How to Best Elevate Your Book From Ordinary to Extraordinary - BM384

Narrator [00:00:07]:

If you're an author or plan to be one get excited because this podcast is for you. Book marketing mentors is the only podcast dedicated to helping you successfully market and sell your book. If you're ready for empowering conversations with successful marketing mavens, then grab a coffee or tea and listen to your host. International best-selling author, Susan Friedmann.

Susan Friedmann [00:00:31]:

Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters.  Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. 
Today my special guest is known as the Wandering Words Wizardess. Qatarina Wanders is a successful self-publishing and editing expert. 
With a decade of experience, she has edited over 4,000 books, including bestselling titles in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. 
As a Certified Professional Editor, she supports aspiring writers to publish their work. In 2016, she founded Wandering Words Media to provide traditional-publishing quality in self-publishing. 

 Qatarina is also a single mother, competitive weightlifter, skydiver, and avid reader, who has instilled her love of writing in her daughter, a published author at the age of 10.

Qatarina it’s a pleasure to welcome you to the show, and, thank you for being this week’s guest expert and mentor.

Qatarina Wanders [00:01:44]:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Susan Friedmann [00:01:47]:

So you've got quite a resume here. I love it. Very interesting. I invited you here today, and we're gonna talk about editing, which I believe is a a subject you're very well versed in. Let's start off and talk about the idea of editing your own book. I often have authors who come to me And, Austin has your book been edited? And they said, oh, yes. I did it myself or my high school teacher did it. If they came to you with that response, how would you answer them?

Qatarina Wanders [00:02:25]:

I usually start with because I have had this happen quite a bit. Okay. That's great. Now we need to have it edited by a professional because if you want your book to be a professional you also need to have professional quality editing. However, you have already saved yourself a ton of time and money by thoroughly editing it yourself or having someone else do it. Then we get into the options of how we move forward from here because it's possible that it actually will need significantly less editing if you edited yourself really well, but that's usually an opportunity. It just depends. on your experience level.

Susan Friedmann [00:03:06]:

Yes. Well, what I find too is that if somebody else edited it. They've edited more for the grammar, especially a high school English teacher, is looking at the grammar and not necessarily as a developmental editor looking at the flow of the work. Would you agree with that?

Qatarina Wanders [00:03:27]:

Oh, yes. I absolutely agree. And not always, like, sometimes an English teacher or, like, if you get a college professor or something, they will look at it for the structure, but You just never know. They are trained differently because I used to be an English teacher, and it's just not the same thing. You're not editing a term paper, you're editing a whole book, and someone has to be well-versed in book production to know what the reader will be reading once they look at it and how it's going to work in the reader's brain. And also, you yourself can't edit your own work. I've been a professional editor for almost 2 decades now, and I don't edit my own work. I certainly edit before I send it to my editing team, but I still use the whole editing team before my book hits the streets. That's good to know.

Susan Friedmann [00:04:18]:

Now when you and I were talking earlier, you said you have a team of editors working with you, and they specialize in different subjects in medical, health care, education, etcetera. How unnecessary do you feel it is for an editor to have the background that the book relates to?

Qatarina Wanders [00:04:39]:

absolutely 100% necessary. That's non-negotiable for me, especially in the developmental and or the content portion. for copy editing, it can vary, but there's still different rules for copy editing depending on the genre that you're working in. So you don't want someone editing your medical-style book in business-style copy. There's just little nuances. For instance, in a business book, if you're writing say 8%, it would be the number 8 and then the word percent spelled out. Whereas if it's like a memoir or even a medical book, Well, a medical book would be the number 8 with the percentage symbol next to it. Whereas in a memoir, you would write out the word 8%. So there's different rules for every type of work. And a lot of editors have, you know, taken a really quick editing course online, and they know that they have a good eye for mistakes, and they don't realize that they just don't know all the rules, and they're trying to edit all these different things in the wrong formats.

Susan Friedmann [00:05:39]:

And that's really interesting. Just that little example you gave. And what came to mind when you said that was numbers. What's the rule with numbers? do we put the figures, or do we actually spell out the word?

Qatarina Wanders [00:05:54]:

This is a huge topic of debate among many editors. And because I come from traditional publishing, I'm actually a stickler for this one, but it depends on the type of book. So fiction and memoir, you should spell out numbers up to a 100. And then, like, whole numbers or specific rounded numbers after that, you kind of choose. Like, you might say 150 and you'd spell out 1 dash 50. Usually, it'll be like 100, 200, 300, so on are spelled out, but any number in between those are gonna be the numericals. But not always, it's kinda up to you in those. However, in business books, medical books, and self-help books, different rules apply, you spell out numbers 1 through 9, and anything 10 and up is going to be the numerical. unless it's a percentage, it's always numerical, or if it's the beginning of a sentence. So if the sentence starts with

Narrator [00:06:48]:

14,507,

Qatarina Wanders [00:06:50]:

you have to spell out

Narrator [00:06:52]:

14,507.

