During the first twelve days of December Ill be posting twelve ways to self-edit.
Today's Tip: Go Slow
Don't try to edit everything all at once. A good freelancer gives a book at least three passes and you should give no less. Go through it once and focus just on the five senses. Are they all represented? Then, do another pass for characterization. Is everyone fully fleshed out and interesting? Then another pass for misplaced commas. Then another to make sure all of your nouns are consistent. Do you have accents? Different POVs? Tense changes? Do a pass for each of those, too. It's difficult to eat a whole watermelon in one gulp. It's much easier in bite sized pieces! Yes it may take a while but the results are worth it!
