If you can’t afford to hire a professional editor to check your work, it doesn’t have to mean the end of your masterpiece. By using the tips below, you can self-edit your own book and have it impressively polished by the time you submit it for publishing.

Start editing only when you’ve completed your work.

Editing and writing your work at the same time might negatively effect the cohesiveness and overall quality of your work. You’ve got all the time in the world to edit your book, but the ideas you have for your book could disappear at any moment. Take advantage of the fluidity of your thoughts and put them to paper immediately.

Read your work out loud.

If a sentence sounds awkward, makes no sense, and leaves you out of breath by the sheer length of it, those are all good indications that you need to modify the sentence or eliminate it entirely. If you can get a target reader to read your work out loud for you, you’ll hear your errors right away.

Try reverse reading.

Reverse reading can achieve two goals: identify spelling errors and evaluate coherence. For spelling, simply read your entire book in reverse and you’ll find it easy to catch typographical errors and other spelling errors that you might have overlooked. For checking the coherence of your content, just read your work from the back, starting with the last sentence. If every sentence can stand on its own, then you’ve done a good job!

Edit by intervals.

Editing the entire book in one day will make you prone to missing errors once your brain and eyes get tired. Avoid editing right after you’ve completed your work as well. Get a good nights rest and it will give you a fresh and more objective perspective toward your work.

Subtract, don’t add.

Editing rarely, if ever, means adding to the content of your work. Chances are, you’ve already said the most important things while you were working on your book. There’s always the temptation to say more and explain longer, but you should resist the urge until you’ve revised your book several times.

In editing, seek to eliminate unnecessary words. Your goal is simple: make every sentence as brief and concise as possible while maintaining the main idea or meaning behind each sentence.

Make it powerful.

Finally, get rid of as many passive passages as you can. The best stories show rather than tell us what’s happening. Sentences with an active voice create stronger impressions on your readers’ minds. Just imagine what your book could be like once you’ve successfully gotten rid of all passive sentences.

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