Quote:
Originally Posted by rhadin
The difference between a hack writer and a great writer is that the great writer cares greatly about the reader's experience whereas the hack writer simply writes and publishes and lets readers fend for themselves. The more an author does to slide closer along the spectrum toward the great writer, the more likely the author is to succeed beyond simply self-publishing and being able to say I published my novel.
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Ah… so now I have egg on my face.
I ran through several beta-readers and thought everything was fine. Submitted for my first review and nope, typos that I didn’t see, can’t see because I have memorized my work. So I stuck my head into the editing pool so see what kind of budget help I could find. It was interesting. My instructor would charge $6k to edit my novel (120k words) so I just took that as cannon and didn’t look any further. I found two editors who would do a copy-edit of the thing for either $1.50/page, the other works by word ½ cent/word. This puts me in the $500-$600 range, much better than $6K. Reasonable for me but might not be for someone else. So now I am asking for samples of their work.
Because I took a class I have more skill than someone who didn’t. This isn’t meant to sound arrogant, I made the same mistakes that everyone does in the beginning… back-story on page 2, too many modifiers, excessive dialogue tags, unsympathetic main character, lack of descriptions, too much descriptions, wandering POV, blah blah blah. If you self-educate you can save some cost and pain. If you get willing, free beta-readers you can also save $$ (I beta-read everything now – 3-6 pages of notes on every story I can’t help myself its horrible, I can’t even get into stories I just think… why did the author do that he just cut the tension… do we need back-story now? 3rd Person POV – tough to manage I hope he give all his characters a unique voice - so if you want a "report" just send me a copy of your book I make them anyway.
). I haven’t tried the natural language reader but you’re going to miss the discrete-discreet or there-they’re issues because it won’t pick them up… and punctuation.
It is possible to cut the cost down if you do much of your own work, and get free-help. That’s what I did but I’m not sure you can eliminate the final proof-read. It bothers me though, on principle to tell someone he shouldn’t peruse writing because he can’t afford an editor. Yet, as I read some Indy work I do cringe at what I perceive as laziness on the part of the author. He couldn’t get a beta-reader to look it over? Shouldn’t Word have caught this grammar issue? If he doesn’t know what the word means why does he use it?
I'm conflicted.
