Besides basic typos and grammatical errors, one of the biggest problems with non-fiction and how-to books is that they contain broken "links."
When you learn about science or history in real life, you rarely learn every single detail in a linear order. You jump around from fact to fact, time period to time period, and deal with many levels of information at the same time. This makes writing a how-to or non-fiction book challenging because the book is set up to teach in a linear pattern. Many authors try to get around this by making references to things you will learn in other parts of the book, such as letting you know in chapter one that additional jigsaw patterns can be found in chapter eight, or that the chicken recipes start on page 72. Editing these books for complete references can be a challenge.
Imagine that you're reading a book on panda bears, and in the second chapter you read the following sentence: "In chapter six, we'll look at the developmental stages a baby panda goes through in the first year of life."
"Cool!" you think. "I've always wanted to learn about baby pandas. They're so cute!"
You turn to chapter six and instead of seeing a tiny panda bear, you see pictures of a big panda eating bamboo. Oops, looks like one of the references was wrong. Fortunately there is an easy way to check for such mistakes in your book.
Read carefully through your book from start to finish. For each reference you find, write it at the top of an index card or slip of scrap paper. Write only one reference on each card. Once you've gone through the book, check each reference one by one to make sure it matches up. Is the chapter number right? Is the page number right? Does the passage include all the information you've promised it will? Make a note for each reference that needs to be altered, and toss the card of all references that are correct. You now know exactly what you need to do to ensure that all your references line up.
It's disappointing when you realize an author has failed to provide an accurate reference, or that information you hoped to find is missing. Help your readers learn exactly what they want to know, and preserve your reputation, by taking just a few minutes to edit your how-to or non-fiction book properly.
Learn how to organize how-to content.
