Critique services worth it?

Hi,
I'm wondering if anyone has used a critique/editing service for their MS (mine are picture books) and whether you felt it was worth it or not? A typical service for PB's looks to be between $25-40 for basic services or up to $300 or more for some high-end services. However, I've seen other forums where they state that money flowing away from the author is a no-no and that a good critique partner or group is more (or just as) useful. I'm having trouble finding people to critique PB's though and would really like some good professional feedback. Any thoughts?

 

Well I do know that some on here spend a chunk of change on an editor.
But a critique? Nope. They find beta readers to help them fix the things
in the story that don't seem to work within it. Or they post parts they need
help in the Workshop.
An editor can cost anywhere from 500-1500$ for their service, from what I
have heard from those who do pay for it. As for a critique, that is not something
that I have ever heard paying for. Though I suppose you could pay someone
to give your book a review, but you shouldn't have to.
Though once a book is pubbed, I don't think you are looking for crits, but hoping
to get good revs so you can sell more books (and gain exposure).

 

Usually, that advice pertains to agents (or even publishers) who charge "reading fees" or some up front cost for considering your work.

Professional advice from someone with experience in your genre is well worth it. I recently paid a published writer in my genre (mystery) $1,000 to review my ms, but I had three trusted beta readers give me their critiques first. For my grand, I got back a marked up ms with excellent and insightful comments, plus a 5-page overall critique of the work. I'm not sure how a critique/editing review would work with a picture book, but it looks like the price would be considerably scaled down. If your goal is to be traditionally published, you need to make sure your work is as good as it can possibly be.

 

$25-$40 sounds like it would be a steal of a deal, if you were confident in the ability of the person doing the critique. There are so many people out there offering critiques and editing and every other service, and it's really, really hard to find any that are worth the money they're asking. In some cases, they could actually make your MS worse, if you follow their advice.

It sounds like Ed got lucky with his experience, but in general... if someone is a kick-ass writer in their genre, they're too busy writing their own stuff to have time to offer paid critiques and they're making too much money from selling their work to have the need to offer paid critiques. So you're likely going to be looking at the range of low-mid-listers if you're looking at authors.

So it might make more sense to look at editors, but again, most of the best of them will be too busy doing work for major publishers to have a lot of time or energy to freelance. And they'll almost certainly ask for more than most new authors would be wise to pay.

I don't have a philosophical concern about paying for extra help, but the practical challenges are significant.

 

Even if you are pursuing traditional publishing (maybe especially) you need to have your ms reviewed by a professional. Agents want a work to be as good as it can possibly be before they will consider it. If an agent or publisher charges a reading fee, that's a definite no. But if you contract with an editor or published author who provides review services, it might be the best investment you ever make.

 

This may be something that you would advise, but it's absolutely not a universally, or even, I believe, widely held opinion.

 

Yeah, I agree.

That doesn't mean that professional services are worthless or that some authors don't benefit from their use, but I don't think it's anything close to a requirement for traditionally published authors. Getting high quality feedback is certainly very important to writing a book that agents and publishers will like, but that's not something you need a professional for. Really all you need is someone who's opinion you respect and who isn't afraid to be frank with you. A professional will certainly be that, but you can find that for free too. After all, what really matters is just getting that outsiders view, as long as someone isn't you then they can probably do the job.

Perhaps more importantly though; when you know your reader personally you can have more confidence in their opinions. You know the person talking to you, you know? You have the rapport with them to talk about what things are a matter of taste and which aren't as good as they could be. And it really can't be understated how important it is to have someone who you can work through ideas with. Someone who shares some of your passion and clicks with what you are trying to do and wants you to get that across in the best way possible; who'll argue the other side to you and cares about you succeeding.

I'm sure that many professionals are great at what they do. I'm sure that some of them do work like that. But for my money I'd rather work with a friend/loved one with strong opinions who wants me to succeed.