Qatarina Wanders [00:06:54]:

I would recommend rewriting the sentence though so you don't spell that out because it looks ridiculous.

Susan Friedmann [00:06:59]:

That's a great example. And I love that because it is something that people always ask me, well, should I spell this out? And I was like, you need to talk to a professional because like you said, there are different rules, and I didn't even realize that it was so specific in terms of the genre that you're talking about. Another subject that comes up a lot and is talking about beta readers. Talk to us about those. I don't believe we've ever really talked about that on this podcast. is the importance of a beta reader. Who should do that? When should they do it?

Qatarina Wanders [00:07:39]:

I love this subject. I love beta readers. I think it has changed the editing industry, and I actually have a team of beta readers on my team now because it's becoming such a well-known subject and just an idea for your book. You can save yourself a lot of money on editing by having the right beta readers. I personally use paid beta readers because you're gonna get a better result if you are paying them and a better turnaround time. You can have friends do it. I would at least have someone beta reading it even if they're just doing it for fun. I have different beta readers depending on the book. You do need your beta readers to be readers in the genre that you're writing in. If your grandma only reads knitting books, maybe don't have her try to beta-read your book on dieting because she's not gonna know what a lot of the terminology is. early on in my author career, I started using beta readers and even editors that didn't understand the genre I was writing in, and I would find myself making corrections according to them and realizing later, like, well, that was stupid because that all of my target audience would have known what that meant. So just make sure they're in your target audience and make sure they know that they're not just reading for fun, that they're reading for feedback, which is why I suggest paying them or at least giving them some sort of very fair trade because quality beta reading is very time-consuming. And afterward, usually, beta readers will provide several pages of feedback. I have forms that I give to all of mine with types of questions. Did you understand the theme? What do you think it was? How did you feel about the pros? Do you think the dialogue flow? Do you think this happened? And that, like, all these are questions, and I tweak them a little bit for each book, and I have them answered those questions on top of putting feedback in the margins. Some people bypass developmental and content editing by just using beta reader and it's possible if you're using more than 1, just don't use too many because eventually their feedback is going to overwhelm you, and I wouldn't use more than 3.

Susan Friedmann [00:09:41]:

Interesting. And so the expectation you're giving them the ground rules of what you're looking for from them. Correct? Yes. Yeah. When should somebody do this?

Qatarina Wanders [00:09:54]:

I suggest before you even begin the editing process. because if you start the editing process, you are going to make a lot of corrections and then perhaps your beta readers are going to say, hey. Did you notice this huge hole in what you said, and then you have to rewrite a bunch of the stuff you already had edited? I would do it before editing. Some people choose to do it after, like, a developmental or content edit, which can work as well because sometimes we get that are just so messy, they're incomprehensible, and beta readers won't be any help if they can't read your book. What I suggest is editing the book yourself then give it to beta readers, then start the professional editing process.

Susan Friedmann [00:10:38]:

Can you give us a guideline as to what to expect to pay a beta reader?

Qatarina Wanders [00:10:44]:

Oh, that's all over the board. On my team, we charge my goodness. I should know this. it's significantly cheaper. It comes down to, I wanna say, $50 per 10000 words or something like that. And then you can even go on things. Like, I don't usually recommend fiber because it's just it's the wild west out there, but there are some really good beta readers on Fiverr specifically. A lot of them are retired or disabled, so they don't really have anything better to do than rebook and make a little bit of money while they do that. They usually can give you very good feedback. And I've seen that go for all the way up to 1¢ per word. which is pricey for a beta reader, but you can assume you're getting pretty high quality. And I think I've seen it as low as

Narrator [00:11:31]:

$10

Qatarina Wanders [00:11:32]:

for 10,000 words. it really varies. And some people will do it in exchange for a free copy of the book, but you can assume the quality probably won't be as high.

Susan Friedmann [00:11:42]:

Okay. Just a guideline because I've never looked into that for my authors. You know, if they have it done, then great. It's good to know these things.

Qatarina Wanders [00:11:54]:

Yeah. Actually, if you're an author with a high enough fan base, you can also get a lot of beta readers for free. So, yes, they would do it in exchange for a free copy of the book. That's usually a big deal to them. So, like, I have a couple of fan bases for certain genres that I publish in that wait in line for the books. So they're usually eager to get to read what they call ARC teams - ARC for Advanced Reader Copies. They're usually eager, and they're already familiar with their style. They're obviously already familiar with the genre because they're already reading your books, and they're more than happy to not even do it for you, but a lot of them will fill out applications to get on your team. So it actually comes like an honor for them to do it. That usually doesn't work, though, unless you already have a reader base or at least a fan base eager to read about your work.

