5 ms·

Self-publishing doesn't have to imply self-editing. It just implies that a professional editor's services should be paid for out of the author's pocket, rather

by derefr 5y ago

Self-publishing doesn't have to imply self-editing. It just implies that a professional editor's services should be paid for out of the author's pocket, rather than by some third-party publisher on the author's behalf. Of course, in practice, this doesn't seem to happen very often. I'm not sure why. It's not like your average self-published author is poor (they're generally the type of people who are well-off enough to dedicate a good fraction of their time to writing!) I assume many people just don't realize that "hiring an editor to help you fix up your own book" is something you can do. Or maybe they've never cultivated a "spend money to make money" mindset.

geerlingguy 5y ago
And many people don't realize as well that only top-tier publishers actually staff or hire 'professional' editors. A lot of the books you'll find from 'real' publishing companies are just peer-edited by a group of people who were told they'd get their name stamped in the imprint if they read through an advance copy. Not much better than self-editing, but still...
- derefr 5y ago
  Also, 'professional' editors are, at most, just people who've attended a one-year degree program. (And probably not one that's anywhere as thorough as you'd imagine.) A friend of mine attended, and passed, such a degree program, from a respected university; they learned basically nothing from it. And the piece of paper did nothing to help them become an editor, either; people seem to do just as well getting editing gigs with no degree at all. Which means, more than likely, no particular education in editing at all!
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    >Also, 'professional' editors are, at most, just people who've attended a one-year degree program I don't think this is true of people who work for the big publishing houses. I've watched podcasts talking about it - there's a lot of fancy school names and knowing the right people involved, but 1 year programs aren't really whats going on there.
  - jeffwass 5y ago
    That’s not true at all. I know someone whose an editor-in-chief at an imprint of one of the major publishing houses. He majored in English as an undergraduate at a major university and has worked in the field as an editor for twenty years.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - burkaman 5y ago
    This is obviously not true, but also why would it matter? Is it not possible to be a "professional" without a degree? If I were looking for a professional editor I don't think it would even cross my mind to ask what degree they have, I'd be wondering how long have they been doing it, what have they published, how do authors describe working with them, etc. There's no magic to editing, it's obviously a skillset that can be learned outside of school.
treeman79 5y ago
https://thewritelife.com/how-much-to-pay-for-a-book-editor/ https://thewritelife.com/how-much-to-pay-for-a-book-editor/ 1-10 thousand for hiring someone to edit. That could be the entire profit of most self published books. Someone like Brandon Sanderson has not only an editor but continuity staff to make sure his plot lines aren’t full of holes and timelines make sense. But he sells millions.
- dpwm 5y ago
  > Someone like Brandon Sanderson has not only an editor but continuity staff to make sure his plot lines aren’t full of holes and timelines make sense. But he sells millions. I always thought that’s an important part of what an editor does. I've edited, typeset and generally helped develop a couple of books for a friend who self-publishes fiction. I look out for stuff like continuity errors right down to seemingly petty ones, such as a TV being turned off twice. Maybe some readers wouldn’t notice, but I do. I first read over to get a feel for the book, then I discuss any high-level improvements — little things like suggesting re-ordering chapters to maintain suspense. Sometimes it means breaking bad news gently, such as song lyrics in a work of fiction not falling under the doctrine of fair dealing[0] and licensing fees that make an editor look cheap. In the self-published space, achieving 9th decile in terms of cover art, editing or typesetting doesn’t seem like much of a challenge. It’s really nice to see a draft become a finished product and be a part of that. [0] Fair dealing is like fair use but in the UK.
- derefr 5y ago
  But surely part of the reason the most self-published books do so badly in the first place, is because they're poorly edited. By analogy: all that $5 plastic junk on Wish/AliExpress/etc. The no-name manufacturing companies responsible for this dross, charge so little because they have no idea how to make quality products. Nobody will pay more than they're charging for the low standard of quality they're capable of putting out, so that's what they have to charge. But when one of these companies figures out how to make higher-quality stuff, they do start selling it for more, and begin creating a trustworthy brand, and begin marketing that brand on more trustworthy marketplaces, and so they end up with higher profit margins, despite the increased CapEx.
- 5y ago
1123581321 5y ago
My wife is a good editor who has done assignments for some self-published or indie published novels. It’s tough to make the end product good if the writing isn’t good to start and the writer isn’t generously open to feedback. The power is skewed too much toward the writer as the editor doesn’t have the standing to prevent publishing from proceeding due to quality. The writer is also not usually willing to spend enough on editing to allow for substantial revisions if the initial feedback doesn’t produce immediately better work (editing usually requires assigning rewrites or revisions.)
