Taking the time to learn how to efficiently send changes to your book file is worth a lot, especially if you have extensive changes after layout.
I include a few hours of changes in every book project’s pricing, but sometimes clients have almost doubled the cost of their books because they have sent such extensive changes that it has taken me over 20 hours to make them.
There are two methods for sending your changes. Sending a simple text list of changes works well if you have just a handful of changes, but for extensive changes, be sure to use the Adobe Acrobat commenting tools method.
List of changes (Text)
If you are sending fewer than about 30 changes for a short book or 60 changes for a long book, sending them as a list (in a text file or pasted in an email) can work well. The list should look something like this:
On page 4, paragraph 2, change the phrase “my sad” to "my bad”.
On page 18, line 5, change “I made a mistook” to “I made a mistake”.
If using this method, just be sure that:
You use quotation marks around the exact phrase that is to be deleted and the exact phrase that is to go in its place.
There are not two instances of the same word or phrase on the same line or in the same paragraph (ie: if you say “replace ‘the’ with ‘a’”, I won’t know which “the” you are referring to.)
You refer to the page number on pdf page itself (and not the Adobe Acrobat page number, which is sometimes different than the number that actually appears visually on your pdf’s page).
Image by Sunny Haccan via Unsplash
Commenting Tools in Adobe Acrobat
To use this method, you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader software. If you don’t have it, you can download it for free here but to use the text editing tools feature, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Pro. You may be able to get a free one-week trial and make your edits during that week, or pay for a one-month pro subscription (currently $25/month). When you correctly enter your changes using the Adobe Acrobat markup tools, it makes it much easier for you to indicate which changes to make where, and much easier for me to enter your changes in my Adobe InDesign software.
Once you have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, watch this simple video to learn how to use the basic Adobe Acrobat commenting/mark-up tools. Watch it two or three times if you need to; it’s very short. The commenting tools in Adobe Acrobat allow you to mark exactly which text should be added, removed or replaced. These comments import into the software I use to design your book (Adobe InDesign) and while I still have to check each change one by one, the process is much faster than if I had to find each change on the page. Basically these tools allow you to indicated exactly where to add, remove or replace text in the file, and the sticky note tool can be used for design comments that aren't textual changes (like “style header using Heading 1 style” or “start this paragraph on the next page”).
If using this method, just be sure that:
You send me a sample of your edits using this method, ie: a pdf with maybe 20 changes in it, for me to make sure you are entering them them correctly. I have had clients who have skipped this test sample, and have thought they were using the markup tools correctly, but were using them incorrectly, and actually made more work for themselves and for me.
You use the latest single page version (not spreads version, where you see two pages at a time) of your pdf proof, if you received both single page and spread pdfs. I am not sure why, but it works better with my software when the edits are made in the single page pdf.
No matter which method you are using for submitting changes to your book (PDF file) after layout, please help us both to work efficiently by noting that:
You may want a certain change made throughout the whole document, like change “O’clock” to “o’clock” or “1000” to “$1,000”, if it is something I can easily search because every instance is written the same way, you only need to mark it once in your list or in the pdf, but make a note for me that I should change it globally. Not marking these kinds of changes every time they occur saves both you and me time.
If there are major changes (ie: more than 5-10 things in a paragraph, or just a lot of rewriting) please just send a Word file with that particular paragraph rewritten rather than making the edits in Adobe Acrobat. Put a sticky note in the pdf saying that I should refer to the Word file for the new text for that paragraph. If there is no special formatting (like bold or italics) in the paragraph, it can also just be copied and pasted into a sticky note in the PDF.
Your book may not require a lot of changes after layout, and if so, congratulations! You are living the dream! But first-time authors often realize that what they thought was a polished manuscript submitted for design and layout was not so polished. I have experienced the full gamut, from 300+ page books with just 10 changes after full layout to books that have been almost rewritten after layout (not recommended!) causing major delays and cost increases. Of course, experience is the best teacher, and this does not usually happen again on the second book. I wish you all the best in your #bookdone journey!