Susan Friedmann [00:12:44]:

This is fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. You've just opened a Pandora's box for me with that. So thank you. Another issue grammatically that I find a lot of different opinions about, and that is me versus you versus I, when do you use I versus me? There's lots of conversation around that. So what's your opinion?

Qatarina Wanders [00:13:13]:

My opinion is and this is only an opinion. but I have formed this opinion over years of seeing it in use is that there should be a healthy mix of all three. because they serve different purposes. If you are using I, you are describing something that you yourself have done in my books I speak from my own experience. So obviously, I use I when I'm referring to things that I have done, and it's very clearly me. you use you when you want to relate to the reader. However, you have to be very careful about using you and making sure it doesn't sound like you're condemning them. if you're saying something like describing someone's negative habits, like, you eat too late at night and then you get bad sleep, You gotta be careful about that because people are then going to feel like you're attacking them as the author and you're up on your high horse. In a case like that, it's probably best to use we or even they just referring to, like, the universal we or they. you do actually need to use a healthy mix of all three because if you just keep using the same pronouns and things like that, it's gonna start to sound repetitive. usually, you switch it up for a section where I'm talking about me and I, I, I, and then I moved to, and you can do this, and you will do that. So you switch to you when it's becoming encouraging. Like, you will feel better if you do these things but then you use we when you're discussing we as a whole people tend to get bad sleep and stay up too late. Watch too much TV. We're addicted to our cell phones. that's when you use them. So it's all about context. It's an arch as much as

Susan Friedmann [00:14:56]:

a skill. Very much so. I do know though that So many people, especially in their bios, talk about me, me, me, I, I, I, and looking at how can you turn that around to you making it more customer prospect centric than just, hey. Look at me. I'm so wonderful. but rather what can I do for you or my experience can help you with this. Yeah.

Qatarina Wanders [00:15:24]:

There's a trick that I learned in copywriting when I was really studying ad copy and things like that. When you're writing an email or a bio of any sort, any sort of ad, I learned this, especially in emails to look out for, and then you start to train your brain to do this in all other forms of writing. Look at the first paragraph of every line in the email. And if you just see, Maybe don't do that. Whenever I get email pitches from companies or someone who wants to work for my company or something like that, As soon as I open the email, if I see that every line starts with I, I just delete the email immediately. I don't even read it. But if you see a healthy mix of eyes and use and we, and here's what we can do together and blah blah blah, then I'm gonna be a little more inclined to read the email and take them seriously. And that's something I've trained everyone in my team to do too whenever they're communicating with a client. Look at that email and look how many eyes are in there. Make sure you're not starting a lot of sentences with I because you've just made it all about yourself. Look for a bunch of views. that has carried over into ad and marketing copy for me a lot as well.

Susan Friedmann [00:16:36]:

That's invaluable information. Thank you. You're right. I look at that too. It really disturbs me when I see the eye eye eyes even when I'm writing it and I go back and, like, I can't do this. It's not about I. I've gotta find a way of restructuring that sentence so that it applies more to of the reader than it does to me. I love that. Another area that We have issues with is how do you cite resources? When do you cite them and where in the book do you cite them?

Qatarina Wanders [00:17:15]:

Oh, such a matter of debate. So part of it is optional. It depends on how you want it to look. Another part is by genre. It's really just a matter of doing your homework. One of the things I do with a lot of my client is say, you have to cite this. You choose 1 and run with it. Choosing the wrong way to cite your sources is not the worst thing in the world as long as you are still following the guidelines for whatever choice you've made. Well, okay, so I worded that wrong. You have to still cite them correctly, but you don't necessarily have to pick the right way to do it because so APA versus CMS and just there's different ways to do it. Google. Do your googling. Look into what type of source citing is typical with your type of book and do that. because your readers are going to expect and see them cited a certain way. When all else fails, footnotes work pretty well, in line source citing, it is effective, meaning it's very clear everything you're citing. The only problem with it is it's distracting and breaks up the flow of your work. So unless your book is a really dry read anyway, I would recommend doing footnotes or endnotes. I prefer footnotes in my nonfiction, because then it's right there on the page, and the person can look right to it. In ebooks, it doesn't matter if it's footnotes or endnotes because it's gonna be a clickable link on the word anyway. Then there's a matter of the format to write. If it's a book reference or all sorts of things, it's really just a matter of finding the guideline and sticking to it. Don't switch it up. Stick to 1 and commit.

Susan Friedmann [00:18:59]:

Now one of the situations that was with one of my authors is that many of her clients were celebrities, and she wanted to -- cite them. And I said she has to get permission in writing. What's your take on that?