- LegitShady 5y ago
  Your wife was an editor for hire. I don't think people self publishing are looking for someone to have power over whether they can publish or not - they're looking for someone to edit the book and give them an opinion, but not be bound by those opinions. Otherwise they could just go through a publishing house.
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    Yes, that’s a fair restatement of what I said. I’d only add that some self-published writers can’t traditionally publish. So it’s not exactly their choice that they can only contract with an editor in a way that doesn’t best serve the book.
  - derefr 5y ago
    > Otherwise they could just go through a publishing house. You say that like most people who self-publish could get their work past a publisher's slush pile.
    - eslaught 5y ago
      Not that it contradicts your point, but publishers don't have slush piles anymore. Agents have slush piles, and if you somehow get through that to be represented by an agent, then you go through the submission process at publishing houses. As someone who's in the middle of it right now, I keep being surprised by how much more work there is to do, even on a "polished" manuscript. It's a long process and I'm not surprised most people don't have the stamina to get through it.
krisoft 5y ago
> Of course, in practice, this doesn't seem to happen very often. I'm not sure why. It is probably twofold. One is that you might simply don’t know what you don’t know. Maybe what the author really needs is a developmental editor (one who goes through with them the big structure of the work) but if the author thinks of editors as glorified spellcheckers that is what they are going to seek and pay for. The editor might have an opinion about the structure, but if they are not paid for that they won’t get into the details enough to help. And that leads to the second problem. In a self-publishing context the author has all the money and therefore all the power. They decide when the editing process is done, and every extra week they spend editing comes out of their own rapidly dwindling funds. In a traditional publishing context failure is an option. Many books don’t get published. If the pitch is not good enough, it gets dropped. If the first few chapters is not good enough it gets dropped. If they can’t polish it to satisfaction with an editor the work gets dropped. I’m not saying that quality is the only rubric the publishers use to judge when to drop a book vs when to publish, but it is heavily judged at every step of the way at multiple gates. In contrast the main and only selection force on self-publishing is if the author has the funds and the gumption. Is it possible that someone has the time to write a book and the talent to be good at it? Furthermore is it possible that the same person also has enough money to not skimp on the editing? And furthermore that they find the right editor for the right job and has the wisdom to give enough time to the process? Certainly. But of course more often than not one or the other is going to go awry from this. And i believe that is the answer to your question. This is why well edited self-published books don’t happen as often as well edited traditionally published ones.
- derefr 5y ago
  > In a traditional publishing context failure is an option. Many books don’t get published. If the pitch is not good enough, it gets dropped. If the first few chapters is not good enough it gets dropped. If they can’t polish it to satisfaction with an editor the work gets dropped. I’m not saying that quality is the only rubric the publishers use to judge when to drop a book vs when to publish, but it is heavily judged at every step of the way at multiple gates. Maybe I come from a different writing "culture", but most of the books I see being self-published are restructurings of works previously published online in serial format (if nonfiction, as blog posts; if fiction, as several-times-weekly mini-chapter serial fiction), where the popularity of the output is effectively pre-determined, as the creation and publication of a standalone purchasable book is entirely being driven by demand for such by the existing audience of the source material. Further, those serial publications are often, these days, being sponsored via Patreon, or published via apps that charge to unlock chapters and give some of that money to the author, and so forth — so the author already has an income stream from their work, that they can reinvest into their work (through editing) to multiply the amount they're making from their work. In that sense, "editing" for their books becomes exactly the same as "editing" for e.g. a YouTube channel: something where there's a direct proven correlation between "production values" and "attach rate", where that and a steady existing revenue stream will be enough to get you a business loan from any sensible bank.
lkrubner 5y ago
I strongly agree. When I wrote "How To Destroy A Tech Startup In Three Easy Steps" I hired Natalie Sidner as my editor and she re-wrote the book to such an extent that I also offered her a writing credit: https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/0998997617/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1638245377&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...

