12% of ebooks are self-published; most are rubbish, claims editor

[Katsunami]

So... Where can one study to become a professional editor, apart from just studying one or more languages?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

So... Where can one study to become a professional editor, apart from just studying one or more languages?

I probably learned my best techniques on Baen's board. They have a board there for submitting stories and there's a group (and anyone who joins) who critique the story. You hang around there long enough you start to get some very good pointers for storyline editing, what failed for people, what worked and so on. You start to learn how to separate what to listen to and when as well as get exposed to a variety of writing styles and even genres.

There are several members (they are mods and I think have been selected/trained by Baen over time) who are very well-versed in critiquing stories and if you hang around for a few months, you start to learn what works well and what doesn't. As a writer, you learn to take some cruel beatings and some kind ones. As someone offering critiques you learn to pull your punches in a bit. If you go in not knowing the value of telling someone what DOES work as well as what doesn't, you will probably come out of there with that very valuable lesson. The best editors know this value and I don't mean saying, "Book is good" as the overall statement.

To some degree you might pick up on which things are most important to suggest, but some of that is probably learned via reading.

And that said, one of the best teaching techniques out there is: Read and read widely.

The copy editing part is just training. I actually took a couple of classes in college because I have a degree in technical writing. Part of that was copy editing. You can take courses in all the printing and formatting techniques as well, although those are necessary for being an editor.

To become a technical writer there were tests for proficiency in grammar, copy editing and various writing techniques.

There are a few places that do editing for indie writers and I think one or two of them offer some feedback on whether you are going to be able to copy edit (you pass a three-page test or so). But storyline editing doesn't get tested very often. It's kind of bundled in as an editor job so a lot of people assume it's happening when it often isn't unless you know what to ask for.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Catlady

What are you proving? That an established author's traditionally published backlist books do not magically turn into "amateur rubbish" when later self-published?

I am simply trying to point out that the whole thing is a lot more complicated than the nay-sayers like to pretend; that there is way more to "self-published" titles than one-person "deluded amateur" projects. Or the backlist, for that matter.

In fact, the terms that are gaining currency are "Indie publishing"--which reflects that the process is independent of the traditional establishment but still involves professioal editors, artists, and (for print editions) formatters--and "hybrid authors"--professionals that work both with and without traditional publishers as *they* see fit, on a project by project basis.

Indie publishing encompasses a whole lot of good writing that cutting yourself off from this (growing) movement is to miss out on a lot of quality material. Yes, there is crap there. But as everybody knows there is crap in traditionally produced content. The only (guaranteed) real difference is in the economics, not in the *process* or the personel.

The economics of indie publishing allows hybrid authors (and pure indie writers) to deliver to market quirky niche books that don't fit in the pigeonholes of the establishment, whether they be genre-blending halflings or narratives that transcend genre or transcend the establised markets. That includes things material like erotica, both hetero and gay, it includes steamy romance, or things like superhero adventure (which makes up a surprisingly large segment of what gets lumped into fantasy and Science Fiction) that only rarely get any attention from the mainstream.

As I've said above, people who prefer to abstain to participate in the indie published market are perfectly entiled to avoid it. But they are not entitled to deprecate or denigate a whole class of working professionals with a blanket dismissal as "rubbish" as mr Franklin pretends to do, sweeping them under the rug as if they don't exist or matter.

They do matter, Mr Franklin. They are a market force and they are going to remain a market force to be reckoned with. Authors both hybrid and indie are contributing anywhere from one out of eight to one out of four books today and you can't handwave them away. And the longer they stay, the more steady success they build up, the sillier the hollow blanket dismisals and overstatements become.

I happen to know indie publishers both online and in person; they are neither deluded amateurs nor hacks. They are simply professional writers getting their publishing services *directly* through freelancers instead of through layer after layer of corporate middlemen that eventually end up hiring freelancers anway.
Middlemen like Mr Franklin.
And therein lies the root of the FUD campaign; fear that these middlemen will continue to be bypassed (they will) and that traditional publishing venues will go away (they won't).

There is room for everybody.
All that is really happening is that readers get to choose from new sources of good material.

And how can more good stories be a bad thing?

[Rbneader]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

So... Where can one study to become a professional editor, apart from just studying one or more languages?

Try offering to beta read (i.e., edit) fanfiction. I know that some fanfic boards have groups you can join to beta.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by rhadin

In my 30 years as a professional editor, I have edited many hundreds of books and many thousands of authors. If I were to line up 1,000 of the authors to select those who were not in need of the services of a professional editor, I might find 1 --- the remaining 999 all would benefit from a professional editor's services.

That is what I hear people say also. Ellen Datlow said at a con recently that among all manuscripts she have received it was 1 or 2 that could be published without any editing.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Rbneader

Try offering to beta read (i.e., edit) fanfiction. I know that some fanfic boards have groups you can join to beta.

