When Should an Author Hire an Editor? How to Avoid Scams

First: This week marks the anniversary of that fateful day three years ago when I started this blog...and then promptly lost it. But luckily I found it about four months later, and this blog now gets an average of 12,000 hits a month on its four monthly posts (Slow Blogging rules!) and I have a blog partner, Ruth Harris, who is one of my favorite best-selling authors--someone I'd never have dreamed of meeting three years ago. Plus this blog got the attention of my two publishers, Popcorn Press and MWiDP. Without blogging, I'm sure my five novels would still be languishing in query hell. 


So in honor of this blogiversary, I'm giving away A FREE EBOOK to one lucky commenter--your choice. You can read descriptions of all the books on my book page. Just put your title of choice in the comment thread. All the books are available for Kindle and should all be available for Nook by the end of the week. The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced in next week's post.

Hiring an Editor: When, Who, and How to Avoid Scams

As I said in my last post: Learning to write books is hard. Earning money from books is even harder.

 So questions keep coming up:

• How much money should you put into polishing a novel?

• How much can you reasonably expect to recoup?

• Should you hire an editor if you hope to get traditionally published?

• When should you hire an editor if you plan to self-publish?

Self publishing has been a great boon to freelance book editors. But an awful lot of writers aren’t totally clear about their function. 

When I was doing freelance editing, I was amazed by the people who came to me with over-inflated ideas of what an editor can do. They’d arrive with collections of raw taped interviews, notebooks full of verses and random jottings, or old letters they wanted me to make into a salable book.

There are people who do these things. They’re called ghostwriters. They’re going to cost a lot of money. And unless you’re Justin Bieber, you’ll never make back the money you put into them.

(That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t publish them for yourself. Sometimes a personal or family history can be a fantastic gift to your children and grandchildren—for more see my post on writing memoir.) 

The term “editor” has several meanings in the book business. The “in-house” editors at publishing companies—the ones who decide what manuscripts to publish—don’t do a lot of literal “editing” these days. According to agent Jenny Bent, the amount of hands-on work they do, “varies wildly from editor to editor…because many editors simply don't have the time or desire to actually edit.” You’ll probably get more editing from some smaller and midsized presses than you will from the Big Six. But there, too things vary wildly from one editor to the next. I’m lucky to have had great editors at all three small presses who have published me.

But no matter what the size of the publishing house, by the time a manuscript lands on an editor’s desk, it needs to be pretty close to print-ready. Agents can help you polish, but they don’t have much time for nitty-gritty text-honing either, so most won’t look at manuscripts that aren’t carefully proofed and edited.

The truth is, the majority of professional writers learn to edit themselves, with the help of a beta reader or two.

Too many newbies hire editors when what they really need is a few basic writing classes and some knowledge of the industry.

I’ve seen some great posts in the blogosphere this week about how a lot of new writers are getting caught up in premature marketing frenzies and fail to learn basic craft. It’s not their fault. Some very successful self-publishers are telling writers “every day your book isn’t for sale you’re losing money.” This true for established authors with an out of print backlist, but it’s very bad advice for a fledgling writer who’s just finished a first novel.  

YA author Natalie Whipple wrote an amazingly candid blogpost a couple of weeks ago about what she wishes she’d done differently in her career. Here’s #4 “I wish I'd spent more time studying the craft. I used to think my natural talent would get me through the gate. I would write stories without much thought to if the plot worked or not, if the characters were real or not, if the world made sense or not. I feel like I squandered my talent for a long time because I relied solely on talent instead of pushing myself to get better."

And Kristen Lamb has been hammering us this week about the importance of honing writing skills before we publish. “We aren’t born knowing three-act structure or how to layer complex characters or how to infuse theme and symbol into a work spanning 60-100,000 words. All of that is learned through struggle.” (Yes. Struggle. She didn’t say “hiring somebody to do the hard work for us.”)      

Agents have been saying the same thing for years: The number one mistake new writers make is trying to publish too early. With the self-publishing revolution, the problem has become much worse.

No amount of editing can fix a book that is seriously flawed or amateurish. I see many self-published writers who blame bad reviews on a hired editor. But I wonder how many are expecting their editors to work miracles with a flawed manuscript.

Of course, if price is no object, you can hire an editor to be your personal writing teacher. Some editors offer “writing coaching” services.

But most professional writers didn’t start out wealthy, so they learned their craft through workshops, extensive reading, critique groups, and years of trial and error.

The people who benefit most from a freelance editor’s work are:

• Self-publishers. If you’re not working with a publisher, you do need to hire an independent editor before uploading your book. Most writers are blind to typos and our own pet crutches and quirks. 

