Good editing is vital for a good book. If you really want your book to shine, you need a professional editor. Editing your book yourself is great and all, but getting another, professional set of eyes can make a huge difference.

If you're publishing traditionally, your publishing house likely has its own editor(s) on hand to work on your book. However, if you, like me, are self-publishing, you need to find an editor yourself. So how do you do that?

I consider myself very lucky, because the process turned out to be pretty easy for me. I discovered a website called Writership, which appealed to me for two reasons: 1) it was a website about writing, and 2) it had a nautical theme, which is a weakness of mine. When I first discovered them, they had a blog filled with writing advice, as well as a running and frequently-updated list of excellent writing prompts.

Shortly after I initially found them, they started looking for submissions for a new podcast they were working on. The topic of the podcast? Editing! They were looking for submissions of 5 pages of writing, that they then critiqued and discussed in each episode. I of course jumped on that opportunity, submitting the first 5 pages of my draft of Grigory's Gadget. My critique was featured in their second episode, which you can listen to here!

I enjoyed their critique so much that when it came time to find an editor for my entire manuscript, the choice was obvious. They displayed everything I could look for in an editor:

• They had a clear knack for the art of writing
• All of their criticisms were constructive and coherent
• They "got" my story.

This last point is important - you want to find an editor who understands and enjoys your genre. A romance editor is probably not the best choice for a horror novel, and vice versa! Add their reasonable pricing (based on my research of what to expect to pay for this type of editing), and the choice really was a no-brainer.