We should talk about REVISING & EDITING in this edition but first, I want to address some points raised by one of the readers of the first edition.

“I want to write books but I’m like: ‘Who will buy the books?’
‘I am not well known
‘Can my knowledge be trusted and consumed?’
‘If I want it to be free, I will need sponsors.’

You should be your number one first cheerleader. If you inform someone that you have authored a book, the first thing that comes to the mind of that person is NOT HOW MANY PEOPLE BOUGHT OR READ THE BOOK. The first thought is “Oh, so, you are an author?” An author is an author. That alone is a big win. Also, WRITE FOR POSTERITY. If no one reads today, someone would read tomorrow. If you withdraw or procrastinate till tomorrow, you won’t have as much time and passion as you have today.

Personally, I don’t care how many people buy my books. I remember working on 4 books at a time. My wife saw the zeal and demands the team and I were putting in order to meet the release date. She said, “Have you found out how many people that have booked these books so that you can know if to take it easy or continue with the push?”. Up till that time, I wasn’t interested in how many people have booked for it. When I asked, GUESS HOW MANY? Just GUESS first. Like how many people do you think must have made a booking for the books? ONE PERSON! I am not trying to sound ridiculous. Just one. When I heard that, I told myself: “We must not disappoint that one person”. I went on to add ONE more to that series to make it 5 at once! Today, that series is our MOST SOLD SERIES.

Asking if your knowledge can be trusted or consumed. Do your best. Write in your area of interest, and visit more resources as I explained in the last edition. The worst that can happen is for you to write a book today and do a revised edition five or ten years later. A revised edition is allowed.

Concerning making it free and needing sponsors. You don’t need sponsors to make a book free. Publish as PDF today and print tomorrow. I will talk about publishing later on.

EDITING AND REVISING

When you are done with the manuscript of the book. The next is to REVISE. Revising is reading your manuscripts with the aim of adding to it. As you read, you may feel like dwelling on some points, expounding some, adding to some passages and so on. You may end up with a book x2 of the manuscript. Do your best, and don’t be too concerned about the pages else you water down the content. I will talk about pages under publishing.

FIRST EDITING. I am usually the first to edit my books. Read it line by line after you have revised it. Be careful not to start adding and adding at this stage. Except it is highly germane, don’t add more at this point, just correct. Else, you will never finish the book. Correct and move on. Leave the addition for another book.

SECOND EDITING. The best choice is a professional editor. They usually charge per word or line. The next choice is your friend who is good at English. Tell your editors to INDICATE the correction and NOT TO EFFECT it. You should effect the highlighted corrections yourself if you can work on the computer. If you can’t then be with them before they effect it.

Two things: if they highlight the corrections for you to see, you will be able to improve your writing skills. Second, some editors didn’t get what you are trying to say and that was why they may flag it as an error. If you explain to them, they can reword correctly. Some corrections may even be the opposite of what you mean. This is most important if you are a first-time author.

PROOF READING. Proofread after accepting the corrections they make. At this stage, if more ideas are coming to your mind, keep them for your next book except they are extremely important. Because ideas and inspiration no dey finish.

You may get another person or persons to proofread and go through your work. They are not meant to make grammatical corrections even though they may do that as well but their main work is to VET or CRITICIZE your work.

BIBLE PASSAGE PROOFREAD. Look for one person, his job is just to confirm the Bible passages.

These stages are not cumbersome or unessential. The truth is, after you have done all of these, somebody will still pick your book and point out OBVIOUS errors. Just do your best and improve on it in the future. I believe in continuous improvement against delayed perfection. No perfect book including books written by the whites.

You want to write many books, that should form the third series.

If you have any questions yet uncovered, drop them.

My biggest advice for you today is WRITING & REVISING ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT. THE EDITING & PROOFREADING WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF. JUST WRITE.