Editing

I'm shamelessly blagging my friend's service here - https://tallerbooks.com/editing-services-home/ but thought it might spark discussion at least on how much you expect an editor to do for you, and how much you'd do yourself. And of course the favourite discussion point of paying for it! Rachel's managed to market her own books quite well through substantial efforts, but I'm not sure she'd actually be able to recoup professional editing fees even yet.

I've done my own editing so far, though after getting eyes on my work from crit buddies, beta readers and so on. I'm sure an editor would also pick up stuff I don't notice. Since I'm a hobby writer, I haven't felt the need get a professional external polish, so to say.

I think external input is most valuable when it flags up issues you can't spot yourself, or don't know how to fix. Alternatively, if you're short of time, paying someone else can streamline the process.

There are many types of editing: content editing, copy-editing, proofreading. Which specifically were you thinking about?

As far as content editing goes, it's not an editor's job to "fix" a book--it's to suggest to the author what they can do to improve their work. A good editorial letter is a treasure beyond rubies.

>3 Marissa_Doyle: Rachel offers "We describe our editing process as an extremely thorough proof-read. We’ll approach your book as a reader, and notice places where wording, grammar, and spelling can be tightened, clarified, or improved. We’ll also note plot holes, characters acting out of character, and anywhere where the narrative is confusing or contradicts itself. We’ll comment if we think there are changes you can make to improve the structure or emphasis of the story, or recommend changes to voice or tense that might enhance the reading experience. In short, we’ll pick out anything that might throw a reader out of your story, and suggest a way to improve it."

I've been a beta-reader for Rachel's own works and I've only ever found 1 typing/grammar error in each of her books, (sometimes I think she leaves one if for us to find) but of course tone/stylea re far more subjective. Sadly I've read far too many published novels with a much higher count of just plain mistakes.

But you'd have to sell quite a few books in order re-coup external editing costs. I'm not sure how an independent author would make that business decision? Once a book has been bought does it really matter what the reader thought of it? How many sales are actually referrals?

>4 reading_fox:

Once a book has been bought does it really matter what the reader thought of it?

Wow. I don’t think I’d ever want to read a book written by someone who thought the editing process was irrelevant because he’d already have had my money, so who cares?

Yes, finding an actual editor is a business decision, but if an author thinks that the opinion of readers doesn’t matter, then he’s obviously looking on his book as a mere ego trip.

Ugh.

>5 lilithcat: Just to be clear, neither I (nor Rachel) think that, but I was wondering what might go through the mind of a business focused author.

>2 MHThaung:, everything I would have said.

>4 reading_fox: "But you'd have to sell quite a few books in order re-coup external editing costs."

I was in the black, briefly. (Currently I'm in the hole for editing fees for two books that have not been published because they don't have covers yet.)

And, for the record, so far almost all my sales have been referrals or repeat customers.

As to how much editing -- I try to use beta-readers to help me with the "improve the book" type issues, and then I pay someone to help me with line editing: catching typos, stylistic inconsistencies and other small errors. My ms. comes back with lots and lots of sticky-notes, because I don't let my editor fix anything herself. She tells me what she thinks should be fixed and why, and I do all the fixes myself.

Commas are my biggest weakness. :(

I haven't been able to rely on the people who say they'll proofread it for me, and I'm already lacking the money needed to buy those ISBN numbers I want. So I gotta do it myself, like usual. But I have a set of rules: never speed-read your own novel, have a list of like-words that you tend to mix up so you can search them and change them, have a list of contractions prepared for the search in case you don't want to use them in narration and accidentally use them, etc. etc.

>9 MythButton:
I know at least one author who swears by reading the ms backwards, and several more who swear by reading it aloud.

(I have tried both of these with limited success, but that doesn't mean they won't work for other people.)

