Book editor Kristen Hamilton is the owner and sole employee of Kristen Corrects, Inc., where she provides manuscript editing services for self-publishing and traditionally publishing authors. Several authors whose books she has edited have won awards and have topped Amazon's best sellers lists. Reading is Kristen’s passion, so when the workday is over, she can usually be found curled up with a good book alongside her three cats. In her free time she enjoys playing video games, dancing adult ballet, speaking French, watching scary movies, tending to her courtyard, and traveling to tropical destinations. She lives with her husband and sons outside of Boise, Idaho.
In my first chapter critique service, I read your book’s first chapter (up to 4,000 words), adding comments for suggestion/improvement along the way. I focus on areas of confusing or vague writing, inconsistencies, or issues that I have as a first-time reader, and big-picture issues with your story’s conflict,… Read More »First Chapter Critique
Developmental editing looks at the book as a whole and focuses on improving character development, overall story structure (including fixing loose ends), pacing, perspective, narrative style, and your story’s organization. Developmental editing is a two-step process. In the first pass, I read your entire manuscript, focused… Read More »Developmental Editing
Line editing focuses on improving sentence structure, looking at the logic and clarity of scenes, maintaining consistency, rhythm of sentences, and breaking up too-long paragraphs. It makes sure, for example, that each character has consistent actions, or that the spelling of a name or place doesn’t… Read More »Line Editing
Copyediting is the last step in the editing process before publishing. It focuses mainly on word choice, punctuation, spelling, syntax, and grammar, and is essentially a final read-through to make sure your book doesn’t have any surface errors. Copyediting focuses on fixing: My copyediting service does not focus… Read More »Copyediting
Ever since Amazon released Kindle Direct Publishing in 2007, the book publishing landscape has drastically changed. Now a decade later, authors have more power in their hands than ever, with self-published and independent authors earning approximately 40% of the market share. Where once the Big… Read More »Self-Publishing, Independent Publishing, and Traditional Publishing: Which is Best?
Dialogue tags! These little monsters can sometimes be tricky, but you can’t avoid them: Dialogue should make up about 20% of your novel. When approaching the subject of dialogue and dialogue tags, there are a few things that should be kept in mind in order… Read More »5 Essential Rules of Writing Powerful Dialogue
Earlier this year, I wrote a blog on the differences between self-publishing, independent publishing, and traditional publishing—and which one is best for you. Let’s continue the conversation. When it comes to different types of publishing, what pays authors more? For those of you who know me, you… Read More »Self-Publishing or Traditional Publishing: Which Pays Better?
It’s Black Friday, and that means the Christmas season has officially begun! Prepare yourselves: The onslaught of advertisements is going to hit you harder than indigestion from last night’s turkey dinner. Perhaps someone in your life is a writer and has dreams of publishing a… Read More »Give the Gift of Editing!
One of the most important elements that will make or break the sales of your book is marketing. It’s critical to ensure you’re doing the proper marketing techniques, especially if you’re self publishing. (If you’re taking the more standard route of going through a publisher,… Read More »4 Ways to Find Your Book’s Target Audience
I recently posted about 4 Ways to Find Your Book’s Target Audience. Once you pinpoint your ideal reader, though, how do you connect with them, speak to them, and eventually sell your book to them? This is all critical and basic level information on how to market your… Read More »How To Speak To Your Book’s Ideal Reader