@Kwills79 - Picture books specifically are a tricky one I will admit. It's hard to find readers of them who can give you good feedback, and of course they have their own conventions and styles that is quite different from traditional writing. I don't know how easy it is to find betas for that kind of project, but even then it's not quite the kind of project where you can expect to see another adult become passionate and argue with you. That puts you in a tricky position of course, because you don't want to pay for a service that doesn't have immediate obvious value for you. I guess all I can say is that it's up to you if you want to spend the money. It is important to have others look at your work and if you can't find the right person then I can understand why you would pay for someone who at least works with picture books a lot. The general sentiment of "no money flowing away from the writer" I do agree with but I don't know how practical that is for someone like yourself.

 

Well, it is my advice, at least to first time novelists, but it is also something I've heard a number of agents advise. The top agents receive as many as 10,ooo queries per month. My understanding is that publishers won't consider an ms unless it's 95% of publishable quality, and so agents won't consider one unless it's at least 90% of publishable quality (however one measures such things). That says to me that a first time author is best served by having a prospective ms reviewed, unless (s)he has a reliable resource (such as a creative writing instructor with experience in the genre).

 

The problem is with finding someone reliable to do the work.

I'm a published author, and I have no damn business setting myself up as an expert in publishing.

I've worked with professional editors from one publisher who offer absolutely opposite advice than editors from another publisher.

It's just such a subjective business. If there was a way to spend, say, $2 000 and guarantee that your manuscript was going to be made significantly better and you'd learn something about writing along the way, then, great, sure, pay it. But there's absolutely no guarantee. Nothing even close.

 

I don't disagree that the manuscript has to be great. It's the conclusion that hiring someone will be either necessary or sufficient to achieve that goal that I disagree with.

 

Yes, totally agree. At least an editor that works with your agent/publisher a lot you can presume that they know what they are talking about. Maybe you can't 100% trust that their advice makes it better but at least their advice will hopefully make your work closer to what that agent or publisher wants to sell. But as someone on the street? Nah. You'd need to find someone who is both a really great editor and who works a lot in your genre and clearly understands exactly what makes a book marketable and that is a really big ask to find as someone who's on the outside of the industry. Every editor says they can make your work better, but you can't pay them all can you?

That's a good way to put it.

It's certainly not necessary to hire an editor to be published. And it's certainly not sufficient to hire an editor to get your work published. And that means that puts it in a really weird position where it might be useful, might be great and might be all you need but you don't know that until after you've paid them and shopped your book around.

 

I agree that there are no guarantees. And no absolutes. But I do think that the alternatives - relying on old school chums or family, or just hoping for the best on one's own, is not enough in most cases. And I can only say that the person who reviewed my current project did make observations and suggestions that made it better, and I did learn something about writing in my genre along the way. Whether that's enough to get it published remains to be seen.

 

The quality of volunteer feedback varies. If you just want reader reaction, then any reader will do, as long as they're prepared to discuss the story with you afterwards. In fact, it's good to get a cross-section of readers. This can help you determine who your target audience might be, as well as give you a reaction to what you've written. Encourage these people to tell you what they truly think. You'll get to know if you've succeeded in getting your story across to them. However, these folk may not be much help in fixing problems. (They MAY be helpful, though ...in that case, they are gold.)

However, if you're looking for EDITING, that's another issue. And I agree with several people on here, that you're unlikely to get quality editing for free. If you're going to pay for it, I think you should research the issue very carefully. Find somebody who knows their stuff and can prove they know their stuff (references, etc.) Find somebody who works in your genre. Find somebody you can afford, but don't automatically go for the lowest bidder. I imagine you'll get what you pay for.

Speaking as somebody who has just spent the past year doing non-stop beta reading (and low-level free editing) I can assure you it takes a lot of time. I enjoyed it, but I'm not doing it any more, at least for now, because I want to concentrate on my own writing. I found I can't work on my own story when I'm working on somebody else's at the same time. My brain gets divided. So I wouldn't expect people to do editing for free, or for very little money. It really does require a lot of time and effort.

