Tag Archives: self-publishing

Joshua Essoe: Editing Saved My Life. And It Could Save Yours.

Writers frequently ask me if an editor is really necessary. The answer is no. An editor is not necessary, an editor is essential.

Many indie authors say, “But, I can’t afford it.” The truth is, if you can’t afford it, then don’t publish a book. Something I think many indie authors tend to miss is that you guys are running a small business. You’re the boss and the employee and everything in between, and should expect a certain amount of upfront cost. Releasing a book before it’s ready because you won’t hire an editor or cover designer does more harm than good. It is better to wait and make sure that your book is as strong as you can make it before you throw it to the wolves.

Especially your first book. There are thousands and thousands of self-published books out there and they’re all inexpensive and easy to get. If a reader gets hold of it, finds a few spelling errors, a missed word here or there, and an abundance of passive voice, they’ll put your book down (or remove it from their e-reader) and just move on to the next thing. They’ll never give your potentially wonderful story a chance to be potentially wonderful—and there goes your chance for future sales to that reader. Think what your reaction would be as a reader. First impressions mean everything. That goes for your first book in a new series, your first book ever, your first chapter, your first page, your first sentence.

The New York Times has editors, TV news stations have editors, Vogue and Maxim have editors, all the publishing houses have editors. Why would successful businesses like those all use editors? There must be a reason. . . . Ah, yes. It is because they’re essential to a finely tuned, professional product.

An indie editor is different from a trad editor. The only person who pays an independent or freelance editor is you. The only person that editor is beholden to is you. Their job is to strengthen your words and your voice to help make your story as good as it can be. The way you want it. A good one will be enthusiastically in your corner, working to help make you a success. And you want them in your corner. You wouldn’t think of going into an MMA match without having had a trainer. You’d get killed. Likewise, you shouldn’t throw your darlings to those wolves without some ninja skillz.

An editor’s job is not to rewrite you. Writing is your job. Their job is to help you make that writing shine as brilliantly as possible.

And another huge difference between indie and trad editors? Between hiring your own editor and having one imposed on you? If you hate what they do, you don’t have to use it—any of it.

So what can your friendly neighborhood editor do for you? There are several forms of editing; copy or line, content, substantive, proof reading. We’ll focus on line and content which will be the most applicable and reasonable for an indie author.

A copy or line edit, as the name suggests, is a meticulous edit of each line in the text looking for missing and misspelled words, superfluous language and redundant phrases, mixed tenses, and all technical inconsistencies. Line editing is editing for tone, style and flow—focusing on polishing the author’s words to improve the overall effect and increase the impact of the writer’s message. And to make sure that horrible passive voice is not yammering all over your story. You don’t want readers to admire your writing. You want them to be so engaged by the story that they don’t notice your words.

A content edit is more involved. It is checking the story for logic holes, inconsistencies of plot and character, patching any holes in the fourth wall, finding spots in the story that are weak or don’t make sense, then suggesting possible solutions.

An editor’s job is to help you get the movie you see running in your head playing the same way in the heads of your readers. What makes a story work is an emotional connection with your readership. If you get that, they’ll love your book and they’ll love you.

A good content editor is not easy to find; there aren’t many out there who can tell you what’s wrong and offer solutions on how to fix it. So be careful. Get references, talk to people you trust or people with experience.

When you contact an editor be professional. Be prepared to send a sample. Be prepared to give the editor a deposit for reserving time for you. Be prepared to meet your deadlines so that you have time to do a couple passes on your own before handing it off. Not only will those passes make your editor happy, but it will make your wallet happy. Make sure you know what format the editor needs. For example, I use industry standard—I know how long an MS formatted to those specifications will take me to edit based on a five page sample.

What will amaze and appall editors of all shapes and sizes is that a large percentage of manuscripts submitted for review have not even basic formatting set correctly. It immediately gives the impression of laziness, that the author didn’t care enough to do a little research.

If you are curious what the vaunted Industry Standard looks like, read Vonda McIntyre’s handout. This is a good starting point, but keep in mind that the industry is in flux and many online submissions will vary from this. If they do, they’ll certainly state it in their submission guidelines. If not, always go with the old standard.

