Why don't people use professional copy editors?

[neilmarr]

Something to keep in mind, folks, is the distinction between a development edit and a copy edit. The copy edit tends to deal with hiccups in a completed ms draft. A development edit will usually start in the early creative stages -- sometimes even from conception -- with author and editor working in tandem as things move along ... and it will cost a lot more.

Whatever, any pro editor will advise you that proof-reading is a separate process that comes after final draft edit and is best handled by professionals who have, at this stage, not read earlier drafts of the work.

A good publisher will provide all these services as part of the deal. If you're aiming to go it alone and self-publish, though, be sure your bank account can stand a hefty hit.

Good luck. Neil

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Something to keep in mind, folks, is the distinction between a development edit and a copy edit. The copy edit tends to deal with hiccups in a completed ms draft. A development edit will usually start in the early creative stages -- sometimes even from conception -- with author and editor working in tandem as things move along ... and it will cost a lot more.

Check out Editor, Editor, Everywhere an Editor at An American Editor for a discussion of the difference between a developmental and a copy editor. And if you click on Professional Editors in the Filed Under line below the article title, you can easily access other article about professional editing.

[Michael J Hunt]

Hi, Neil,

Good to hear you're back in good form after the op.

About your explanation of the developmental editing, copy editing and proof-reading processes, I'm reminded of how you did it for me, three times, through BeWrite, and I wonder how your system differs from the big-time mainstream publishers.

For those who haven't been published by a top of the range Internet publishing outfit I can thoroughly recommend the experience. Firstly, and in my view, most importantly, the author is included at the developmental editing stage. What happened is (and you can correct me if my memory's at fault here, Neil) I received a detailed developmental edit, which consisted of two major edits and a number of queries and explanations about details thrown up by them. After that, I received an e-copy of the pdf, together with a blank correction template. I printed off the pdf and went through it line by line. This gave me the opportunity to make minor stylistic changes, correct any factual discrepancies and spot any spelling and grammatical faults that had slipped through at the developmental stage. I then marked each error/change on the (paper) correction sheet and transferred it onto the computer. The corrections were then done on the pdf by BeWrite staff. After that, I received a 'final' pdf (final, that is, for me), which I read, on screen, to check the corrections and anything else that might have been missed. The manuscript was then proof-read by BeWrite staff and sent to the printers. The final stage that involved me was when I received the printer's 'mock-up', at which point I was asked not to make any stylistic or structural changes, since they would incur extra cost.

Why I've gone into detail about the whole process is to impress on anyone thinking about self publishing what an incredibly time-consuming task it is to produce an error free manuscript. Even if you 'buy' a professional development edit, you still have to go through those final stages yourself (unless you 'buy' a copy edit and/or a proof-read as well).

I now have three books - Matabele Gold, The African Journals of Petros Amm and Two Days in Tehran, that, in production terms, are as good as anything you'll find in any bookshop.

MJ

[kacir]

Originally Posted by WAPatterson

but my main problem was that No One would read my book until I self-published it.

I am willing to read a good non-edited book. But only if it is book that interests me. I wouldn't read for example a romance novel, or a book for young girls because this is not what interests me.
I propose you start a new thread "I am looking for a beta-test-reader" or something like that with a short description of your book here at Mobileread.

I used to do critiques at www.critters.org.
What put me off was that most of the stuff there was short stories and I prefer reading longer books. When I did find a book that looked interesting I often received answer like "thanks, I already have enough reviewers" or there was way too much hassle getting the book from writer, or the book was unfinished and being published in installments you were supposed to critique separately.

I am not an expert on English spelling of grammar - as you might have noticed ;-) but I can see other kinds of errors and story inconsistencies.

Disclaimer:
I am not a native English speaker, but I have read well over a thousand books in English.

[Scott Nicholson]

I've been freelance editing for four years and I do either concept edit or a concept/copy edit. I don't necessarily believe you have to copyedit after the concept edit, but it depends on the writers' own craft level and the number of eyeballs that latch on. Some people are skilled at one or the other, some at both. I've done both quite a bit, as a writer, journalist, and editor, and I'm comfortable doing it.

I do know that if you read the same sentences, you will tend to overlook your own mistakes. That's how published books can get through with mistakes in them. I just cracked open my novel The Manor, printed in 2004, and for the first time ever noticed that the character name in the "opening quote" is wrong. I'd changed the name in the draft but somehow that was in with the preface material and never got changed.

Scott Nicholson

[TulagiHotel-HH]

My book has a technical backdrop in the Pacific War. Hence I had endless trouble checking plane types and ship classes and whatnot, and yet, had it not been for a technically-oriented friend of mine volunteering his eyeballs, I would quite happily have published my book with a howling error: a reconnaissance plane doubling for a thoroughbred fighter.

www.tulagihotel.com

[Michael J Hunt]

Tulagi - a big danger for writers is thinking they know something - maybe something they heard years before that they've taken for granted ever since. They pop it into a novel and - bingo - someone takes great delight in pointing out their error in a review. At least yours was spotted before it was too late. Ian Fleming made that sort of mistake, I think about a type of hand-gun; when an expert wrote to him pointing out the error, he recruited him for advice for his later books.

