Writing and Publishing News

What do you expect to pay for editing and what do you expect to get for your money?

How many of you have ever seen a cute craft or bakery item somewhere for sale and said, “Oh, I could make one of those?” You devalue the work that went into the item because you believe you could duplicate it, thus you don’t think it is worth the amount they are asking.

Of course, you never get around to making it, do you now?

Some people devalue the art and craft of writing simply because this is something everyone can do. They don’t feel they should have to pay for writing work or editing. And they can often find someone who will do the work for free or very cheap. Sometimes a friend who is a prolific reader will offer to edit a manuscript for the pleasure of being the first to read it. A family member who has a way with words might agree to do the editing for free or for a small fee. A creative neighbor might throw together a promotional brochure for the practice or to enhance his portfolio.

Sure, you can get writing and editing work done for free or practically free. But beware—if this person isn’t accustomed to editing book manuscripts, you may not be getting the value you desire.

A woman once came to me for an editing quote. She didn’t like my fees. If she didn’t like my fees, she wouldn’t like any professional editor’s fees. She was not of a mindset to pay even a reasonable price for the work she needed done.

She thanked me for my estimate and went on her merry way. A few weeks later, she contacted me and said, “You know, you really ought to change your way of charging. I found someone who will edit my 200-page book in four hours for $400.”

I explained to her that this is unrealistic. No one can even read a book for pleasure in four hours. That’s fifty pages an hour.

Several weeks later, she emailed me and said that I was right to warn her—that as it turned out, all the “editor” did was run her manuscript through his computer spellcheck and call it good.

Folks, do not skimp on editing. If you are writing a book, start saving now so that you are prepared to pay the $800 to $3,000 (or more) for the editing work your manuscript requires. I can’t tell you how many authors I meet who are great storytellers or they have a creative way of stringing together words and phrases or they know how to organize a how-to or informational book, but who desperately need an editor. They may use a lot of run-on sentences. They may have a muddy way of writing. They may not know how to use dialog so it works. Some of them are confused about paragraph breaks. There are those who try to tell a story rather than show it. Some have lost the flow of their story halfway through. Some are inconsistent in the way they present their characters or the story. Many of them don’t know how to use the apostrophe correctly. Several of my clients need help Americanizing their manuscripts—English is their second language.

These are just some of the things an editor can help with. If you don’t know where the problems are in your writing, turn your manuscript over to a book manuscript editor who will give you a free sample edit, an evaluation and an estimate. You’ll learn volumes about what your manuscript needs.

Questions: PLFry620@yahoo.com
For more about me and my editing work: http://www.patriciafry.com

For my showcase of books for writers and authors: http://www.matilijapress.com

I had a question from a potential client yesterday about how I work with authors. He wanted to know if I would be available for consultation after I do the editing in order to discuss my edits. He wondered if this was included in the fee.

I explained first off that I charge by the hour. This includes editing work, consultations, responding to questions and proofing the manuscript once the author has revised or corrected based on my editorial suggestions.

I do, however, provide a free sample edit (a page or 3) and free estimate.

Additionally, I said that while some clients have a few questions after I edit their manuscripts, generally they go through each edit and either accept it or not. As a matter of course, while I edit, I write my suggestions and, where appropriate, my reasoning. So typically, there is little to discuss. It’s a matter of the author either understanding and accepting or having some reason to discard my suggestion. I also told him that I will not defend or debate my work.

I said, “Certainly, if you have a question, I will do my best to respond. And email is absolutely the best way for me to do this since I will often need to go back to the manuscript to refresh my memory as to the phrase or storyline you are asking about. Once I’ve finished editing a manuscript, I go on to the next one and have pretty much put the one before it out of my mind. While I am close to the manuscript while I am working on it, I do not establish the sort of relationship with it that the author has, as you can imagine. I see several manuscripts each year.”

If you would like a free editorial estimate for your manuscript, contact me here: PLFry620@yahoo.com. Learn more about me and my work here: http://www.patriciafry.com

This is number 6 in the 7-part Authorship is a Business blog series. Be sure to study the previous entries starting on June 21, 2012. Topics include write the right book for the right audience, the benefits of writing a book proposal, how to write with your audience in mind, resources for studying the publishing industry and your publishing options. Today’s topic—hiring a book editor.

Do you consider yourself a pretty good writer? Do you understand what makes for interesting, reader-friendly text? Can you tell a good story and/or write clear instructions?

If you’re like many authors, you can write fairly legibly but you just aren’t wired for the process of editing. You don’t realize that you have developed some bad habits in your writing. You don’t recognize all of your punctuation and grammatical mistakes. You may even miss the typos and computer-generated mistakes that have occurred throughout the process of writing.

The truth is that most authors need help when it comes to fine-tuning their manuscripts. More and more publishers require that authors hire a professional editor before submitting anything to them. And an unedited book produced through a “self-publishing” company will surely die amidst the competition. If it gets any book reviews, they will not be favorable. Booksellers won’t give it a second look. And readers will lose respect for an author who puts out a book that’s full of blatant mistakes.

