You've written your book, now what? Now you edit. Editing is often the part of publishing that most people dread. Writing is often easy in comparison.

Image: ink jar and quills from Student of Rhythm

Here are some tips to help you edit your own work:

1. Chose an editing style guide (AP, MLA, etc) and be consistent. If you like to use the AP style guide because that's what you're used to, do it. If not, there are many style guides that you can find online for free that will help you write consistently. Style guides often have rules on when to use certain types of punctuation and when. It can help you keep your grammar consistent.
2. Print off your work and edit with a pen. I like to use red pen, but the choice is yours. Be sure to include page numbers and double space your work so you have more room to make notations and you'll know where to make corrections once you are entering your edits back into the computer.
3. Read your work out loud. You've heard this many times before, probably throughout school. Reading aloud really does help make sure the pacing and sentence structures are correct. It is also often easier to hear the mistake rather than see it.
4. Simplify your grammar. Not sure when to appropriately use a semicolon or a hyphen? Don't. You can rework sentences so that you don't need to use complicated grammar.
5. As you read through your work, keep a journal about each character and make sure the details are consistent. Use a character a couple times? It is really important that you keep their personality, appearance, and name consistent so you don't confuse your audience. As you go through your work, you can use this trick to make sure your characters are consistent.
6. Read through once and focus on tense and perspective alone to make sure they are consistent. It's important if you are writing in past tense to stay in past tense. It can be jarring to the reader if one second you are talking in the past tense and then switch to first tense. Same with perspective  If you are writing in third person, stay in third person.
7. Be harsh with your own work. This is one of the hardest tips because you have to be your toughest critic. You need to read your work like you are a strict judge, critic, etc. If you can answer to every character's motivation or flaw, then you can help make sure you have strong characters. If you can answer to every plot turn or twist than you can make sure you have a strong plot. This is also a possible step where you can get discouraged, but don't! This is where you are really improving your work.
8. Get a trusted friend to read your work and ask them to look for something specific. You should have read your own work several times by this point. You should have an idea if and where any weakness are. Concerned about character's motivations or plot devices? This is your chance to get specific feedback from someone who is seeing your work with fresh eyes. It also helps focus potential feedback into constructive feedback.

Got any other tips? Feel free to post any self-editing tricks in the comments below.

Edit: I no longer have editing on my site. XD