A good content editor will also be able to help you sculpt your story to best appeal to the audience for which it is targeted. Do you want to enrapture teenage girls? Or do you want men in their thirties on the edges of their seats? Knowing who you are writing for and what appeals to them is as important as having a wonderful story. Because what might be an amazing story to that thirty-five year old guy is almost certainly not going to appeal all that much to a sixteen year old girl.

So, all you indie authors out there, go out and find an editor you love (and hate—if the editor is any good you’ll curse their name more than a few times). Get that editor working for you, and let them help you and your business produce the best product possible.

 

Joshua Essoe is a full-time, freelance editor. He’s done work for best-seller David Farland, including the multi-award winning novel, Nightingale, Dean Lorey, lead writer of Arrested Development, best-seller, James Artimus Owen, and numerous Writers of the Future authors and winners, as well as many top-notch independents. He is currently the finishing editor at Urban Fantasy Magazine.

Together with tie-in writer Jordan Ellinger, indie success-story, Michale J. Sullivan, and traditionally published author and NY Times best-seller, Debbie Viguie, he records the weekly writing podcast Hide and Create. You can find his interview episode here.

When not editing . . . ha ha, a joke. He was a 2014 finalist in the Writers of the Future contest, and lives with his wife, and three horrible cats near UCLA.

 

Sunday Reads: 17 June 2012

We hope you’re enjoying our Publishing Month as much as we are.  We’ve had some great posts already from both Fictorians and guests, and there’s more to come, including Brandon Sanderson and Gini Koch.  In the meantime, here’s 10 reads worth your time:

Vickie Britton looks at Compiling A Short Story Anthology for Print or eBook Publication.

Rachelle Gardner discusses whether self-publishing and agents can mix in Self-Published Author Seeks Agent.

Laura Hazard Owen sums up the recent BookExpo America with 5 Things the Book Industry Will Be Talking About Next Week.

Victoria Strauss has a warning for those thinking about jumping into self-publishng with ePublishing Revo: It’s A New Electronic Publishing Service, But There’s A Catch.

Karen Schechner looks at how indie bookstores are responding to the growing self-publishing phenomenon in Working With Self-Published Authors.

Rich Adin asks Should Editors Certify That an eBook Has Been Edited?

Confused about creative commons?  Check out Matt Enis’s article Ebook Crowdfunding Platform Unglue.it Launched for an explanation.

Nail Your Novel muses about Where Will Self-Publishing Get Quality Control?

Dear Author lists some Publisher Experiments I’d Like To See.

Publishing Crawl discusses The Not-So-Secret Backdoor to Publishing.

 

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

Guest poster S. James Nelson – Abandon All (Unreasonable) Hope

David Carrico – I Haven’t Given Up

Guest poster Laurie McLean – Literary Agents in the New Publishing Era

 

 

 

 

 

 

S. James Nelson: Abandon All (unreasonable) Hope

Guest post by S. James Nelson

My intention with this blog is to give you a healthy dose of despair and a stronger injection of hope.

I’m honestly surprised that this blog has turned into what it has. I’ve written and discarded a dozen drafts until settling on this topic–the topic I most hated to hear writers talk about when I started up writing again. In my heart I simply believed it wasn’t true. At least not for me. For the rest of you schmucks, sure. But not for me.

Turns out I was wrong.

I started my self-publishing experiment last August when I published The Demigod Proving. In November I followed up with Keep Mama Dead.

I haven’t sold a million copies.

Yet. I haven’t sold a million copies yet.

I’ve purposefully kept my marketing efforts to a minimum, although I have dabbled in what I would term marketing. That has netted me only about 2k sales and 12k give-aways. I’m more qualified to talk about what doesn’t work in self-publishing than what does.

But there is one thing I have learned, that I’m qualified to talk about, and that might be useful to you: you should give up your unreasonable hope, and maintain your reasonable hope.

I learned this over time, as I came to the conclusion that I am not an exception to the rule. There’s a very high chance (probably better than 99.9999%) that you aren’t, either.

