Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
@rhadin. Thanks for your insights from an editors perspective. I certainly agree that quality editing can make the difference between readable and unreadable. But think it can also make the difference between a book being merely readable and a book being something more.
@gmw. I agree. Proper editing is indeed subjective to at least some extent. And I think one of the beauties of self-publishing is that authors can, as you put it, do all they can, publish and learn their lessons afterwards. I know of both tradpub and indie authors who cringe at their earlier works. Which is one reason why I think that there are many books which are worthy of publication despite the fact that they could be vastly improved by editing.
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I realize that this thread is oldish, but...I disagree that "good editing" or "proper editing" is subjective. The idea that any given piece might need editing might--by its creator--be considered to be subjective, but I rarely find it so.
There are very few writers who are really
great at self-editing. Sure--lots of us can self-edit our own simple texts, find typos and the like. But many people cannot. I see it
all the time. Want to know how
many instances of "forward" (as opposed to "foreword") I fix, in FINAL manuscripts, each and every week?
EVERY week? Homonym errors are rampant, in self-published books. To, too, two; here, hair, hear; there, they're and their, and on and on and on. It's painful.
Many writers can fix their own story issues, if they have a modicum of training or if they've written enough to train themselves. But in the nearly 6K manuscripts that I've seen, since 2010, I can tell you that probably...I don't know, maybe 100 of those couldn't have used a thoroughgoing edit. Not a proofread--although that would have been nice. I mean an
edit, to tighten it up, make it snappier, lose the fat, fix plotholes and the like.
We all know that our brains trick us, when we read things that we've written, over and over. I see it daily--clients who've read a file ten times in an editing pass will almost always see new things, the moment the file is in a new format (ePUB/MOBI/PDF). Always. That's one thing. But seeing those
other things--that's something else. People who are blind to homonym errors, of course, won't see them no matter what. That's simply proofreading, or a line-edit.
But writers who publish near-first-drafts aren't going to see the many issues in their plots. It's just the way it is.
Anyway...I don't think that the "need" for editing is subjective. It's quite real. I'm not saying that every self-pubbed book needs editing--but from what I see, day in and day out, a LOT, do. I'd say nearly all do.
And I'm in a spot to see more of them than the average bear.
Hitch