Hey, you’re an author, not an editor. There is a difference, you know. I’ve edited manuscripts for some highly educated authors and journalism majors. Some of them were stuck in antiquity—before technology began to dictate certain editorial changes. Others simply had been fostering bad habits. And some just didn’t know all of the tried and true rules of good writing, good grammar and proper punctuation.

How can you tell if you need an editor for your manuscript?

I suggest contacting an editor or two. Find out how much they charge for evaluating your manuscript. Some editors will run an occasional special for manuscript evaluation. Or they’ll evaluate a portion of your manuscript for free. If they charge, it’s generally around $50 or $100 to evaluate your first 25 or 40 pages, for example.

What kind of evaluation do you want? Would you like the editor’s opinion as to whether your book is publishable? In this case, she would probably want to see the complete manuscript and the fee may be more like $250, depending on the size of your project. For this type of evaluation, you’ll need to work with an editor with strong publishing background, not a friend who is good with words.

Maybe you want the editor to look at your manuscript from an editorial standpoint. Does it need editing? What is the nature of the editing problems? Can she give you some examples showing how she would remedy these problems? What would she charge for editing your entire manuscript? Again, I would recommend an experienced book editor, not your son’s high school English teacher

Of course, it would benefit you to learn what you can about self-editing book manuscripts in this digital age. Basically, you’ll want to watch for the following:
• Too many spaces between sentences. It is now one space after all punctuation.
• A dangling em dash. The em dash now connects the two words—it no longer dangles between them.
• The proper use of the apostrophe.
• The proper use of quotation marks and single quotes.
• Errors that your spell check missed.
• Muddy writing.
• Redundancies.
• Incorrect use of common words.
• Poorly organized story or nonfiction book.
• Inconsistency in your choices regarding spelling, capitalization, etc.
• Passive instead of active writing.
• Inconsistent and unreasonable voice and tense.

The more errors and problems you find while self-editing, indicates a greater need for an editor. If you are not aware of errors in your manuscript, this could mean that you are not wired to see them. Hire a professional book editor.

There are hundreds of people who have hung out their editing shingles since the explosion of new authors came on the scene starting around 1996. And there are as many approaches and fee structures. Get references. Ask for a sample edit so you can see how the editor works and the types of suggestions he or she will make.

If you are writing a book, start now setting aside money to use in hiring an editor. How much will you need? Editors charge anywhere from $30/hour to 60/hour. For a manuscript of 80,000 words, you might pay anywhere from $800 to $3,000, depending on how much work (time) is involved.

Be wary of editors that charge too little. I edit both fiction and nonfiction book manuscripts. One author came to me for an estimate. Later, she emailed me and said that I really should adjust my fees because she just found someone who would edit her 250-page manuscript for $300. This editor figured it would take something like six hours. Say what? That’s over forty pages per hour. A really fast reader might be able to read forty pages in an hour, but editing is a completely different animal.

This woman came back to me some weeks later and said, “I should have hired you to edit my book. The editor I hired for $300, simply did a quick computer spell check. I’m left with no money and an unedited manuscript.

All writers do it. Some of us even enjoy it. But the process can drive a sane person absolutely crazy.

For example, just when you think you’ve found all of the mistakes in your manuscript, you discover one or two more. Does the process of self-editing ever end?

Turn your perfect manuscript over to an editor or even a friend with a good eye for proofing and you may be astounded at some of the problems you overlooked. For example:

• Your chapter headings don’t match your table of contents (a common situation for those of us who make changes in heading titles or the order of chapters after having completed the TOC).

• Your character name or a place name is inconsistent. Ooops you changed the name of a character or city in mid-stream and forgot to change it throughout.

• You never took time out to learn how to use the apostrophe correctly.

• You have become so close to your manuscript that you are overlooking obvious blunders.

• You are confused about when to use “then” and “than,” “your” and “you’re,” etc.

• And the list goes on and on and on.

If you are writing a book, I have a couple of suggestions.

1: Buy a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style. It is pricey. But, if you study it, you will learn volumes of valuable editorial and writing rules that will serve you in all of your writings.

2: Start saving up to hire a good book editor. Don’t even think about pitching a book to an agent or publisher without hiring one.

3: When you’ve self-edited to the best of your ability, turn your manuscript over to a good book editor. You will be awfully glad you did.

You might reason, “But I read books all the time that aren’t well edited. If they can get away without hiring an editor, why can’t I?” And how far do you think these authors will get within the publishing world? I can tell you that I won’t read very far into a book that is riddled with errors. I know others who will cast a book aside if it isn’t well-edited. I mean, if the author didn’t care enough about his story or his nonfiction book to make sure it is editorially accurate, what makes you think the content is valid?

I’m sure that many of you have stories of buying books with editorial mistakes. How do you handle it? Do you go ahead and read the book, as painful as it may be? Do you immediately lose confidence in the author? Do you toss the book and tell friends that you do NOT recommend it? Or are you one of those people who can read through the errors without them bothering you?