I now suspect that the promise of quick and easy riches was what lured me back into writing. My day job wasn’t meeting my income desires, and so I thought, “I think I’ve got some skill with writing. Maybe I can hit it big. In fact, I bet I can.”

I haven’t told anyone that until now (so, naturally I put it on the Internet for all the world to read)–after all, they would scoff and spout some rot about those stories being the exception to the rule. They would try to distract me from my objective. I believed that I could be one of writers who had crazy huge success without much work.

Alas, it didn’t happen. At the same time, my day-job miraculously exceeded my income desires. The fire in my belly–the desire and urgency for quick and easy success–disappeared, leaving me wondering: why am I getting up early every morning to write? Why am I expending all manner of resources on this effort? It would be so much easier to use those resources for something more productive.

And yet, here I am, still writing. Still planning on putting out more books.  And, in fact, trying to find ways to be more successful. I’m certain I’ll have to work harder. Perhaps I need to step up my marketing efforts. Maybe I need to hone my writing. There’s a chance I need to understand my audience better. It might be that the package of my book (style, cover, title, editing) needs more work.

How strange to find myself thinking like that when it’s safe to say I will never be the exception to that stupid rule. I’ve worked way too hard to ever legitimately be called an overnight success.  For mercy’s sake, I’ve sacrificed for my art!

This has led me to a conclusion: I’m no longer in it for the quick and easy money. Which leads me to another realization: though success isn’t the primary goal, I still want to sell a lot of books. Which begets another conclusion: if a large number of book sales is something I’m going to continue to pursue, I’m going to have to manage my expectations about how easily that success might come. At the same time, I must maintain hope that I’ll succeed. Without hope, I have no reason to try. I may as well write and hide my work under a bushel.

Yet I have hope, and therefore I must continue to act. I must try different things, believing that if I change this or that-maybe this time I’ll have success.

So, the message?

Despair at ever being an overnight success, yet hope that your hard work will pay off.

Let your hope lead you to continue to develop your writing. If you self-publish, let your hope lead you to develop your marketing. If you fail at first and give up, it means you were in it for the money. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if you fail at first and find yourself willing to keep going, you must maintain hope that with persistent work, constant learning, and different approaches to the same problem, you’ll succeed.

You may not, though, and that’s why the money can never be the only reason you’re in this business.

S. James Nelson recently won first place in David Farland’s Nightingalewriting contest. If you enjoy action-oriented, deep-thinking fantasy, take a look at his book, The Demigod Proving. If you like strong characters, real-world fantasy, and hiking in national parks, take a look at his book Keep Mama Dead

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Sunday Reads: 10 June 2012

Still to come in our Publishing Month: guest posts from writers Brandon Sanderson, Stephen Nelson, and Gini Koch, and literary agent Laurie McLean.  In the meantime, here are 10 reads worth your time:

Anne R Allen examines the different types of publishers in Who Are the Big Six? What Does “Indie” Really Mean”? Answers to Not-So-Dumb Questions You Were Afraid to Ask.

At Writers in the Storm, Susan Squires explains her own publishing options in Too Many Choices.

The Intern takes a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at The Publishers Weekly: The Deals You Don’t See.

Teleread crunches numbers in Amazon Price Bots Result In Unusually High- and Low-Price Books.

Mhairi Simpson talks about how Self-Publishing Is Not the Easy Way.

Still on the topic of self-publishing, The Huffington Post discusses The Changing Politics of the Self-Publishing Stima.

Nathan Bransford talks about how Traditional vs Self-Publishing is a False Dichotomy.

The Guardian examines writers’ incomes in Stop the Press: Half of Self-Published Authors Earn Less Than $500.

Interested in checking out some books by small or independent presses?  Take a look at Small Press Reviews.

 

Missed any Fictorians articles this week?

Guest post from David Dalglish – The Triumph of the Dalglish: How I Sold 2ook Novels While Not Knowing Squat

Nancy DiMauro – E-Publishing – Why I Chose It

Guest post from Jordan Ellinger – Coming Up In The Trenches