds us that there are so many nuances in writing that an editor/proofreader can suggest to make that book beautiful like the cover you dream of having. Their services are important and desperately beyond necessary. It’s important to have both a beautifully written picture as well as a beautifully done cover.
As an author, the goal should be for your readers to have an uninterrupted movie playing in their head as they read, so that they forget they are reading a book as the action plays out as a visual in their mind. Small things can interrupt that movie for a reader, things that aren’t listed as a grammar rule but that take the attention off the story and onto the words on the page. Once the movie stops playing in a reader’s head, it becomes a task to get it going again and creates a good spot to put the book down until later. An author doesn’t want that to happen, because what is the best praise for a book? “I couldn’t put it down.” Right? And that’s why they couldn’t! There was no spot where the movie was interrupted to make the reader consider what time it is or the list of chores they aren’t currently taking care of.
An editor can help point out those spots that can trip up a reader. A few of the problem areas are:
- Oddly worded sentences or using words that can take on a different meaning within the sentence structure.
- Repeated words
- Rhyming words or words that are closely spelled
- Autonomous body parts.
Some authors argue that “People talk like that so it makes my book more real.” The problem is that when someone calls to ask if you would like to order the newspaper, we aren’t reading the words they say and considering them as fully as we do when involved in a book. We aren’t building a scene in our head off that conversation, and we are not going to rate how well the person did at keeping us enthralled.