I get my ISBNs for free. (Okay, not quite free: for the cost of submitting one copy of the book in each ISBNed format to the Canadian equivalent of the Library of Congress. This is a side benefit of me being a Canadian, and therefore everything I self-publish also counting as Canadian.)

>10 LShelby: "I get my ISBNs for free. (Okay, not quite free: for the cost of submitting one copy of the book in each ISBNed format to the Canadian equivalent of the Library of Congress. This is a side benefit of me being a Canadian, and therefore everything I self-publish also counting as Canadian.)"

Yeah, I just discovered that little perk.

Hey, Leon! Nice to see you pop up! I just discovered I got purged from your email list while I was sick enough to have not been reading my mail. (I went through 700+ unread messages from 2022 and 2021 yesterday. Oi!)

I'm wondering if there is any country out there selling discount ISBNs. It could be quite a profitable venture.

Does anyone here have a tendency to rewrite the entire book every time you want to make fixes?

My daughter does this and it is foreign to me, so any insight I can glean into why this happens and how to actually achieve a finished published book from this would be wonderful.

>13 LShelby: Does anyone here have a tendency to rewrite the entire book every time you want to make fixes?

Not at later stages, but I rewrite multiple times from scratch when I'm trying to generate my Draft Zero.

No matter how much (or little) of an outline I create, I always veer off-course early in the drafting process. So I write a crappy draft as far as I can get before all the plot holes etc bug me too much. And then I decide what needs fixed and start again and hit another insurmountable problem further on... so the first attempt may get halfway, the second attempt 2/3 etc etc.

I guess I'm an iterative plantser or somesuch :) It's really inefficient, but I haven't yet come up with something that works better for me.

>14 MHThaung:
As inefficient being an iterative plantser may be, it beats writing the entire book, deciding something could be improved on, rewriting the entire book, and again, and again.

I did have another friend who did they rewrite everything thingy, but managed to figure out how to use outlines to overcome it. My daughter has tried using outlines, and she just ends up writing a new outline for the new version of the book whenever she decides she's discovered a weakness that should be fixed.

Actually the kind of iterative process you describe makes a lot of sense to me. I've never been able to create an outline that covers every little thing that shows up, and those little things add up over time. Being able to actually plan out a book in its entirety in advance is the one that seems strangest to me.

...
I am noting that the whole planner vs. pantser thing seems to be a little too binary to get us anywhere close to a description of how we all work.

The people who don't plan at all seem vanishingly rare, but the nature and scope of the plans varies from "I want to write x type of book" to thousands of words worth of notes.

Hi all. I have been gone from the forums here for a while now, because of real life drama and my work, but I'm back (at least for a bit). I'm a professional editor, beta reader and blurb writer with 7+ years experience, so if anybody has any questions for me that my vocation equips me to answer, feel free to ask away. :-)

>16 SDaisy:
Glad to have you back! Hope real life continues to allow your presence.

Is there a particular type of book you prefer to work with?

>17 LShelby: Thank you very much! It's good to be back.

I do specialize in Christian books, but honestly I have edited books in nearly every genre out there (except erotica). Christian books are my main focus, and historical fiction is also something I won't often turn down.

>12 LShelby: Off topicI come here from time to time. Sorry you got purged. I hope you enjoyed the final email, I tried to make it light hearted, although most people don't see it because they don't open the damn newsletters!

It's hard to keep up with other authors newsletters, I know.

>16 SDaisy: Hi! For my next book (which being realistic will probably be self-published), I was thinking about creating a kind of mysterious blurb, rather than a precis of the plot. Basically, the book features a shadowy organisation and I was going to create a sinister press release from this organisation to use as the blurb, if that makes sense. Do you think that kind of blurb can work well or is it too risky? Might it just confuse potential readers and turn them off?

Thanks,
Tom

>19 LeonStevens: "It's hard to keep up with other authors newsletters, I know"

I went back to having trouble keeping up even with just Hobnob for a couple weeks. Hopefully I am getting my feet back under me again. :)