Or you could offer beta reading to authors, indie or otherwise. Ilona Andrews had a call out with one of her recent books for beta readers. I can't remember how many she chose, but she sent it out to get some opinions. I work with a couple of authors on beta reads (outside of my editing business) some trad, some not.

If you read any indie authors (and like their overall work) you could offer to be a beta reader. Sometimes we have a work that needs a fresh set of eyes. Example: I recently wrote two short stories, one for the Moon Shadow Series and one for the Sedona Series. I needed a beta reader who hadn't read either series to see if the shorts held up without all the background info. Every beta reader I had at the time had already read the series. I found a guy to read the Moon Shadow series pretty easily to check a few points for me.

I am considering writing a cook book with recipes to help alleviate dry eye (this means recipes with a lot of walnuts, walnut oil, flax seeds, avocado, etc). If I decide to do the project, I'll be looking for beta readers AND beta cooks to test the recipes.

So there's opportunity out there. One of the ladies I use as a beta reader did quite a bit of it here and there (for me, two or three trad writers and some other indies) and now she runs a small side business doing some of it for about 20 dollars a manuscript. She doesn't consider herself a pro and isn't promising to catch every typo, but she gives it a good reading and lets you know what pops out at her.

So there's various avenues. You could also work with an editor and get some training there if one was willing to mentor you.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Catlady

this material was already edited and polished by publishing professionals.

I started reading one of those edited and polished books put out by publishing professionals last night. Three mistakes in the first chapter.

[theinfamousj]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Only if it's already escaped out onto the pirate sites. Otherwise you could just fix whatever was wrong with it and nobody seeing it for the first time would be any the wiser.

Oddly enough, having been friends with a few ebrarians (what ebook pirates called themselves back on the day) in college, they'd actually do you the favor of making proofreading corrections to your work and release it with a higher version number because these errors irked them and they had the power to affect change. Thus, any recipients of your pirated work at v 5 or above would have a better opinion of your take on grammar than you deserved. And certainly a better opinion than encountering your legal copy - assuming you didn't find someone to point out those errors.

Of course this was back when the Internet was young and ebooks were simple text files. Who knows what has changed since then.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I started reading one of those edited and polished books put out by publishing professionals last night. Three mistakes in the first chapter.

Imagine how bad it would have been without an editor.
The point is that it makes no sense to look at the experience of someone taking previously traditionally published books and self-republishing them, and try to extrapolate that to someone writing an entirely new book from scratch and self-publishing it.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Imagine how bad it would have been without an editor.

Exactly.

Another possibility is that the mistakes were introduced in the process of converting the book from print to digital.

The point is that it makes no sense to look at the experience of someone taking previously traditionally published books and self-republishing them, and try to extrapolate that to someone writing an entirely new book from scratch and self-publishing it.

Yes, yes, yes.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by rhadin
In my 30 years as a professional editor, I have edited many hundreds of books and many thousands of authors. If I were to line up 1,000 of the authors to select those who were not in need of the services of a professional editor, I might find 1 --- the remaining 999 all would benefit from a professional editor's services.

The old problem of the blind spot hmm rhadin? I mean the writer's blind spot of course. All the reading I've done on writing in the past says to let a work have some cooling off time before coming back to it to see what needs editing because everyone thinks they write deathless prose if they read it right after writing, but if they take a step back they can see all the places where it goes 'clunk.'

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by crich70

The old problem of the blind spot hmm rhadin? I mean the writer's blind spot of course. All the reading I've done on writing in the past says to let a work have some cooling off time before coming back to it to see what needs editing because everyone thinks they write deathless prose if they read it right after writing, but if they take a step back they can see all the places where it goes 'clunk.'

If a writer can't afford an editor, I highly recommend this technique. Of course, setting it aside doesn't mean set it aside for 2 weeks. Usually, to see it with fresh eyes, you should set it aside for probably 3 months or more. Then after you rework it, you'll probably need to set it aside again (maybe for less time.) I do this with some works even though I plan to use an editor. Work on something else while it is "cooking." If you are thinking about it constantly and going back and still making changes and improvements, you have to reset your cooking timer...

I think of all the methods, most writers hate this one because it means not going to market RIGHT NOW. In reality it's a great technique but require a lot of patience.

[caleb72]

After trashing the book I was reading earlier in this thread (sorry author), I just wanted to follow up by commenting that the last book I read, Thugs Like Us by John Carnell, was fantastically written. It was a night vs day comparison.

You have to like pretty bleak material to enjoy it as it's not a particularly happy story, but the writing was fantastic.

The good thing about this whole situation is that if you think self-publishing is filled to the brim with crap and not worth your time, there is still a huge amount of traditionally published works on the market. I don't think there's any shortage of material out there.

