Examples R’Us…
Three Examples in Four Days of Mindset Issues…
This just had me shaking my head. Now granted, most don’t know we just started a Mindset workshop, and even if they did, many flat can’t afford it. Totally understand that.
But three different writers wrote me with very serious questions. And every one of the questions was based on faulty mindset.
Two said they could not afford someone to do their covers and had no artistic skill to do it themselves or afford the art if they could.
Mindset totally off combined with total lack of research and a wealth of bad information.
— Professional art licensed standard for book covers costs around $10 and is not AI.
— Everyone on the planet who can imitate can do a book cover. There is no artistic skill needed. Imitation. And a free program. And the ability to do Google searches for details on how to do something in some free program.
So instead of saying “I can’t…” switch the mindset to “I am learning…” And if you want to get to my level of mindset, you say, “I am learning and having a great time doing that.”
Sadly, for many, that might be a bridge too far since learning is scary. I just find it exciting.
All three said they could not afford to hire copyeditors. All three, and all three felt or made it clear or flat told me they could not publish something that was not copyedited. It was stopping all three from publishing, that was clear.
Horrid mindset and a faulty belief in a myth. If you have the money, copyediting is great and needed in many cases by writers of all levels. And it is not cheap, and takes time to find the right copyeditor.
So sounds like I just agreed with the questioners, doesn’t it? Uhhh, no. Notice I said “If you have the money…” Most new writers, putting writing in the extra hours of their life, do not have the money. So what do they do? What many professional writers do about copyediting is simple.
You change your mindset and do it yourself.
But how? So easy as to be silly. A number of professional writers I know read their work aloud to their partner. You will find a ton of copyediting and voice mistakes when you do that.
Or read it aloud to yourself, slowly. Again, reading it aloud will find mistakes and words out of place and wrongly named characters.
So a mindset change is needed by the three who wrote me letters.
When you hear yourself say in this world of 2025, “I can’t…” you need to stop, reset, and say simply, “I need to learn that skill…”
Nothing about writing and publishing can’t be learned and done damn near for no cost. Just got to drop the “can’t” and figure out a way to get to learning.
10 Comments
Michael W Lucas
Any number of voice-to-text programs will read your book to you. A human brain might fill in missing words without noticing, but the computer certainly won’t. You’ll catch GOBS of errors that way.
Worst case, you can pay someone else to proofread by proofreading their manuscript in return.
Just whatever you do, don’t deploy the Word grammar checker on your innocent manuscript. 😉
Robert Beckley
German Creative at fiverr.com does great covers for next to nothing. She does the covers for Cap Daniels if you want to check out her work.
Kristi N.
I’m hilariously bad at graphic design (like, finger painting bad), so that is one place where I’ll splurge and get something I can live with for a few years. But I choose the images, and I make sure the licenses are correct, and keep that information so I can learn that part at least. As for copy editing, the text to speech function on laptops or iPads is easy to use, and I go along in the manuscript and note where something sounds wrong or is wrong. I work with technical writers in my day job who do the same thing–turn on the text to speech and follow along. (No story editing–just copy editing. The more I write, the more I come to realize that story editing happens before my fingers hit the keys, and my conscious mind has no business being involved with it.)
Mangala McNamara
Yes, yes, yes!
But the number of people who have given me shocked like when I say I do my own copyediting… sigh.
I read aloud to others or to myself. And, darnit, I’ve been editing scientific papers for thirty years. I can DO this!
(But so can anyone else who reads. Most of it jumps out at you. )
I haven’t tried it, but have heard some authors swear by Word’s read aloud feature so they can hear it in another voice.
Kristi N.
I’ve used Voice Dream, too. I can choose different voices depending on my mood, from Australian to British to French or Spanish.
Glyn
Well said, Dean. I have a saying – You only have hurdles – if you create them yourself. I have had a terrible health for 14 going on 15 months. It still has not stopped me writing. Yes, I am far slower this year, but by the end of the year I hope to hit 190,000 words. 3 Books out and and several short stories. I am 73 and have learned to better my writing of the years and have done all my own covers, by wanting to learn. I am constantly learning and improving my skillset.
Write now, I have to catch up with the need for 38 covers by the end of the year. That is not even 2 covers a day. Every year my writing gets better. Trust in your writing. The improvements are not overnight. Canva is a free program and you can do some pretty nifty covers with it, but you need the patience to learn. One job at a time. One cover at a time.
The second cover will be a bit easier as you learn whatever free program you’re using.
Like me, you really ought to find it great fun in putting a book or Short Story out and you’ve done everything.
I did that, springs to mind.
Phillip Morris
I copy edit my own projects by “leapfrogging.” I write a novel. Write another novel. Go back to first novel. The errors are glaring. Whereas if I’d gone right back to one I’d just finished I’d be blind to the mistakes. Works for me. Sharing this as it might work for others.
Brad D. Sibbersen
Another effective self-editing method is simply changing the font to something ridiculous or gimmicky and then re-reading. Mistakes really stand out when the text looks so unfamiliar.
B Apostol
Yes! Comic sans works well for me. Also changing the line spacing to larger can help for me. And another thing I do sometimes is compile and sideload it on my kindle as for some reason I see mistakes more easily on there.
dwsmith
Direct links to the listing is about it, thankfully we have at the moment Books2Read which offers that direct link through the mass of paid products.