It depends on many factors. When big publishing houses were the norm, they employed mass amounts of editors for that purpose. Now that publishing is all over the board, independent editors are the norm. But even back then, the ones that rose to the top had their stuff edited prior to submitting. The work may be edited again, but that first edit would tend to get you in the door. A lot of the older freelance editors were veterans of the publishing industry doing side jobs. Here is a freelance editor I hope to employ one day https://ellenbrockediting.com/
I think this particular discussion is geared more toward editing for self-publication. Or for writers who want to put their best foot forward before traditional submissions.
I mean, honestly this. If I want to go to an expensive meal but I can only afford McDonalds, I can't really expect the expensive restaurant to provide their high quality food and service to me for $3.99 because that's not how any of this works. Sometimes we want nice, quality things but can't afford them, and so we either go without or accept a less expensive substitute that's of lesser quality. We don't demand the same thing for less money because of our own personal financial circumstances. I was a professional belly dancer for over 10 years, and I regularly had to turn down customers who wanted me to dance for like, fifty bucks No, you cannot have my expensive handmade-in-Egypt costumes, carefully selected Middle Eastern music and elegant, tasteful performance for fifty dollars. You either go without, or hire some 6-week wonder who'll show up in a cheap hip scarf, dance to culturally inappropriate music and shake their boobs in the guest of honor's face 5 feet from his seething wife and horrified grandmother.
I feel like editing my first book myself made me better at writing. The novel I'm working on now is coming out better in rough draft than my first novel did after second revisions.
Happens in every line of self employed work ... why should i pay you £750 to fell that tree when i can hire a chainsaw for £25 and do it myself .... you do that, call me when the tree is resting on the roof of your house - the charge for sorting it out will be £1500.
Missing stuff about editing software... I was led to trying out ProWriotingAid after reading this thread: https://www.writingforums.org/articles/before-you-push-that-self-publish-button/#comments There was an0ther thread around at the time questioning ProWritingAid, and it was addressing all of the checks and tests that the thread above describes. I have found it a good teaching tool, learning about repeated words, vague words that need to be solidified, passive voice, etc. I've learned $40 worth of editing skills, easily.
Programs that may help you with editing? Maybe. Programs that do the editing, much less "thoroughly"? No.
I understood this to be precisely what @Sam Webb was asking for. I don't see anything in their OP which suggests they're looking for a professional editor. In fact the very first sentence explains how their last book was edited by a friend, but that this friend isn't interested in doing any more. This, to me, suggests they'd have been happy for their friend to do it, had they been willing.
True - this was more in response to the direction the thread seemed to be veering in, that there might be legitimate reasons for professionals to give their services away for free or nearly free. As well as some recent threads that have posts that seem to highly devalue what a professional editor can bring to a manuscript, but now I'm just projecting all over the place. By all means, have a friend who's not a professional editor take a whack at editing your MS. You get what you pay for is all I'm saying.
To be fair, you aren't just paying for skill, but certainty. If someone can charge a lot, it's because they have good work to show that made money. Getting some cheap isn't necessarily bad. You're just taking a chance on them. It might turn out to be a bargain.
First off, I am not by any means trying to say what you and many others do, isnt worth the money. Im simple saying I dont have the financial means to pay for it. Second, I dont know if my writing is or ever will be good enough for a publisher. I have no college, or education on writing of any kind. I simple write what I feel and how i think. Third, if you have any ideas on how I should go about trying my hand through a publisher, I'm all ears. I just want to get my book's out there. It been a dream of mine since i was a little kid to write a book, and now it's a true passion.
I think the true test is to those that make themselves, without hiring outside help (yes I just called editors help). If you are competent enough with the how the language works, then you should be fine cleaning up your work yourself. If you shell out $700-$2000 for somebody to fix your work, and then you submit it and it still gets rejected. Then what? You are out a chunk of change. Not every body has money to toss around like it was confetti. Editing is a huge pain in the ass, and takes a lot of time. But you do learn ways to improve your writing, and once in a while someone tosses you a helpful piece of advice. If you are capable of writing a story, then you are more than capable of experiencing the entire process which includes the hell that is editing.
I've been wanting to self-publish. That's something I don't want to hear ACK :/ everything I've read online says an SP has more potential to earn more than a TP it the book is good and the editing is done well and to a high standard. I've read articles if you put in a huge amount of effort towards your writing and editing that you can potentially use SP to launch a TP career.
I think every person on here has had a lack of confidence at one point or another. It does not mean they or myself did not or will not succeed. Some of us just need a little guidance and for others to believe in us. Every person I have letr read my book up this point said its amazing. The person doing my editing right now said it was to good for her to mess up. I happen to be dyslexic and have a tougher time than others at writing. So yeah, I might have a little trouble accepting I can write.
You're better off putting that huge amount of effort into creating something that you can submit for traditional publishing.
