Editing

Perfectionism doesn't make your writing better — it stops you from finishing. Here's what 21 years in publishing taught me about quality, errors, and knowing when to call it done.

From PDF markup to EPUB errors: a complete proofreading guide for authors working with a pro or flying solo. Know what to catch before your book publishes.

Finished your first draft? Here's how to tackle your first revision efficiently—when to start, what to look for, and how to plan your attack.

Writers make three common comparisons that quietly destroy their confidence — comparing their drafts to published books, to peers in their writing group, and to writers at a similar age or stage. Here's why those comparisons are unfair, and two useful comparisons you can make instead.

oncise writing isn't always better — but knowing how to cut is a skill every writer needs. A professional editor shares three practical editing techniques for tightening your prose: finding words that can be replaced by one, cutting nothingburgers, and a sentence-by-sentence brevity exercise.

Reading your own writing with a critical eye is one of the hardest things a writer has to do. These three self-editing strategies — scene-by-scene synopsis, backward reading, and reading aloud — help you create the distance you need to find what's not working at every level, from plot to prose.

Four tools to organize your writing projects and stay productive: Notion for project tracking, Pacemaker for writing schedules, 750 Words for daily habit-building, and Focuswriter for distraction-free writing sessions.

A beta reader who tells you your manuscript is perfect is wasting your time. Here's what good beta feedback actually looks like — and how to ask for it.

Your manuscript has bugs. Beta readers are how you find them before your readers do. Here's how to build the beta reading team that will actually make your book better—and who to use with caution.

The time you spent on the manuscript that isn't working is already gone whether you quit or not. The only question is what you spend next.

Know the rules. Break them with intention. The only one you can't break: don't use a word if you don't know what it means.

Too many characters and readers lose track. Too few and the story feels empty. Here's how to find the right cast size—and what to do when you have too many.

Do I use AI? Sure. For lots of stuff. But publishing is too important to me to jeopardize quality or, worse, copyright, with generative AI. That's why I do all my writing myself and all my editing myself.