[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

That, Steve, would put us in the same sub class as 'subsidised' publishing, which is really just a front to sell publishing services, including editorial.

Yes. And possibly, in order to avoid brand confusion, a publishing house that did this would need a different line-name for those books.

ALL the time we have is dedicated to making good books better, empowering the author and satisfying the reader. Editors working for a specific house cannot afford the time to work on a sub-standard manuscript that isn't even ready for edit.

They can if the author is paying for it. And in order to keep some level of quality, they can demand the right to approve the final book before release if the author's going to use their name on it--otherwise, the author can pay them for editorial advice, accept or reject any amount of it, and release the book through lulu or smashwords or whatever.

And if a house adjusts its policy on the lines you suggest to the extent that it becomes what amounts to vanity press, what does the reader get?

Ohgeeze, better than we're getting *now* from a lot of self-published ebooks.

I wouldn't expect this to make for a lot of excellent books. I'd hope it would improve the quality of some of the mediocre books--and in a rare handful of cases, be exactly the nudge an author needs to make her work professionally sale-able. But mostly not; it'd mostly be a way to encourage bad authors with a few decent story ideas to get spellchecked and grammar-edited and have the worst of their story contradictions fixed.

If an author wants to pay for services, OK, let him/her go to a company or freelance whose job it is to do that. The net's bursting with 'em.

It's not. Or rather, they're scattered and hard to find, and most don't have the ability to say honestly, "I know what it would take to make your story mainstream-publishable."

Most authors will not spend the money, though, and want the free professional services of a publishing house with an experience and expert staff and that covers everything and all costs.

And for those, you limit the offer to those works that are already of a certain quality level.

You'd be as amazed as I am disappointed to see terrible manuscripts I've declined popping up as self published at places like Lulu, word for word in their awful original form -- complete with bad grammar and spelling mistakes as well as wobbly story lines, carboard characters, wooden dialogue -- the whole catalogue of incompentence.

You left out "purple script fonts."

The worst of those would never consider paying for editing services, so they're not the authors being discussed here.

I must repeat, Steve, that not all self-publishers (some of whom turn to the system not because of rejection but because they cling to their independence) turn out unreadable nonsense.

Some are just writing on topics so esoteric they can't find a mainstream niche to publish in. And some of those would be greatly enhanced by editing, and still not mainstream-publishable.

My policy, though, is that the client is the reader and NOT the author. An author should pay NOTHING toward publication of his book. Not a red cent. I see that as a form of bribery and am profoundly hurt by the not infrequent offers I get from 'authors' to pay BeWrite Books to achieve publication with us.

And that's a professional decision, an ethical choice--having nothing to do with market forces or business opportunities.

You could, hypothetically, create a line called "BeTouched," and sell access to your editors and publishing advice, without offering inclusion in the BeWrite line. (I'm not suggesting it, just suggesting an example of how it could work in conjunction with current publishing practices.) Authors who paid for editing would have the option of including "beta'd by BeTouched" in their sales pitch, which might convince more people to buy their books.

I suppose, on further consideration, I'm not sure what kind of rates would apply. $50-100 seems like very little for professional editing services, even fairly cursory ones, and much more than that would block most would-be self-published authors. OTOH, $50-100 for spellcheck, *basic* grammar/punctuation check (the kind that proofreading people get twitchy when they're not allowed to make), and simple formatting might be reasonable, and would greatly improve the quality of some self-published ebooks.