I decided to finally start the interview pages I had intended to do for months now. All my time went into learning how to self-publish my first book so this had to wait.

But now I had the time to finally begin. As the first person to interview I chose my editor, Miriam Bibby. 

I had read about the importance of an editor all the while I concentrated on writing my book and then doing the first edit myself. So on a theoretical level I knew it would be important to have a professional editor.

Then, one day I sat there, having done the first round of edits, and knew this was the moment. Whom should I choose? Where could I find an editor who would be professional, whom I could trust? At the moment I was not a member of ALLi yet so I had no professional organisation to turn to for advice (The Alliance of Independent Authors, if you wish to know more, click on the logo on the right ride of the page).

And then I suddenly knew whom to ask for the task. Miriam Bibby! I had “met” her (via internet) during my Egyptology studies at the University of Manchester. She was a published author and had an excellent command of English. She had done editing jobs.

As I had nothing to lose, I wrote to Miriam and asked if she would be kind enough to help me. I knew she was busy with her horses and writing her own books, but I was lucky – she agreed to work on my book.

And this is when I really understood how a good editor can make a book better… No, how a good editor can make a book. Period.

I had planned my story line, generally speaking. But then new characters just jumped in without asking me, and the story began to write itself into unplanned directions. As a result the first draft was a bit of a muddle. Two wonderful people had read the first draft and encouraged me enough to believe that people would really want to read my book. But it needed developing.

And oh boy did we develop it… Miriam made me re-write, change the order of chapters, write more, introduce many of the characters much earlier in the story than I had originally done. Her comments were right on target and I knew I was working with someone whose passion was the story itself, who wanted to make it shine.

It was a lot of work, but I had decided I would do whatever necessary to make the story the best it could be. We emailed chapters to each other, commented, tweaked, deleted, rewrote… And on 31st of January this year Nephilim Quest 1: Shadowhunter was published. (By clicking on the link above you can read the first 25 chapters – what better place to check the quality of the writing and editing.)

The whole pre-publication process of a book was a completely new experience to me. But oh boy was I the luckiest wannabe author out there when I found Miriam to work with me. I understand now what an inseparable team an author and her editor are – yet many people forget the role of the editor when they read a book. No first draft is good. It can be pretty horrible, actually. Refining it into a good novel doesn’t happen automatically. It is a lot of work, sometimes quite painful work when you have to “kill” the words you were so proud of in the beginning. But making the book the best it can be doesn’t happen without an editor. I now have the greatest respect for these “invisible” professionals to whom we and our books owe so much.

Here is Miriam’s interview page for you to read. If you need an editor, I sincerely recommend her. I only ask you won’t take all her time – I need her for my future books!