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| It can be tempting to ignore critical comments. |
Last weekend, my son and his fiancé got married. There was food, dancing, music, and lots of talk. Among other things, I spoke with a new in-law whose daughter is going to start working as an editor. She recently edited her brother’s book. At least she passed on her recommendations. He didn’t do everything she told him to do.
And that’s his prerogative. Even when I’m doing work-for-hire, I don’t make every change suggested by the team of editors. Sometimes I respond to a comment with extra sources that back up my original sources. Other times I see their point, this thing right here needs to be fixed, but I come up with a different fix that I think combines better with the surrounding text.
When you self-publish, it can be tempting to ignore even good suggestions. Originally, my title was Help! They Want to Ban My Book. What Do I Do? Even I knew it was too long, but there were additional problems.
When I posted my cover on Facebook, a friend who owns her own publishing company commented. She told me I needed to eliminate the punctuation marks to make the title more searchable. Otherwise, it can make searching for the title more difficult. What’s the point of creating this book if no one can find it? She suggested a new title - They Want to Ban My Book.
Nope. No thank you.
I knew my title was imperfect, but I didn’t like the new title either. I fiddled and played and came up with Help! They Banned My Book. It was a little better but still had one punctuation mark.
So I messaged Ang and told her my problem. She agreed that it would be best to get rid of the punctuation marks. But she took it one step farther. She told me the title should be as close as possible to what someone will search when their book is banned. Her suggestion was What to Do When Your Book Is Banned.
It wasn’t just that she told me why this should be my title. It just clicked. I immediately liked it.
When you are self-publishing, it can be tempting to stick with whatever it is you’ve created. Aren’t your words the best? And your illustrations?
Maybe it’s because I blog and I have a newsletter. Far too often, I’ve written something, reviewed it, and had my computer read the text aloud. But it isn’t until I hit “publish” that the last few errors become visible. Another set of eyes is always a good thing.
And, sure, there are times that I don’t take the recommendations of one or another editor. But there are many more times that I do. I’ve seen how their recommendations improve my work.
In this case it was obvious that a change had to be made. I just wasn’t happy with the first proposed solution so I went in search of another.
Never give up on making your work better. And remember to take full advantage of your writing community. After all, you want to create the best book possible.
--SueBE
Sue Bradford Edwards' is the author of over 60 books for young readers.
- To find out more about her writing, visit her site and blog, One Writer's Journey.
- Click here to find her newsletter.
She is also the instructor for 3 WOW classes which begin on the first Monday of every month. She teaches:
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