by derefr 5y ago

geerlingguy 5y ago

And many people don't realize as well that only top-tier publishers actually staff or hire 'professional' editors. A lot of the books you'll find from 'real' publishing companies are just peer-edited by a group of people who were told they'd get their name stamped in the imprint if they read through an advance copy. Not much better than self-editing, but still...

derefr 5y ago
Also, 'professional' editors are, at most, just people who've attended a one-year degree program. (And probably not one that's anywhere as thorough as you'd imagine.) A friend of mine attended, and passed, such a degree program, from a respected university; they learned basically nothing from it. And the piece of paper did nothing to help them become an editor, either; people seem to do just as well getting editing gigs with no degree at all. Which means, more than likely, no particular education in editing at all!
- LegitShady 5y ago
  >Also, 'professional' editors are, at most, just people who've attended a one-year degree program I don't think this is true of people who work for the big publishing houses. I've watched podcasts talking about it - there's a lot of fancy school names and knowing the right people involved, but 1 year programs aren't really whats going on there.
- jeffwass 5y ago
  That’s not true at all. I know someone whose an editor-in-chief at an imprint of one of the major publishing houses. He majored in English as an undergraduate at a major university and has worked in the field as an editor for twenty years.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- burkaman 5y ago
  This is obviously not true, but also why would it matter? Is it not possible to be a "professional" without a degree? If I were looking for a professional editor I don't think it would even cross my mind to ask what degree they have, I'd be wondering how long have they been doing it, what have they published, how do authors describe working with them, etc. There's no magic to editing, it's obviously a skillset that can be learned outside of school.

treeman79 5y ago

https://thewritelife.com/how-much-to-pay-for-a-book-editor/ https://thewritelife.com/how-much-to-pay-for-a-book-editor/ 1-10 thousand for hiring someone to edit. That could be the entire profit of most self published books. Someone like Brandon Sanderson has not only an editor but continuity staff to make sure his plot lines aren’t full of holes and timelines make sense. But he sells millions.

dpwm 5y ago
> Someone like Brandon Sanderson has not only an editor but continuity staff to make sure his plot lines aren’t full of holes and timelines make sense. But he sells millions. I always thought that’s an important part of what an editor does. I've edited, typeset and generally helped develop a couple of books for a friend who self-publishes fiction. I look out for stuff like continuity errors right down to seemingly petty ones, such as a TV being turned off twice. Maybe some readers wouldn’t notice, but I do. I first read over to get a feel for the book, then I discuss any high-level improvements — little things like suggesting re-ordering chapters to maintain suspense. Sometimes it means breaking bad news gently, such as song lyrics in a work of fiction not falling under the doctrine of fair dealing[0] and licensing fees that make an editor look cheap. In the self-published space, achieving 9th decile in terms of cover art, editing or typesetting doesn’t seem like much of a challenge. It’s really nice to see a draft become a finished product and be a part of that. [0] Fair dealing is like fair use but in the UK.
derefr 5y ago
But surely part of the reason the most self-published books do so badly in the first place, is because they're poorly edited. By analogy: all that $5 plastic junk on Wish/AliExpress/etc. The no-name manufacturing companies responsible for this dross, charge so little because they have no idea how to make quality products. Nobody will pay more than they're charging for the low standard of quality they're capable of putting out, so that's what they have to charge. But when one of these companies figures out how to make higher-quality stuff, they do start selling it for more, and begin creating a trustworthy brand, and begin marketing that brand on more trustworthy marketplaces, and so they end up with higher profit margins, despite the increased CapEx.
5y ago

1123581321 5y ago

My wife is a good editor who has done assignments for some self-published or indie published novels. It’s tough to make the end product good if the writing isn’t good to start and the writer isn’t generously open to feedback. The power is skewed too much toward the writer as the editor doesn’t have the standing to prevent publishing from proceeding due to quality. The writer is also not usually willing to spend enough on editing to allow for substantial revisions if the initial feedback doesn’t produce immediately better work (editing usually requires assigning rewrites or revisions.)

