jessicasteiner | Why I Decided to Hire a Freelance Editor

This is the first of my series on the process and what I learned in hiring a freelance editor to edit my novel, The Sleeping Death. Go here to see a list of the rest of the planned topics.

Though this is a more meta topic compared to the 'how-to' nature of the rest of this series, it's actually critically important to the whole rest of the process, so it's worthwhile considering this question yourself in detail if you decide you want to go this route. Your own reasons will determine if hiring an editor is something you want to do and also exactly what you will be hiring the editor to do, because there are different options. It will also help you determine your budget.

E-Publishing Makes it Necessary

The big, overarching reason why I decided to hire an editor to go over my novel is because I am not planning to go the traditional route with this book and shop it around to mainstream publishers. Instead, I'm epublishing. This means that when I decide it's time to release the book and send it out into the world, that's it. It's done. There's no gateway that will stop it and tell me that my book is just not good enough for public consumption.

If I were intending to go the traditional route, I wouldn't necessarily have to worry about it. The publisher will provide an in-house editor who will edit my novel and help me get it ready for publishing. But in the epub, independent world, the only option is to hire someone to do it myself.

Many people who want to traditionally publish will still get a freelance editor to look it over. This is quite an investment of money considering that the publishing houses will edit your book for you, also. But if you really aren't sure that your book is good enough to even be accepted by a publisher, a manuscript consultation seems to be something marketed to you. In a later part of this series, I'll go into more detail about what manuscript consultations are.

It's Not Something I Can Do Myself

I might be able to format my book myself, and promote it. If I were artistic I might even be able to do the cover for myself. I can figure out how to upload it to the various online book stores.

But editing isn't like that. I have spent a lot of hours editing the book myself, but there comes a point where a second set of eyes is the only way to get it to that next level. I can show it to my friends and family - and I will - but I feel that a fully-trained, experienced editor, with knowledge of the genre and the field, will bring expertise to my novel that my friends and wife simply can't. And an editor is an unbiased third party who won't be afraid to tell me what's really wrong with it.

So when it comes to business, when there's something you can't do yourself, you have to pay to have someone do it for you. Writing is a business, so I'll shell out.

My Name is On This Thing

I'm looking to build a career, starting with this novel. Since I'm putting myself out there, this book will be something that some people will read and decide never to read my stuff again - while others will read it and be excited to read the next thing I put out.

When it comes down to it, I want as many people as possible to be in the second category.

I want this book to be as good as I can physically make it, before anyone buys it. It's worthwhile spending the money to do that, because the return on investment should be worth it. I'll sell more copies, not just of this book, but future ones, if this book is good enough to impress people and leave them wanting more.

So these are the three main reasons why I decided to take the plunge, open my wallet, and shell out some pretty big bucks to hire a freelance editor.

Next week I'll discuss how I prepared for my search.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I would be interested to hear the reasons you're choosing to self-publish!

Haha, that's definitely a post in itself. And one I am planning to do, for sure.

I'm really pleased to see a thoughtful presentation of this topic. I'm an editor; I do both regular and freelance work. I think freelance editing is becoming much more common for the reasons you cite, and people need to be aware of it.

Thank you, and welcome to my journal! I think you're absolutely right. Especially since self-publishing is starting to seem like a desirable thing to do rather than a good way to ruin your career.

>>I think you're absolutely right. Especially since self-publishing is starting to seem like a desirable thing to do rather than a good way to ruin your career.<<

I've been watching publishing trends for many years. I think the first serious break for self-publishing was the leading edge of electronic publication, which people spent about a decade insisting that it was impossible or pointless, and more years just generally dissing, and only recently have realized that it's vital and they are now panicking. But the people who looked at the internet in the 1990s or early '00s and said, "Hey, let's put literature into this medium!" got the ball rolling. If you wanted to do that, you had to do it yourself, because publishers took a long time to get involved at all.

Once the social aspects of the web really gelled, with blogging and social networks, it became possible to reach a large audience easily -- and anyone could do it. So any writer who had a fan base suddenly had effective tools for connecting with those people, and sometimes the fans proved more generous than the publishers. It still depended on being able to interact closely with one's audience, which some people like and are good at, others not so much.

Now there are more self-publishing options, or publisher-lite options, and people are trying them because traditional publishers have been getting more obnoxious in attempt to keep their nose above the incoming tide. As more writers try self-publishing and succeed at it, they're talking about their experiences; and some of the successes have been stupendous. Even for midlist writers it's worth experimenting with to see whether it works for you.