 

I have, through my searches, found exactly one writer/crit partner who has been able to provide excellent advice. When one's goal is to be traditionally published, it would only seem reasonable that one should seek the advice of someone who either has or does. Otherwise, isn't it mostly a case of the blind leading the blind?

 

But professional editors typically don't publish their own work. Maybe they've helped other people get published but they didn't write the book. That doesn't make their advice bad on the face of it, it just means that you really don't know the value of any advice they gave. Maybe they helped someone turn a haphazard mass of words into a best seller; or maybe they took an already good and well polished book that would already have succeeded and their contribution was "Yup, looks good to me." You just don't know.

And of course it's really hard to get a book published anyway. An editor isn't an agent, they aren't a publisher, they aren't a publicist. It's not really up to them if your book is accepted or if it sells well. It's totally possible that the best editor in the known world has never actually seen a book he worked on get published; there's a lot of books trying to get published and there's so many reasons why a well written, well polished, well edited book can be turned down. And you'll never hear back which reason got you turned down; it could have been this terrible hackjob the editor did, or it could be because you write weird stuff that's hard to place even if it is beautifully written.

The blind leading the blind indeed. And if an editor can't offer you any more certainty than a friend or fellow writer then... What are you paying for? At least another writer is someone who is doing the same things as you, trying to negotiate the same labyrinth and can at least offer you an insight into what they would do. They might be wrong, sure. But their position in the industry is the same as yours. An editors position in the industry is, for the most part, to get paid whether books succeed or not.

 

I don't know about any big distinction between beta-reading, critiquing or editing in working practice, usually. The idea is the same, whatever we are calling it - suggest fixes to anything and everything that needs fixing. That's what I do, anyway. If someone only wants this or that, I probably won't help them because I see no sense in just passing over any of the problems I see as I read. (In fact, it drives me nuts. Which is why I won't do it lol).

I don't know about "the blind leading the blind" either because when we're talking about the help available within most unpublished writer budgets, the skills of both free and paid helpers vary widely. For example, I have helped people with their manuscripts for free and for pay and I remain the same person, doing the same thing, either way. And I have known editors of small presses and such who didn't have any huge professional resume at all, and some whose advice was not what I'd consider very good. On the other hand, I have received what I did consider very good help, many times, on writing forums like this one. We're all readers and it's not rocket science.

I think it is all, unfortunately, a little nebulous for most of us little guys.

 

But I was referring to getting to the point of submission. So, unless you're very, very lucky, how does a writer who is no more advanced in the craft than you are teach you something about writing you need to know but don't?

Editors are often also writers, or have worked as agents, or as editors with publishers, in which case they recognize publishing-quality work. The one I've just used is a writing instructor with Gotham Writers in New York, has published three novels, including two in my genre. She also works with the NY Pitch Conference, and is a judge for the Freddie Awards (mystery writing). Now, I suppose I might find a random crit group partner who could provide as helpful advice as she did, but I doubt it.

Tell you what. You don't want to hire a professional to review your ms, don't.

 

And that's really the thing, isn't it? We all try to get what we need in the way we think best, and hope for good results! If we could afford top, brand name editorial assistance from Noo Yawk, the path would be more clear imo.

 

If they are that good of a writer, if they know the industry and they know how to succeed; why are they still taking in editing work at a few hundred quid for a couple of days work? For the beauty of the craft? For the joy of seeing others succeed? No, it's because they are still at the point in their career where being paid 200 quid for two days of work sounds like a reasonable proposition to them.

And this is my same complaint against everyone in the industry who claims to be a writer, an agent, a teacher, an editor, a commentator and blog writer all rolled into one. If they are a successful writer, someone who's opinions we should be listening to, then why do they need to do six other jobs as well just to pay their bills? If they haven't yet broken through to make their living as a full time writer then why should we listen to them? All these people who write books about writing books; who teach creative writing and speak with such authority; but they make most of their money from teaching and selling books about writing.

The mark of success in an author is financial; you have succeeded when you don't have to do anything else except write. And those who claim to be successful as writers while making their income off the backs of aspiring writers dreams instead of from their own writing should be treated with extreme caution.