At a certain point in your revision process, you may be asking yourself,

“Am I making my book
better or just . . . different?”

If any variation on that theme has entered your mind, it’s time to stop and take stock. Otherwise, how do you know when you’ve hit that point? How much time should you spend refining your manuscript before trying to publish it? When is it time to let go and move your book ahead?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer. The writing journey is just as unique as each book it produces. Some writers, like Harper Lee, spend a lifetime on only two novels. Others, like Nora Roberts, write a new book every 45 days. Writing takes as long as it takes, and trying to force it into a specific timeline can come at the expense of quality.

However, there are a few things we recommend checking off your list in the latter stages of the writing and revision process.

1. Complete Your Manuscript

This might seem like a no-brainer, but many people leave notes for “future them” to sort out. Make sure all of your sections have been filled out, any outstanding notes from beta readers have been resolved and closed, and that there are no outstanding points you had meant to double check later. If you’ve gotten editing done, make sure all of your track changes are resolved and cleared.

2. Take a Second Pass

A second pass is the bare minimum. Many writers will do many passes before their manuscript feels shaped and ready for outside eyes, and that’s fine. But you want to make sure that once you’ve written The End, you let the book sit and then read the whole thing over from the beginning. You’re looking to make sure the theme, tone, writing style, organization, and argument are consistent from start to finish. Often our ideas shift as we write, but you’ll only be able to catch these digressions by reading your work over from the beginning.

3. Spellcheck

While a writer does not need to be an editor, you can improve your manuscript by spending a bit of time working through your writing software’s spelling and grammar check. Of course, these algorithms can’t help you with the nuances of grammar, but they can at least clean up the top level of issues with spelling and basic syntax. Doing so before pursuing professional editing may result in a lighter editing service recommendation—and potentially save you some embarrassment.

4. Get a Fresh Perspective

Another great way to catch errors is to listen to your book with a text-to-speech reader. This will especially help you catch homophones or mistaken usages (like though instead of thought) that will slip through spell checkers. Another trick to gain fresh perspective is switching your text to Comic Sans (or another starkly different font) for the sake of review—so long as you switch it back to Times New Roman before submitting it! This helps your eyes consider the content as if it were new. Others find it helpful to print out their manuscript and do their second passes in hard copy, as the eye will catch on things they didn’t notice on the screen.

5. Cap Your Feedback

You can seek feedback forever, but there comes a point when you are likely to start getting conflicting feedback, or feedback that muddles your vision for the project, or repetitive feedback for something you know you’ll need an editor’s help with. Your book can’t be all things to all people, so be firm in your focus to help determine if feedback you receive fits into your goals or not. Set yourself a limit of how many people you’ll ask to look over your work. Once you’ve reached that limit, move forward.

6. Avoid Suffering Burnout

A writer’s adage says that if you want to publish a book, love it enough to review it a million times. While that number might be an exaggeration, you will need to review your book many, many times during the publication process: after considering your editor’s recommendations, after reviewing your proofs, after changes have been implemented, after seeing your physical proof for the first time, when reading your work for an author event . . . So the last thing you want is to get sick of your words before you even get the book submitted! Yes, your manuscript should be complete, but perfection will be far easier to strive for with the support of editors, designers, and publishing specialists. Stoke your enthusiasm for the long haul.

You’ve invested time, energy, and ideas into your manuscript. To do your project the justice it deserves, you need to ensure you’re not jumping the gun . . . but you also need to eventually pull the trigger. When you’ve completed the manuscript checklist above, your work (and you!) will be ready to move forward. With this strong foundation in place, you can begin shaping your words into a book that you’ll be confident to market, publish, and sell.