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Writer's pictureDanee

HOW I EDITED (AND TRANSLATED) MY MEMOIR

Updated: 7 days ago

Oh, hey! Ça va ? Writing my memoir taught me a lot about the writing and publishing industry. I’d heard of editing before and I knew I would have to go through that process at some point before publishing my book, but I was unaware of all the elements that go into editing a book; I didn’t even know there were different types of editing. My editing process is what we’ll talk about today. Since I also translated my book from English to French myself, I’ll include that here, too. Are you new to The Blog? Hey, welcome! I’ve been sharing my journey as a first-time self-published author over the past few weeks; I started by answering a few questions about my memoir, then shared a bit about my writing journey. Happy reading! 🤗


Contents


Editing the English version

Editing process overview

As you already know, if you read my previous post, I spent eleven months gearing up to write The Book. During this time, I did a lot of research and watched many videos on YouTube about writing and self-publishing a book. This is when I learned that there are actually different types of editing; depending on its genre (and the author’s budget), a book may need to go through a few or all stages of the editing process.


I won’t go in-depth into each stage of that process (especially since my book didn’t go through them all, at least not with professional assistance), but here’s an overview of the editing process:


1. The editorial assessment is generally the first step in the editing process, during which the editor gives broad feedback on an author’s early-stage manuscript.

2. Developmental or content editing is more thorough but still high-level; it addresses plot or character issues.

3. Copy editing is probably what most people are familiar with. This is where an editor looks at grammar, spelling, and tense issues.

4. At the proofreading stage, a manuscript is almost ready for publication. The editor’s job is to catch any remaining errors and ensure consistency throughout the manuscript.

5. Fact-checking is what it sounds like: ensuring the information in a book is accurate.


For a more thorough explanation of each stage, you check this resource. Let’s now look at how I edited my book.


My editing process

My memoir went through the stages I just listed, except for the editorial assessment, but only one was done by a professional editor. The main reason for this was my limited financial resources. Producing a–high-quality–book is expensive; editing alone costs upwards of $5,000 for an 80,000-word book. This cost obviously varies depending on the genre and the type of editing required. For context, my book is about 125,000 words in English, 15,000 more in French.


As a self-published author (whose book was a secret for four years), I took care of every part of the publishing process myself and for the first two years, I had no money at all to invest in this book. Considering everything else you’ll read in my memoir, I knew from the beginning that I wouldn’t be able to hire an editor for each stage of the editing process. I was only going to hire one for proofreading, and that is what I did.

I did my first round of edits in July 2021 after completing the very first draft of my memoir, only missing what I thought at the time was going to be the last chapter. This was when I thought I was going to publish The Book in October 2021. Since that didn’t happen, I did another round of edits later that year after writing some more. I didn’t work on The Book in 2022, so I self-edited again in 2023. Just like my writing, editing wasn’t a linear process; this means these self-edits were a mix of content editing (checking for scenes that may be missing or redundant) and copy editing (fixing grammar and spelling issues).


I self-edited again during the first two weeks of June 2024, after deciding to publish The Book in October 2024. I then sent my manuscript to an editor I hired on Reedsy Marketplace. Because I specifically requested proofreading, the cost was lower than that of other types of edits. Even as a proofreader, this editor was much more affordable than other ones I found; she quoted me USD 1,000 for 120,000 words (my highest quote was about USD 3,000). We can talk more about how I budgeted for my book launch later.

Since I talk a bit about personal finance in my book and explain certain concepts specific to North America (like credit), there were a few sources I needed to cite during my fact-checking process. This wasn’t very hard to do: I just needed to ensure the sources were credible and the information accurate.

 

Reflecting on my editing process

Editing The Book was hard. That’s it. That’s the reflection.

I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be, especially after having done a few rounds of edits before June 2024. But even then, it was hard. I have to say though, most of the difficulty came from re-reading the content of that book and re-living certain scenes for what felt like the millionth time. Additionally, the two weeks I spent editing my memoir in June 2024 were right around the time I was preparing to move to Montreal from Toronto, so I had a lot going on in my personal life, too. And according to my book launch plan, the English version needed to be ready by the beginning of August; since proofreading was going to take at least a month before I could hand over the final manuscript to a designer to typeset and format the book interior, I really needed to finish self-editing by mid-June.


I edited the entire day, didn’t go to bed before midnight, and woke up early in the morning with bad migraines (especially during the second week). It was hard. I also realized during that last round of self-edits that some scenes may have been missing. For example, I wrote about my MBA graduation from Roosevelt University in June 2024. Not the entire scene, though; only the part that covers when I arrived at the auditorium and when I crossed the stage. It was such a milestone and big moment in my story that I felt like I couldn’t just skip it to only talk about how I celebrated that graduation. I even felt like you, as a reader, would wonder how I felt at that moment, after everything I’d been through. So, I added it to that scene.


Another challenge was coming back to my book years after writing certain chapters. Despite my many edits, sometimes immersing myself back into the story was challenging. Finding my voice and seeing my style improve made me very proud, but it also meant I had to rewrite some parts because my writing style evolved so much over the three years I wrote this book. Everything still needed to be consistent and cohesive. The preface is really the only part of The Book that was barely touched. I mean… it’s also only one page, so…


What contrasted these editing challenges was the feedback I got from my editor when I sent her the last chapter in early July 2024 (you’ll understand why once you read The Book). She said I had a very well-written book and that from what she was seeing, I really only needed proofreading. This differed from to what she’d seen with other authors who typically still needed some sort of developmental editing. This is the best compliment I received in 2024; it meant so much, especially as a first-time author who had many doubts about writing a book in the first place. My editor sent me back a marked-up version of my 390-page manuscript with only three comments and, well, more typos that she fixed, and a few commas or words that she added or removed. I was so proud of myself. So, basically, what you’ll read is really only an improved version of my manuscript.