It's the marketing that's the problem. A self-published book is like a product on a Walmart shelf mixed in with millions of other anonymous, like-minded products... nobody will ever know it's there without promotion. Trad publishers connect the right books with the right readers through established markets and storefronts. Self-pub and you're on your own. And never mind that a lot of readers won't touch a self-pub book any more than they would visit an unlicensed doctor or hire an unaccredited contractor. There are a few author who have success through self-pubbing but they are very rare. Most traditionally published authors still need a day job too, so "career" might be a bit of an outlier.
A self-published author is going to have to be ready, willing and able to spend as much time if not more marketing their book than they did writing and editing it. It's a lot of work and not that much of it is free. You might make more income because you're not giving more than half your sales dollars to a TP, but that needs to be balanced with how much money you have to spend to get you book noticed enough for people to even realize it exists. My publisher gets 60-70% of every book I sell (based on what platform it's purchased from), which sounds like an appallingly high figure to some. But up until this week when I decided I finally needed an official author website, I have literally spent zero dollars on my writing unless you count the cost of electricity to power my laptop. They've paid for everything - editing, cover art, production of both print and digital books, advertising, contest entry fees - you name it, they ate it. I feel like they deserve every single penny they make from my books, and it's my fervent hope that I'll never have to go the self-publishing route. There's nothing wrong with it for some writers, but it's definitely not a good fit for me as I prefer to spend my time writing and let someone else take care of the administrative details.
And the importance of a storefront with "foot" traffic cannot be underestimated. It's just like any other product: you're more likely to sell X by virtue of it being available in a busy a store than from the inherent qualities of the product itself. For example, I make the greatest tomato sauce in the history of food but I'll never outsell an inferior sauce available in the grocery store unless my shit is sitting on the shelf next to it. If you want to sell books they have to be available in a place--physical or digital--where people go to buy books. The Kindle store doesn't cut it... readers will never know you're there unless you can drive them to the store, which is what publishers do. It's not entirely hopeless--self pub authors can do all sorts of things to get their name out there, drive traffic to their websites and blogs, and build up a brand. But that takes a lot of time, money, and energy. In fact, you're probably better off losing money for the sake of building platform that will help you down the road. Like five or six books down the road.
I've heard with TP's you get limited control on certain things. Like the cover design, if at all. I plan on launching my artwork alongside my writing. I've designed my world characters etc.. and would hate to have someone limit my work because they want their personal taste or style slapped on the cover of my book. (Then again I'm using flawed thinking.) My goal is to sell my work, but I want to pull away from this photography styled artwork cover that's gotten popular and go back to the old fantasy style artworks. I would feel it would better represent my idea's. That and where I have entire portfolio's of character art promo styled, line art or concept art, I would like it not to go to waste. (I have been trying to push myself in the art world for some time. My online presence with art lacks (Lack of money for tools) but on a local level, I'm known. It's my first love.) On another note, I've noticed the media that does the best in the current climate are the ones that leave agenda out of their stories. Every movie I've seen that's tanked in the last few years has had an agenda. I'm kind of afraid if I did go TP publishing someone would change my things to their thing, therefore limiting what I've strived for. I would love the editing perks that come with TP and the marketing side, but I would also like control to a degree as well. I want to launch this towards the same crowd that loves traditional styled d and d styled arts and stories. I'm an 80's throwback in a millennial generation lol.
Well, I imagine @BayView could offer a better perspective as she's worked with multiple publishers and I've only worked with one, but my experience was that I didnt' have to give up much creative control at all. I was asked if I had a cover in mind, and told them I preferred a photo realistic cover to an illustration. I was given 3 or 4 different covers to choose from, and even the one I chose the artist accommodated a specific change I requested (one of the hands on the cover of UTK had a wedding ring, but my MCs don't get married). I was at liberty to accept or reject any of my editors changes, so even though both my manuscripts changed a lot, I was fully on board with everything I agreed to change. But honestly, I'm not much of a control freak about anything to do with my books except for the actual writing process itself. I was looking for someone to take me by the hand and make recommendations, because as a brand new author I didn't know anything about how to make a book marketable, whereas they had years of experience making books sell. Even a couple of years in at this point, I prefer to leave all of that in the hands of what I consider the experts; at the end of the day they have the same goal as me: to get as many people buying, reading and reviewing my books as possible. I think it's fine to have a rigid overall vision for what you create, but whether that's something people want to read and spend money on is going to be completely outside of your control. I want to make my books as easy to like as possible within my genre, so I'm always up for professional assistance with how to make that happen. I'd rather be be flexible and willing to compromise, especially if it gets me more readers.
I would guess that the experience with a niche publisher like yours probably isnt the same as a big five - still at the end of the day i'm not to fussed about the creative control then if they are giving me an advance and royalties then I'm not getting bent out of shape about the cover art.... if I wind up going self pub it will because I'm tired of fruitless querying rather out of desire for artistic control (NB I'm not published except for some magazine journalism so i'm just talking off the top of my head)
