I know that we’ve come to the end of the alphabet today. Unfortunately, your blog to book project probably isn’t quite ready. There are a few things we need to discuss.

One topic that must be addressed before you release your book is editing! No matter how many times you read your written work, errors will get overlooked. Some suggest reading your book out loud backward when checking for errors. That might not catch all of those pesky mistakes though. Recently I read a book where the author talked about riding a mope head. If you read mope head out loud, it certainly sounds like the intended vehicle, moped, but it just isn’t.

Grammar and spelling errors diminish your authority on a subject. Therefore, the fewer the better. Zero errors are ideal, but may not be possible taking into variations of English (or whatever language you are writing in). For example, British English and American English have a number of spelling differences.

We’ve already talked about how using the Hemingway App can make your writing more succinct. Today I’d like to talk a little about Grammarly as a potential writing tool to add to your arsenal.

Grammary has both a free and a paid version. For casual writing, the free version is perfectly fine. If you want to up your game in the spelling and structure department, then consider Grammarly Premium.

Grammarly lets you choose whether you would prefer British or American English, which is a nice option. I write in American English, so when I copy and paste my writing into the app, it checks for spelling errors for me.

I used a draft of a blog post as an example here so you can see what sort of errors Grammarly picks up on. Spacing and punctuation errors are easily fixable. I tend to not use the Oxford common when I write, but Grammarly likes to. I also use Mexican Spanish words on occasion. My audience will know what I’m talking about, but Grammarly doesn’t so marks it as an unknown word.

Indicating a word is overused helps me be more specific in my descriptions. Grammarly will give you some alternatives, but I don’t always use those. Grammarly is utterly opposed to the use of passive voice and will highlight each and every use. According to Grammarly, using active voice will make your writing stronger, but I’m not sure I agree 100 percent.

Squinting modifiers are places where you can clarify ideas. Using this, that, these, and those as adjectives is all well and good when you can point to an object, however, your readers might just need some additional information. Sentence fragments are typically in need of some restructuring.

At the very bottom, you can see that Grammarly has graded my post. I didn’t do very well with this draft post, did I? As I change or ignore Grammarly’s suggested edits, my score changes.

There are other editor apps out there that as just as good or better than Grammarly. The Premium version is a tad expensive in my opinion. You could hire an editor as well. In fact, most writing manuals suggest doing so. Another pair of eyes is never remiss in your quest of zero spelling and grammar errors in your blog to book project.

Assignment: Check your spelling and grammar. Then check it again.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I haven’t finished discussing all the relevant points in your blog to book project even though we’ve reached the end of the alphabet. Stay tuned in upcoming weeks for more helpful posts here at Creative Content!