LegitShady 5y ago
Your wife was an editor for hire. I don't think people self publishing are looking for someone to have power over whether they can publish or not - they're looking for someone to edit the book and give them an opinion, but not be bound by those opinions. Otherwise they could just go through a publishing house.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  Yes, that’s a fair restatement of what I said. I’d only add that some self-published writers can’t traditionally publish. So it’s not exactly their choice that they can only contract with an editor in a way that doesn’t best serve the book.
- derefr 5y ago
  > Otherwise they could just go through a publishing house. You say that like most people who self-publish could get their work past a publisher's slush pile.
  - eslaught 5y ago
    Not that it contradicts your point, but publishers don't have slush piles anymore. Agents have slush piles, and if you somehow get through that to be represented by an agent, then you go through the submission process at publishing houses. As someone who's in the middle of it right now, I keep being surprised by how much more work there is to do, even on a "polished" manuscript. It's a long process and I'm not surprised most people don't have the stamina to get through it.

krisoft 5y ago

> Of course, in practice, this doesn't seem to happen very often. I'm not sure why. It is probably twofold. One is that you might simply don’t know what you don’t know. Maybe what the author really needs is a developmental editor (one who goes through with them the big structure of the work) but if the author thinks of editors as glorified spellcheckers that is what they are going to seek and pay for. The editor might have an opinion about the structure, but if they are not paid for that they won’t get into the details enough to help. And that leads to the second problem. In a self-publishing context the author has all the money and therefore all the power. They decide when the editing process is done, and every extra week they spend editing comes out of their own rapidly dwindling funds. In a traditional publishing context failure is an option. Many books don’t get published. If the pitch is not good enough, it gets dropped. If the first few chapters is not good enough it gets dropped. If they can’t polish it to satisfaction with an editor the work gets dropped. I’m not saying that quality is the only rubric the publishers use to judge when to drop a book vs when to publish, but it is heavily judged at every step of the way at multiple gates. In contrast the main and only selection force on self-publishing is if the author has the funds and the gumption. Is it possible that someone has the time to write a book and the talent to be good at it? Furthermore is it possible that the same person also has enough money to not skimp on the editing? And furthermore that they find the right editor for the right job and has the wisdom to give enough time to the process? Certainly. But of course more often than not one or the other is going to go awry from this. And i believe that is the answer to your question. This is why well edited self-published books don’t happen as often as well edited traditionally published ones.

derefr 5y ago
> In a traditional publishing context failure is an option. Many books don’t get published. If the pitch is not good enough, it gets dropped. If the first few chapters is not good enough it gets dropped. If they can’t polish it to satisfaction with an editor the work gets dropped. I’m not saying that quality is the only rubric the publishers use to judge when to drop a book vs when to publish, but it is heavily judged at every step of the way at multiple gates. Maybe I come from a different writing "culture", but most of the books I see being self-published are restructurings of works previously published online in serial format (if nonfiction, as blog posts; if fiction, as several-times-weekly mini-chapter serial fiction), where the popularity of the output is effectively pre-determined, as the creation and publication of a standalone purchasable book is entirely being driven by demand for such by the existing audience of the source material. Further, those serial publications are often, these days, being sponsored via Patreon, or published via apps that charge to unlock chapters and give some of that money to the author, and so forth — so the author already has an income stream from their work, that they can reinvest into their work (through editing) to multiply the amount they're making from their work. In that sense, "editing" for their books becomes exactly the same as "editing" for e.g. a YouTube channel: something where there's a direct proven correlation between "production values" and "attach rate", where that and a steady existing revenue stream will be enough to get you a business loan from any sensible bank.

lkrubner 5y ago

I strongly agree. When I wrote "How To Destroy A Tech Startup In Three Easy Steps" I hired Natalie Sidner as my editor and she re-wrote the book to such an extent that I also offered her a writing credit: https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/0998997617/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1638245377&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...