This is how much a writer makes with a traditional publishing house

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Trenien

That appears to be one of the main weak point of the indie authors. I'm curious, though, hasn't anyone thought about setting up shop to work as an indie editor?

There are lots of "indie" editors -- I'm one and have been for 25 years -- if you mean independent or freelance editor. If you mean an editor who specializes in editing mansucripts by indie/self-publishing authors, well, that's what freelance editors do -- they edit for anyone who is willing to pay the price, assuming the author's subject matter is within their scope of work.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by DrZoidberg

An author, no matter how good he is, needs a good editor. All the best editors work for the big publishers. That's just fact. There's quite a long period between the editor getting attached to a book project and the book getting released. These guys are expensive.

Not all of the better editors work for the big publishers; in fact, most of my colleagues who I would consider topnotch editors are freelancers. They may do a project here and there for a big publisher, but more often work directly with authors nad small publishers.

Some of the reasons why editors prefer to work through a publisher are as follows:

• guaranteed payment; editors who work directly with authors get stiffed by the authors with some degree of frequency
• there is nothing more frustrating to an editor than to have to work with an author who thinks he/she is the next Tom Clancy or Stephen King but whose manuscript really belongs at the very bottom of a mile-high slush pile -- and these authors are nearly universally difficult to work with; getting a manuscript from a publisher is no guarantee that it is a good manuscript but it does mean that it has been vetted by several independent eyes and there is some hope
• publishers insulate editors from authors who know best about everything -- whether it is nuclear fusion or how big a dose of baby aspirin will kill a character; working with a publisher means the editor can do his/her job and leave it to the publisher to deal with the author
• publishers intercede to ensure that authors do not have unrealistic expectations; inexperienced authors who hire editrs directly assume that the editors know all the ins and outs of the publishing process and how to turn their manuscript into the next Harry Potter -- and they tend to bombard the editor with extraneous requests and balk when asked to pay for the time

There are more reasons but you get the picture. Let me say this, however: There are lots of indie authors with whom it is a pleasure for an editor to work, probably the majority, maybe even the vast majority. But it doesn't take getting burned more than once to sour editors on direct working relationships.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by DD1509

I self-published a technical eBook in 2003 and I sold it myself one-at-a-time on the web to a very small niche market. To date it has sold about 4k copies with about $88k in revenue. Of course in this model I kept almost all of that revenue with a small amount of marketing/selling costs. No returns, no inventory, no printing, no agent, no publisher and did it without an editor. I did a lot of personal selling using various methods over the years but it is an indicator that self-publishing definately has its place in the growth of the eBook.

I easily netted $20 per sale. Of course, the fiction market is a different animal but eBooks and self-pub will change the entire industry as we know it today.

Did you keep track of the time you spent writing, editing, marketing, fulfilling orders, designing, typesetting, and all the other facets of publishing a book? I ask because the numbers you give are impressive but without knowing how much time you spent and how much out-of-pocket you spent it is not possible to determine if you are getting a decent rate of return.

My wife is a painter and I keep telling her that it isn't good enough to record a sale; you need to know whether the return is worthwhile. If you spend 500 hours on a painting and marketing it and $1,000 on supplies including a frame, selling it for $10,000 (net $9,000) gets you $18 an hour in wages. That may be acceptable, but that is what you need to know, not that you sold it for $10,000.

[Kemp]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Did you keep track of the time you spent writing, editing, marketing, fulfilling orders, designing, typesetting, and all the other facets of publishing a book? I ask because the numbers you give are impressive but without knowing how much time you spent and how much out-of-pocket you spent it is not possible to determine if you are getting a decent rate of return.

My wife is a painter and I keep telling her that it isn't good enough to record a sale; you need to know whether the return is worthwhile. If you spend 500 hours on a painting and marketing it and $1,000 on supplies including a frame, selling it for $10,000 (net $9,000) gets you $18 an hour in wages. That may be acceptable, but that is what you need to know, not that you sold it for $10,000.

It also greatly depends upon your expectations. If you figured on creating something that you fully expect to make little or no money on, and you end up netting a small to decent amount, then that makes whatever investment worthwhile.

I'd argue that most people lurking around these forums are more on the fiction end of things, and it's (sadly) somewhat foolish to go into that market expecting to make money.

Just out of curiosity, is there an amount or percentage of books that you edit that end up selling well/getting picked up by a publisher?

Manuscript editing obviously requires a different frame of thought than newspaper or other types of editing; how did you go about getting into that sort of thing?

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Kemp

Just out of curiosity, is there an amount or percentage of books that you edit that end up selling well/getting picked up by a publisher?

I have no idea about sales but 100% of the books I have edited were picked up by a publisher.

Sounds great, doesn't it? So what's the catch?

100% of the books I have edited have been sent to me for editing by publishers. When I have been contacted by authors, the deals never went through for various reasons but primarily because the authors had unrealistic expectations that I couldn't fulfill (such as that the book would be picked up by a publisher or agent after editing) and they were unwilling to pay the fee (one author thought I should feel privileged at being asked and do the work for free).

[Kemp]

Blech, must have been one of those, "My writing is divine, and it is an honor to gaze upon it," sort of chaps.

And I definitely understand indie authors being reluctant to pay such a cost. I'm sure the improvement upon a manuscript would be immeasurable, but no one (and this is certainly no fault of the editor) can even begin to speculate upon whether or not that would make a work remotely publishable.

If an indie author intending to self-publish could be reasonably assured that he/she could at least make a return on the investment (depending, of course, upon whether or not they're trying to pay the bills with it), then it would be easily worth it.