On That A-Minus

BookLife gave Religion Unburdened by Belief an A- in editing. I’m grateful for the high mark, but I’ll confess: it stings a little. I really tried.

I hired about 19 beta readers and Nicholas Carter, a professional editor. I revised and revised. As a first-time author, I thought I did everything that you’re supposed to do. Then I recorded the audiobook.

Reading your own prose aloud into a microphone gave me a renewed perspective. Many awkward phrasings, redundant clauses, sentences that technically work but don’t flow—you are more likely to hear it. I caught dozens of glitches that I’d missed across all those rounds of editing.

But the real revelation came afterward, when I listened back to the recording with a print copy in front of me. Following along visually while hearing the words spoken, that combination caught things that neither reading nor listening alone could find.

I wish I’d done both of those steps before submitting to BookLife. The silver lining: The version now available to readers incorporates all of those fixes. If you’re picking up the book today, you’re getting a more polished manuscript than what BookLife and Kirkus reviewed. ✨