Quote:
Originally Posted by James_Wilde
Returning to Harry's original query, of course price is the issue. If one is lucky enough to get accepted by a publisher, or sometimes even a good agent, one will get this service thrown in.
If you haven't had that good fortune, it's just too expensive. And I think that, at least in the beginning of e-books, we're going to find that "good enough is good enough". There are so many people out there who enjoy a good read and will overlook the occasional typo or misplaced comma. Let's face it, there are now books in your local supermarket being sold at so much a kilo, and even if they've been edited, they're not Nobel prize material!
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Diddo. Would I jump up and down at the opportunity for free editing? You bet! Would that improve my writing? Absolutely! I suspect if I traded manuscripts with another good author that would improve my writing. But how much would a professional editor improve my writing, would it be worth $3-6K even if I never make the money back selling the 0.99 book? I took a 9 month class from an author who edits professionally. It was a great class. Will my work be better than someone who never took a class? Yes, but possibly not as good as someone who spent big $$ on a professional editor. Life is about trade offs, I have to figure out how to spend $$ to get the biggest improvement in my craft.
I have seen and purchased some Indy books where the grammar was so bad I just laughed every other page. Verb-preposition agreements and the finer points of vocabulary in particular… Those works are toast, they don’t even get to my higher level objections about POV violations, scenes that drag on and on, narrators that over explain, etc. I don’t have those problems, my work is better than that, cleaner than that. It isn’t perfect. Far from it however, it isn’t a walking nightmare either. So for me and guy who can’t figure out his prepositions to pay the same for an editor on the principle that everyone needs an editor is silly. I could use an editor. He NEEDS an editor; his readers are in pain, quick save them!
Quote:
Originally Posted by neilmarr
And don't cry poverty, authors who're working by midnight oil and whose families are on the breadline. If your work was as good as you think it is, you'd get the whole shebang for free.
Neil
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I thought the original question was why people don’t hire professional editors? Unless the topic has changed it seems like “crying poverty” is a very reasonable answer to this question... unless we got off track someplace?
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I suffered for my art and now it's your turn, but at $0.99 can you afford not to suffer?
Blood Bank