Qatarina Wanders [00:19:18]:

It depends on how much she's citing. So if there's a public quote somewhere, you can use a quote, and that's fine. And actually in a lot of copyrights. And if you look at disclaimers at the beginning of books, it says this work cannot be reproduced unless it's short snippets in a review. So if you're taking just like a quote that's a line or 2, like a few sentences and then you attribute that quote to the person, that's one thing. Now if you're taking an entire process that one of those celebrities created or you are quoting something that they said to you personally, that's where it gets tricky. You need to make sure what you're quoting is publicly accessible. If you look up quotes online, super easy, find the quote, attributes a quote to the person who said it. No big deal. Because it's publicly available knowledge. Anyone can Google and find out that, yes, that person did indeed say that. or even if they're quoting it, like, on a TV show, like, even if it's not written somewhere, as long as it is easy to Google that person saying that thing and it was done publicly, you're good. It just gets tricky when you start quoting long pieces of text, or if you're quoting another author, you can't just take pages and pages out of the book. So things like that. You can cite it properly and say exactly what book it's coming from, what pages it's coming from, you might be okay there, but that's getting into kinda money water that I wouldn't really dance around in.

Susan Friedmann [00:20:44]:

Would you have the person Okay. You know, see it before you actually go to print with it.

Qatarina Wanders [00:20:51]:

It depends on how much and what it is. So like I said, if it's a simple quote, it doesn't really matter. If you are referring to, like, an experience with the celebrity or a whole conversation or lots of what they said, then, yeah, you should get written permission because once a certain amount of their work is in your work, they could start coming out you for royalties.

Susan Friedmann [00:21:14]:

Yes. I said they have to get a legal opinion on this because I'm not gonna give that. And then I believe that there are different rules for somebody who's alive versus somebody who is no longer with us. What's the thinking then?

Qatarina Wanders [00:21:31]:

Yeah. There are. And at that point, that's a straight up. You gotta talk to a lawyer. I have a memoir. that it was really tricky for me to write because so many of the people in my book are no longer with us. I had to make sure to change names and details, even though it was very easy to Google who the person was, everyone knows exactly who this person was. but still I had to change everything because the person is not here to speak for themselves, especially if the person died under the age of eighteen and then the family has all these other things. So there's so much there. So if you are referring to living or dead individuals in your book, you have to get written permission and that's the other thing. Like, yeah, if you're just quoting someone and you're putting a little snippet of their quote in there, that's great. But if you are talking about a person, in your book, you better make sure that they've read it first and have given they're okay. Cause if you give any inkling of them not sounding perfect. You could be in real trouble.

Susan Friedmann [00:22:26]:

Yeah. And I've had authors who have written about family history, family squabbles and, some of the people are still alive. They get very nervous about that. was like, you better get permission.

Qatarina Wanders [00:22:42]:

They should get really nervous about that. I had to take several parts out of my book because I didn't want the Mexican mafia coming after me. there's all sorts of issues that can get you in really big trouble. The number one rule of thumb, though, is just change the names. Most of it is avoidable. just change the names. Don't ever use someone's real name unless you have it in writing that it's okay to do.

Susan Friedmann [00:23:04]:

Excellent. Wow. We could go on for tons of things. My head is spinning. I could run it with all the things that you've shared. How can our listeners find out more about you and the services you offer? Because you've got some dynamite services. I know that you offer authors. So How can they find you? Tell us.

Qatarina Wanders [00:23:25]:

Yeah. We have a whole team of editors at Wandering Words Media. Our website is www.wanderingwordsmedia.com, and that's wandering as in, like, wandering around the world. Not wandering as in, wondering what's for dinner.

Susan Friedmann [00:23:40]:

Excellent. And if you were to leave our listeners, which I really hope you will, a golden nugget, what would that be?

Qatarina Wanders [00:23:48]:

Adapt. because everything is changing. The market is always changing. It's one of the most fluid markets I've ever worked I've been in the publishing industry for, like I said, almost 20 years and the rules are always changing. Don't pick up a book about book marketing from 15 years ago. It's not gonna do you any good now. just listen to podcasts, read the most recent books, and just get ready to adapt because what you're doing right now might not work for you in 2 weeks, let alone 2 years.

Susan Friedmann [00:24:17]:

That's so true. So so true because there's so much out there, and some of it is old stuff. Some of it's evergreen, so you could use it whenever. But for the most part, things are changing faster than we can keep up. I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom. We gotta have you back and continue this because I've got a list of other things that I really wanted to ask you, but we are running out of time.
Any event in the meantime, listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expected it to let you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. Go to BrainstormWithSusan.com to schedule your free call.
And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparked some ideas you can use to sell more books. until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.

Here's how to find out more about the editing services Qatarina and her team offer.

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