Self-editing tracker - English.
Self-editing tracker - English.

I made this little tracker in Excel to help with my self-editing process. All the Ys in the ‘Self-edited?’ column were once Ns. 😭


I thought English was hard to edit; French was even harder.

 

Editing the French version

Having fully written and edited the English version, I thought translating to French and editing that version would be a breeze. Lol. How cute. Since we’ve already covered what goes into editing, I’ll skip over to reflecting on editing the French version of The Book.


Reflecting on my editing process

Have I mentioned editing French was harder than editing English? Here again, it wasn’t so much about what goes into editing, especially since I’d already done that in English. The French language is more complex and has more rules, but that wasn’t what made translating and editing harder, either. I think by the end of July 2024, when I started translating The Book, I was starting to get tired. I’d already moved to Montreal, but hadn’t completely settled in yet. I’d been working very hard on other book launch activities and on setting up my company in Quebec; regarding The Book itself, I was honestly tired of reading it. I felt exhausted from my own story.


Translating and editing took more time, so I spent more time at my desk every day to translate and edit for a little over two weeks. It felt a bit strange to write and edit my story in another language. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I wanted to give up, but some days, it was particularly difficult to get myself to sit down, read, translate, read again, and edit. It was extremely difficult.


All that said, I have no regrets. I wanted to translate my book myself and wouldn’t have done things differently if given the option. I wanted to use my voice and my own words to tell my story. As much as possible, I wanted the experience for my francophone readers to match that of the English-speaking ones. I’d say I reached 98% of that goal. Why not 100%? Well, because Les rêves deviennent réalité, et les miens le deviendront aussi : récit d’un espoir renouvelé will always be a translated version of Dreams Come True, and Mine Will Too: A Memoir of Renewed Hope. I don’t believe translations can ever perfectly match the original work.


I put my heart and my soul in the English version; this is where I felt everything for the first time. Though I felt the same emotions in French, they weren’t as intense. For example, when I say in the English preface that I’m scared to start writing The Book, it is exactly how I feel as I am writing the words on May 22, 2020. When I translated that section on July 20, 2024, I was no longer scared—I had now written an entire book. 


Self-editing tracker - French.
Self-editing tracker - French.

This is “French version” of the tracker I created to help me self-edit.


I also requested the services of a proofreader as the last step in the French editing process. I found her on Fiverr; she quoted me about $1,200. She, too, was very affordable. And though she didn’t give me any feedback when delivering her work, I was still extremely proud of myself. It may have been the same story, but I wrote (and will publish) two books at once. All by myself. I know I’ll have more things to tweak here and there in both versions, but I am already happy with the work I did.

 

Final Thoughts

I am proud of myself. Publishing this book will be the most challenging thing I’ll have done in my life. And considering my own story, I am also proud and grateful to have seen this project through.

On the topic of editing, I learned a few things along the way, while working with editors.


Lesson 1: You should know your grammar, too.

As an author, you shouldn’t just rely on editors to do all the technical work. Yes, it is their job, but knowing your own grammar helps with your writing and streamlines the editing process. Even post-proofreading, there were still small mistakes I found in my manuscript that I needed to correct. Now, this wasn’t a great feeling, especially after working so hard on that manuscript and after a professional had reviewed it. But hey, we’re all humans. I have also resolved to understand that I will still need to make small changes to my book after publishing it, and it is not the end of the world.


Lesson 2: You don’t have to accept all the corrections from an editor.

I am glad I learned this, and it ties into the previous lesson. I was tempted to simple accept all the changes when my English manuscript came back from the proofreader, but I realized that some of her changes had to do with how I personally say certain things. Again, my memoir is a very personal work, and I wanted to keep my voice. As long as I wasn’t misspelling something and as long as the grammar was correct, I wanted to keep my own version of certain expressions. This happened a lot in French as well, which I expected. My editor “corrected” many of my expressions, but I reverted them to what I had initially written.

 

Lesson 3: It’s a good practice to read out loud while editing.

This is especially true because I want to eventually record an audiobook. I wanted to make sure that my sentences felt comfortable to read and that my words didn’t trip me up. As much as I wanted to play with new words and expressions, I also needed to make sure that I used them in my own–writing–voice, and that I wouldn’t have a problem using my–speaking–voice to say them.


Lesson 4: Don’t edit as you go.

This is advice I’d seen somewhere in the early stages of writing my book. It was hard to apply, especially in the beginning, when I didn’t feel very confident with my writing. I would write and immediately edit for fear that I would forget or wouldn’t know how to edit later, which wasted a lot of time. But hey, you live and you learn.


Lesson 5: You’ll eventually have to send the book to production.

This is another lesson I had a hard time with, in both versions. I kept reviewing and double-checking different parts of my English manuscript after my last round of edits after it came back from proofreading. I felt a lot of anxiety, wondering what other mistake was left in that ocean of words, what thing I may have forgotten, what other scene may be missing or redundant. In a weird way, I felt like I had lost control over my manuscript. But I was going to have to let it go and send it to interior design, if I ever wanted to have a physical book in my hands or an e-book online.

 

Pfiou! Another very long post! If you read until the end (especially since this doesn’t have an audio version), thank you! I hope you learned a few things about editing. 😊 See you next time to talk about something else? Kay. Can’t wait.

 


Câlins,

Danielle

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