FAQ's
You’ve got questions? We’ve got answers!
Editing FAQ's
Editing is an umbrella term that covers a variety of different services. At KN Literary Arts, we break the term “editing” down into two broad categories: content editing and technical editing.
Here at KN Literary, content editing is what we do best. Content editing includes two different types of editorial work:
- Developmental editing, which is all about looking at the big picture of your book and making sure it’s working. We’ll be looking at your organizational framework; the completeness, pacing, and order of the content; the voice, tone and language; and many more global ideas. We will deliver your developmental edit in the form of an editorial letter and notes in the margins.
- Line editing, which is where we review your book sentence by sentence for grammar, clarity and flow. You’ll find a lot of pretty-colored marks on your manuscript after we’re done with our line-edit! You can count on your content being 95% clean after we’re complete. If your project is a book proposal, this is as far as you should need to go. If your project is a book, however, and if you are self-publishing, we highly recommend you get some technical editing before you go to press.
Once the content has been edited, but before the book goes to press, it needs to go through at least one (but better yet, two or three) rounds of technical editing. Technical editing includes:
- Copyediting, which focuses on the formatting of the book and finding any stray grammatical errors or typos. Copyediting happens when the book is still in manuscript form. We highly recommend copyediting if you are self-publishing your book and want it to be as good as the traditionally published books it will be sitting next to on the shelf.
- Proofreading, which takes place after the book has been set into type. While you’re free to get the manuscript proofread before you send it to your self-publisher, it is critical to have the book proofread one more time once the book is formatted. This step should not be considered optional if you are self-publishing. Books published by traditional houses are proofread three times before they are sent to press! You don’t want your book to stand out from the crowd in a bad way, know what we’re sayin’?
Unfortunately not. A book editor will help you improve your work, often by a wide margin. But that doesn’t mean the final product will clear the (very high) bar set by traditional book publishers. An editor is limited by your choice of subject matter, your writing skill, the size of your audience and current market forces. Your book will be much better after working with an editor, but we can’t promise it will land you a book deal.
No! While transformative nonfiction is our speciality, our editors are experienced and passionate about all kinds of books, including fiction.
Getting Published FAQ's
If you think you want to go the route of traditional publishing, the bigger traditional houses do require you to be represented by a literary agent. We can help you get your book ready to shop to an agent but we do not serve as literary agents. If you’d like some more information about literary agents, please see Kelly’s blog on this topic at this link.
Putting together a selling book or proposal is an art, not a science. That said, if you can answer “yes” to all three of these questions, you’re on the right track:
- Do I have a promotional platform that will catch a publisher’s attention?
- Am I an excellent, sophisticated, compelling writer?
- Is the topic I’ve chosen narrowly tailored, high-concept, and unique?
If you can’t answer “yes” to all three of these questions, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write your book! We simply suggest you consider self-publishing rather than investing the time and effort it takes to look first for a literary agent, and then a publisher.
You have two choices: First, you can set about building a platform. Plan on taking up to two to three years to build a substantial following online, using a website, regular blogging/newsletter, and social media. This is a good option if you are building a career as a coach, teacher or speaker. A great book that offers a step-by-step plan for building your audience is called Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World by Michael Hyatt. If you don’t want to put time and energy into building a platform, you can take the second option: self-publishing. When you self-publish you don’t have to convince anybody that your book will sell. You simply create the book and sell as few or as many copies as you are able.
Self-Publishing FAQ’s
In the traditional publishing model, you hand your baby over to a publishing company, and they take the responsibility for editing the book, creating a cover design, printing copies, and distributing the book to booksellers. But as more and more people are writing books these days, finding a traditional publisher has become harder and harder. Many writers have turned to self-publishing as a means to get their book in print. Self-publishing means there is no publisher in the mix; you do all the work yourself, and you get all the reward.
- Fewer hurdles for publication than the traditional houses, especially in terms of the platform/audience you need to have in place
- Faster publication—often three months from submission, as opposed to nine months or more with a traditional house
- More profit per copy sold
- More creative liberty in terms of content, cover design and title
Self-publishing has gotten less and less risky since the advent of digital print on demand (POD) publishing. With POD, you can print off as few as one single copy of your book—meaning you no longer have to take a big risk up front on thousands of copies to get a good price.
We get it: self-publishing seems complicated, because it often is! Thankfully, you’ve got us. We’ve created a step-by-step Self-Publishing Coaching Package that takes the question marks right off the table. We’ll walk you through the entire path including technical editing, cover design, interior design, ISBN acquisition, choosing the right self-publishing partner and more. If you want to give a try at doing it entirely by yourself, there are many good books available to help guide you through the process. Check out this topic on our blog or on our YouTube channel for more info.
You can expect your book to be in great shape when it comes back to you from your KN Literary content editor—we say it should be about 95% ready to go. This is a normal margin of error if you are writing a book proposal or submitting a book to a publisher for possible publication. That said, if you are taking your book straight to press, we highly recommend you get some technical editing done first.
When a traditional publishing house puts a book through production, they take the content-edited manuscript and put it through an average of four rounds of technical editing. First, the manuscript is copyedited. A copy editor codes the manuscript for the typesetter, and looks for consistency, grammar and errors. After copyediting, the book is set into type. Then the typeset manuscript—also called a “proof”—is carefully proofread up to three times before the book is printed.
For our typical client, we suggest a minimum of one round of proofreading on the typeset proof pages. But if you have the budget, we highly recommend a copyedit of the final manuscript as well. Once you fill out our questionnaire, you can ask your KN Literary Publishing Consultant about our technical editing add-ons. Or, chat with your self-publisher; most self-publishing companies offer copyediting and proofreading services at a reasonable price.
We recommend you use a professional book cover designer. (Not your younger brother who was always good at drawing, or your niece who just taught herself to use Photoshop!) In order to compete, your book must look as good as all the other books on the shelf, including those published by traditional houses. For this reason it’s critical to choose a designer who has actual book cover experience. Don’t know any designers like that? No problem. Talk to us about about getting connected with one of our favorite designers.
Schedule a call, and we’ll get you on the phone with an editor who knows this info inside and out. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Pricing FAQ’s
We know one of your biggest questions for us is “How much will this cost?” And the short answer is: it depends! Each project is unique.
With services ranging from book outlines to ghostwriting an entire manuscript, there are several factors to take into consideration. Each service has multiple levels, but here are some examples to give you an idea:
Coaching services start at $1,200.
Editing services are priced by word count. The average cost is $2,700 for a proposal and $4,000 for a manuscript.
Writing services are also priced by word count. The average cost is $9,000 for a proposal while full manuscripts run $27,000-$50,000 depending on your unique needs and goals.
Keep in mind that things such as length and genre will determine the final price. Please book a call with us to discuss which services would be the right fit for your book.