• Experts whose primary field is not the written word. This includes self-help books by psychologists or medical professionals, specialty cookbooks, local history, etc.

• Memoirists who have a unique, marketable tale to tell, but are not planning a career in writing.

• Writers who have been requested by an interested agent or publisher to give the book a polish. Many agents will ask a writer to hire an independent editor at this stage. (Just don’t hire one owned by the agency, because that can be a major conflict of interest.)

• Novelists who have polished their work in workshops and critique groups, but after many rejections, can’t pinpoint what is keeping them in the slush pile.

If you decide to hire an editor, do some research and be clear in your goals. You don’t want just any out-of-work English major. If the editor doesn’t have a good knowledge of the publishing industry, your money will be wasted. I’ve seen “professionally edited” manuscripts that are ridiculously long or too short to be considered by a contemporary publisher, or contain song lyrics (prohibitively expensive) or copyrighted characters. You want an editor who knows the business. Preferably somebody who knows what’s selling now and how to write for today’s marketplace.

The best way to find a good editor is by referral from satisfied clients. A lot of self-published authors will sing the praises of their editors, so visit their blogs. Or ask a favorite indie author for a recommendation. The standard pay scale for editorial services is posted by the Editorial and Freelancers Association. Plan to spend from five hundred to several thousand dollars for a book-length manuscript. 

There are also a lot of scammers out there, who just run your book through spellcheck or give you bogus advice. Check Writer Beware for in-depth advice and a list of some hair-raising editing scams. The Edit Ink scam of the late ’90s bilked thousands. Here are some warning signs: 

• Extravagant praise and promises. Anybody who guarantees you a place on the best-seller list is either crooked or delusional.
• Claims that all publishers require a professionally edited ms. Not true. It’s also not true that an edit will get you a read. In fact, do not say in a query that your work has been “professionally edited.” Agents don’t care who you’ve hired. They care how well YOU can write.
• An agent or publisher who recommends their own editing services or gives a specific referral. As I said above: beware conflicts of interest. Edit Ink scammed writers by giving agents kickbacks for referrals and even setting up fake agencies to tell all queriers they’d get representation if they used Edit Ink’s expensive, useless services.
• One-size-fits-all. You need somebody who’s familiar with your genre. I can’t picture sex with elves without laughing, and torture scenes make me retch. You do NOT want my help with your paranormal erotica or horror novel. Conventions that are required in one genre, like romance, can be poison in something literary or action-oriented.
• Direct solicitation. Scam editors purchase mailing lists from writing magazine subscriber lists. Beware.
• Sales pressure. “Limited time offers” are rarely good deals.
• No client list on their website. You should be able to get a list of clients and a sample of the editor’s work. Some editors often will offer a sample edit of a few pages before any money changes hands.

There are many kinds of edits, priced differently, so be aware of what you need.

• Manuscript evaluation: A broad overall assessment of the book.
• Content editing: Help with structure and style.
• Line editing: Reworking text at the sentence level.
• Copy editing: Attention to grammar, spelling, punctuation and continuity.
• Proofreading: Checking for typos and other minor problems.

A good editor can make the difference between a successful book and a dud. Just choose your editor carefully and wait until you have a marketable project.

And most of all, don’t hire an editor too soon. Editing is polishing, not re-writing. First you have to put in those 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell says are necessary to learn a craft. That’s a lot of hours. Go write.

What about you, scriveners? Have you used a freelance editor? What kind of experience did you have? Have you ever been scammed by a bogus editor?


Indie Chicks Fans: This week we have a story from another successful indie author: Christine Kelsey on why you should never give up on your dreams.

7 Dos and 7 Don’ts for New Bloggers

Nathan Bransford has spoken. He says it’s never too early for writers to start using social media. Perhaps one day we’ll all be issued Twitter accounts in the womb.

Since Nathan is a Thought Leader in our industry (according to Klout) I have a feeling a lot of writers are scrambling around this weekend, trying to set up blogs.

If you’re a non-geek who doesn’t have a clue where to begin, I wrote a post last December on How to Start a Blog that people have found useful..

Here are some further dos and don’ts for creative writers who are thinking of plunging into the blogosphere.

DO’S

1) DO read a bunch of other writers’ blogs before you start. Decide what you like and don’t like. There is no one right kind of blog. What appeals to 20-something fantasy readers may turn off 30-something romance readers or 60-something mystery readers. That’s as it should be. You want to attract readers with similar interests to yours.