And for those who think that the search is worth it despite the slush, you can find some real gems. I certainly haven't regretted stumbling across John Logan, David Michael, Marcin Wrona, Alisa Tangredi and now John Carnell. And it's hard to regret Hugh Howey in this whole thing. Even if he is a bit of a hybrid now, if we were all so concerned about slush we didn't bother trying, there would be no Silo series. So thankfully enough people are not intimidated by the challenge.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

If a writer can't afford an editor, I highly recommend this technique. Of course, setting it aside doesn't mean set it aside for 2 weeks. Usually, to see it with fresh eyes, you should set it aside for probably 3 months or more. Then after you rework it, you'll probably need to set it aside again (maybe for less time.) I do this with some works even though I plan to use an editor. Work on something else while it is "cooking." If you are thinking about it constantly and going back and still making changes and improvements, you have to reset your cooking timer...

I think of all the methods, most writers hate this one because it means not going to market RIGHT NOW. In reality it's a great technique but require a lot of patience.

When I was writing my Master's thesis, I had the hard drive crash and I lost about two or three weeks of work because I hadn't backed anything up. After getting over it, I buckled back down to it and came out with stuff that was actually much better than the original (most likely because I then knew more or less what had to be said).

I've heard that many writers don't make up stories so much as have the characters act them out. I'm not a fiction writer myself, so I'm interested in knowing if that's a one-shot thing or if the same story can be recovered by the author again if, say, their hard drive dies and they lose all they've written. Or, do they get a different story if they try again? Can any writer's here comment on that? I'm just wondering if an author can do better by rewriting a story from scratch rather than leaving it for a few months and re-reading it then, problems and all.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by rkomar

When I was writing my Master's thesis, I had the hard drive crash and I lost about two or three weeks of work because I hadn't backed anything up. After getting over it, I buckled back down to it and came out with stuff that was actually much better than the original (most likely because I then knew more or less what had to be said).

I've heard that many writers don't make up stories so much as have the characters act them out. I'm not a fiction writer myself, so I'm interested in knowing if that's a one-shot thing or if the same story can be recovered by the author again if, say, their hard drive dies and they lose all they've written. Or, do they get a different story if they try again? Can any writer's here comment on that? I'm just wondering if an author can do better by rewriting a story from scratch rather than leaving it for a few months and re-reading it then, problems and all.

It probably depends entirely on the writer. I know an author who lost her hard drive and her entire book (third in a series.) She blogged about it and mentioned she'd been having problems with the story and there were things that needed to be worked out. She was confident that she was going to be able to finally rewrite it as a much better story.

I haven't lost an entire manuscript, but I have set them aside for up to a year (or more in the case of my current WIP). When I come back to it, I'm able to "fix" things that I didn't even remember writing. I have struggled with particular scenes to the point where I chucked the entire scene rather than edited it. Sometimes trying to work within the framework you've already written keeps your brain from attacking the problem from a fresh angle. So instead of staring at what I have, I'll block cut it to a different file (just in case) and start over. I have yet to go retrieve a block because what I rewrite with no plan or framework has always come out better. Sometimes there is a line or two that is too good to waste, but that line might not even appear in the rewritten scene.

I have chucked entire short stories and started over. Sometimes it's just not the right time for an idea, or it wasn't meant to be (you can blame the characters for not behaving.)

In any rewrite, one of the temptations is to "save" or just "make this work." It takes a disciplined writer to recognize when to kill entire chapters or even a subplot. But again, it depends on the writer.

I am very character driven in both my reading and writing so to some extent the characters do "write" the story. They grow and change and new characters show up. But because a character cannot change too much -- or it wouldn't be within the bounds of a story -- I think if I rewrote a novel from scratch, that character and its story would stay somewhat the same if I were writing it in the same time frame. Meaning within a year of the lost manuscript.

When I start a new book in a series, I often re-read parts of the other books to get back "into" the character--their expressions, their mannerisms, and that sort of thing.

If one were to lose an entire manuscript with no record of those things for each character, I think only the strongest, most memorable traits would remain in a rewrite. And in that case, perhaps the story would take a different direction because things in my own life might be different. Thus, what I thought was cute and endearing while writing it a year prior, might not be as relevant starting from scratch.

We are what we write. Our mood is important, our experiences are important. When series get "tired" I often think it is because the writer is no longer the person who started the series. I think this is true of any genre, because a long-running series may have been started by a writer in her twenties. If she's still writing it in her forties, it could be very hard to capture the essence of a "still" 20-something protagonist. It could be very hard for the writer to care about the issues or story or characters when in her head, there are other stories to write about 40 year old divorced characters or 40 year old mid-life crisis characters, or children or...you get the idea.

But I think it is very different for each writer out there. What may be difficult for me, might come very easy for someone else.