Zillions of manuscripts are out there.
And yours, while special and unique, is going to have to fight for attention. Having an editor is not a luxury. It's what serious authors do as a matter of course. You don't have to be rich, established or famous to afford a book editor. You just have to be smart.
Whatever your goal is for your book, it must read as well as selling indie or traditionally published books. Not-quite-as-good is not an option. You've worked too hard for this.
Authors who work with book editors have a huge competitive advantage. Hiring a great editor is one of the smartest decisions you can make for your manuscript.
Don't do it for the money.
In my experience, writers in pursuit of fame, acclaim or dollars signs are destined to a path of frustration. The simple desire to tell a good story, one that readers will read and reread and tell their friends about, should be your guiding motivation. Tell us a story. One that challenges, comforts, and moves us. One that might even teach us something new about ourselves and about the world. Tell us a story that entertains us and that matters. If you accomplish even a fraction of those goals in this book and you have the patience and resolution to keep writing, querying and searching for just the right way to publish your book, then, the world of being a writer is for you.
Always be improving your craft.
Use my story development tools and make them your own. Working together, we will more than improve this particular manuscript, we will raise the level of your game altogether. You will internalize and apply the same storytelling principles for all of your writing hereafter.
Read, Read, Read, Read
Be familiar with what great writing looks like, and notice the pleasure of reading. Be familiar with who has written what, and when and why you enjoyed it so. Try reading books by authors you are not familiar with, and rereading classics you read when you were a kid. Try audiobooks. Make the time in your life to enjoy reading for the sheer love of exploring the world through the eyes of someone else. The rewards are innumerable, not the least of which is that your own writing will be guided, informed and inspired by other great writers.