2) DO comment on other blogs. If you don’t have much blog experience, I recommend spending a few weeks commenting before you start your own. Nathan wrote a great guide to blog comments that will help if you're nervous about joining in. If you get your name known as a commenter first, you’ll have potential blog friends. And maybe you can avoid that awkward phase when you only have three blank-faced followers, one of whom is your mom. (But never beg for followers. Pathetic is not an image you want to foster.)

3) DO remember blogging is about making friends. As Nathan has “trademarked, patented, and paid to have etched into the moon…SOCIAL MEDIA IS SOCIAL.” Offer interesting content that gives something of value to the kind of people you’d like to get to know. Visit people who do the same.  

4) DO put your name in the title. Yes, I know 90% of writerly blogs have cute titles that don’t contain proper names. But think about it: if I enjoy your blog and want to revisit, I probably won’t remember if yours is the one called “Musings and Murmurings” or the one called “Mumblings and Mutterings.” I’m going to remember your name (hopefully) and maybe your subject matter (“Mysterious Minneapolis.”)

But your name is best. That’s what you want people (and Google) to notice. Social media guru Kristin Lamb even recommends changing your title if it’s impersonal. She changed her own blog moniker from “Warrior Writers” to “Kristin Lamb’s Blog.” and says it’s easy. You don’t have to change the address, just the header.

5) DO think of blogging as journalism. A blog is like a newspaper column: more personal than straightforward reporting, but not as confessional as memoir. Posts should be short (300-1000 words) and informative.

6) DO blog on a regular schedule. You don’t have to blog every day, or even every week. But you do need to let people know when to expect a new post from you and follow through. Keep some saved posts in the draft folder for times when something comes up.

7) DO use SEO tags. Yes, my eyes glaze over too when people talk about S(earch) E(ngine) O(ptimization). This is what you need to know: Google reads tags. Those are the little categories you put at the bottom of the post. So if you’re writing about your zombie fiction set in Minneapolis, tag your blog with “zombies, Minneapolis, Minnesota horror stories, and Your Name.” When somebody Googles any of those things, your blog will come up.

DON’TS

1) DON’T use your blog as a personal journal.

• Or a notebook for your work in progress.
• Or a message board to beg for critiques or praise.
• Or a stage to pound your chest and say “look at me!!”

I repeat: you’re looking for friends. Not psychotherapists. Not critics. Not minions.

2) DON’T post unpublished fiction or poetry—unless you never intend to publish it elsewhere. Even if you get loyal followers to read your WIP, you’re jeopardizing your future career. Putting something on a blog is publishing. You’ll never be able to sell first rights to a story or poem, and there will be copyright issues with a chapter of a book you plan to sell later.

EXCEPTION: blogfests and contests. Usually these require only a snippet of a scene and they’re fun and allow writers a taste of each others’ creative work.

3) DON’T start with a barrage of posts. Slow and steady really does win the race. Don’t succumb to the pressure from the professional blog gurus. You’re not trying to be The Daily Beast. If you post every day, it’s hard to cut back. But if you only post every two weeks, that’s what people will expect. You can post more later. It’s easier to give than take away.

4) DON’T be unprofessional. Remember publishing is a business—not that different from manufacturing widgets (alas!) So don’t put anything on the blog you wouldn’t want your future boss publisher to read.  

5) DON’T box yourself into a too-small niche.  If you’re starting a blog long before your book comes out, or even before you’ve written one, as Nathan suggests, you won’t have a clue where your career might take you. But you do know who YOU are. That’s what your blog should be about. Love horror movies? Classic mysteries? Pizza with anchovies? Write about it. You’ll draw like-minded people. When you write your mashup of The Mysterious Affair at Styles with anchovy-loving zombies, you’ll have a ready-made audience.

6) DON’T act like a rock star from Mars. Nothing is sillier than an unpublished writer pontificating about an unfinished, unpublished book to non-existent fans. Or blabbering about stuff she knows nothing about to an audience of nobody.

7) DON’T Monetize. Or take advice from blog gurus who do. They’re not talking to you. They’re talking to people who want to blog for a living (a precarious effort these days.) I’ve said this before, but I’m going to repeat it because you’ll read conflicting advice. Maybe later, after you have a following, your peeps will love you enough to tolerate a few discreet ads, but right now you won’t make enough money per month to buy a Venti at Starbucks, and you’ll label yourself a cyber-hooker. Save your purity for your future true love—your own books.

If you want in-depth information on blogging and all things social media, I recommend Kristin Lamb’s book We Are Not Alone—The Writer’s Guide to Social Media.

Anybody out there about to start a blog? Any questions? Fellow bloggers—what advice would you give them?