MJ

[DrZoidberg]

The problem is that there's a lot of predators trying to take advantage of newbie and wannabie authors, desperate to succeed. Therefore it's wisest to follow Yog's Law: "Money Flows Toward the Writer".

That way you at least know you're not getting screwed. Serious publishers do not ask the authors for money and will offer the editing for free, for a share of the future profits.

Of course there exist honest editors out there who don't make a habit of taking advantage of anyone, but for a new author on the market, you have no way of knowing. Best to stick with the law.

http://www.sff.net/people/yog/

[TulagiHotel-HH]

Originally Posted by Michael J Hunt

Tulagi - a big danger for writers is thinking they know something - maybe something they heard years before that they've taken for granted ever since. They pop it into a novel and - bingo - someone takes great delight in pointing out their error in a review. At least yours was spotted before it was too late. Ian Fleming made that sort of mistake, I think about a type of hand-gun; when an expert wrote to him pointing out the error, he recruited him for advice for his later books.

MJ

Well yes, this is exactly what I meant. Luckily for me, he's an eagle eye reader, and as my friend, not at all shy about telling me what he found. I am very happy with his contribution and wrote him into the acknowledgments.

[neilmarr]

You're dead right DrZoidberg. There are sharks in dem dar waters. And there are also well-intentioned amateurs and youngsters with a diploma on the wall and no experience under the belt.

For what an honest editor should point out to a prospective client, pop into our own webside at http://www.bewrite.net and click on 'Freelancing'.

Believe me, Doc, this post isn't touting for business. I doubt we'll have time to spare for new freelance commissions until well into 2011, but it'll give you some idea of what promises a freelance editor, realistically, can and can't make. In fact, I think I admit in the piece that it must be the world's worst advertising pitch.

Cheers. Neil

[neilmarr]

There is a piece by well-known horror writer JA Konrath in today's Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ja-kon..._b_764516.html) in which he repeats the common mantra: "Publishers -- who needs 'em?"

He is boasting in his article that he and three co-authors (all big names in their own right) are about to release a self-published Kindle-only ebook, independent of their usual agents and publishers.

One of his claims is that with eighty published works between them, this professional writing team of four is perfectly capable of editing each other's work.

So I downloaded the opening chapters of the book (a free taster from Amazon) to take a look at the result.

On the first page alone, I found:

*A glaring continuity error in the opening lines where a Mr Moorecook answers the door to a FedEx delivery man. They have obviously never met before because Moorecook doesn't know how to sign for a parcel. Yet he calls the casual caller 'Robert' ... with no introduction or mention of a name tag.

*A typo in the middle of the page where the plural 'nurses' is erroneously applied to a single nurse.

*Ambiguous wording in the last paragraph that makes it laughable; with a woman seemingly taking a shower whilst sitting next to Moorecook on a couch.

I didn't bother reading past the first page.

Yup: editors -- who needs em?

Well certainly Mr Konrath and his three co-authors do.

Neil

[William Campbell]

Wow. Nice job, Neil, calling him on this idea of going solo that he keeps promoting.

I'm with you -- I LOVE my editor. I will never again dream of publishing without her review of my material. As well, a close circle of ruthless beta readers adding to the gauntlet this author must pass. I have become a firm believer that any good book is a product of more than one person, and the others should not be fellow authors. Specialization has value and always will.

Again, nice job. I admire your straight-shooting commentary on this business of spreading our words to the masses, we hope, without making fools of ourselves as some are quick to carelessly do.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

....

On the first page alone, I found:

...

Ooops!

Thanks, Neil

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by rhadin

One of the things that authors rarely do, at least in my experience, and which they should do, is provide the editor with a stylesheet.

Thanks for this, Rhadin. I was wondering what a style sheet was, and you explained it. It reminds me of a tip - several in fact - that I got from Elizabeth George's book "Write Away". In there she has a sheet of questions one should be able to answer about one's principal characters: favourite colours, favourite food and drink, whether (s)he smokes, drinks, takes drugs, etc, very detailed. I also found that I needed more questions than EG had suggested.

I have filled out one of these for each of my characters in the first book, skipping some of the questions for minor characters. But I saw that this was so important that I transferred many of the questions to a spread sheet, where I included such things as colour of hair and eyes, height, weight, BMI, date of birth and age on a certain key date in the story, etc, plus relationships to other characters. This was invaluable.

Even more invaluable, so much so that I think it should be included in the definition of a style sheet, is the calendar of events, or timeline, if you will. In my first book I had a critical period which I thought was six months, and constructed a time line based on that. At a late stage I discovered that this period had been reduced by a legal change to three months, which put a tremendous strain on the credibility of the action taking place in the period, but with a good timeline, I was able to make the necessary changes.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I notice, in various threads, that a number of people have said that they don't have their books professionally edited, and I was wondering what the reason for that was. Is it simply down to the cost involved, or are there other reasons?

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!

With a price for indie books around $3, nobody's going to get very hurt even if chapters 4-last don't quite live up to the standards of the sample chapters, 1-3. And with a price of $3 you've got to sell about 250 books to pay your editor, and I think most of us in here would think we'd been a big success if we sold half that number. I've seen happy authors who are over the moon that they've sold 25.