Then there's crowdfunding, which folks can explore over at

crowdfunding, in which the creator and audience connect directly. Crowdfunded weblit is often highly interactive, and people will spend amazing amounts of money on their favorite material because it goes directly to the writer they love. If you've seen the article "1,000 True Fans" about people who'll buy $100+ of stuff a year -- they exist. I have some, I know other projects that do too. (I was kind of surprised by that. I mean who spends $100/year on poetry? But they do.) And this means people can also support the kinds of writing they want, because many crowdfunded projects run on audience prompts for inspiration, then people sponsor what they want published. You want more strong women, people of color, lesbians who live to the end of the story? You can have it.

And then fans want a hardcopy of the most popular weblit, so the creator often goes looking for a freelance editor -- maybe also someone to typeset the book, make a cover for it, whatever else the creator can't do. There are a lot of web-to-paper creative projects on the fundraiser sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, where authors are fundraising to cover the freelance and production fees. That's job creation. It's pretty cool.

It's also massive numbers of writers and readers saying to the conventional industry, "We're not all that thrilled with what you're doing. We want better. So we're going to do it ourselves." And the success rate in that endeavor is rising. The more people talk about their projects, what's working and what isn't, the faster we'll learn what works in alternative publishing today.

I've also been following self publishing probably for about four years. Not as long as you, probably, but considering that I haven't actually published a book yet, it's a considerable period of time I think. I've listened to writing podcasts as authors literally went from warning against ever self-publishing to cautiously saying that self-publishing is something to consider, to announcing that they are no longer going to be going with traditional publishing at all, and moving exclusively to self-publishing. It's been quite astonishing.

Thank you for turning me on to the crowdfunding community! I've heard of something like this happening in a few different places and I'll likely join. It's a great idea, and something I think is of huge benefit to both fans and creators. I've also heard of Kickstarter as something that several authors have done, for example, to determine whether they'll write a further book in an old series on their backlist. It's really super cool.

This is one of the reasons I started a blog, for sure, so I could participate in the discussion and learn as well. I'm also part of an epublishing community on LinkedIn, which has been very interesting to watch. The people on there range from publishers to editors to authors both in traditional publishing and purely self-published, and while the majority of them seem to be non-fiction rather than in genre, the discussions are quite enlightening.

>>I've also been following self publishing probably for about four years. Not as long as you, probably, but considering that I haven't actually published a book yet, it's a considerable period of time I think.<<

That's an excellent start. Many people are only noticing now that it's starting to make waves.

>>I've listened to writing podcasts as authors literally went from warning against ever self-publishing to cautiously saying that self-publishing is something to consider, to announcing that they are no longer going to be going with traditional publishing at all, and moving exclusively to self-publishing.<<

I've tracked articles rather than podcasting, but have seen a similar trend.

>>Thank you for turning me on to the crowdfunding community! I've heard of something like this happening in a few different places and I'll likely join.<<

Please do! We'd love to have you.

crowdfunding is a great place for creators and patrons to hang out. People ask questions, share ideas, and talk about the projects they are doing or supporting. Once a month there is a Creative Jam where everyone can post prompts and create stuff based on whatever ideas come in. That's a lot of fun.

>>I've also heard of Kickstarter as something that several authors have done, for example, to determine whether they'll write a further book in an old series on their backlist.<<

That's a popular one, although there are many other sites too. I have a list of them:
http://penultimateproductions.weebly.com/websites-for-crowdfunding-projects.html

lwe is doing his second crowdfunded Ethshar novel. It was on the second chapter, last I saw.

>>This is one of the reasons I started a blog, for sure, so I could participate in the discussion and learn as well.<<

Same here. My LiveJournal audience is very enthusiastic. The one here on DW is still building momentum.

I started off listening to podcasts because I was commuting 1.5 hours each way to school and 1 hour each way to work XD I started listening to audiobooks, but then discovered podcasts in the iTunes store. Slowly I fell into more and more writing-related podcasts, since it's an area I have a lot of interest in and there are lots of them out there. One of the ones I ran across early was Michael A. Stackpole's, and he is now known (but wasn't yet then) as an epublishing activist.

I'm excited to participate in the next Creative Jam! It sounds like tonnes of fun.

>>I started off listening to podcasts because I was commuting 1.5 hours each way to school<<

Wow, you beat me! Mine was about an hour of drive time each way. I mostly listened to music (this was long before podcasts existed).

>>I'm excited to participate in the next Creative Jam! It sounds like tonnes of fun.<<

Coming up May 19-20. If you like science fantasy, there's also a Torn World Muse Fusion open this weekend:
http://torn-world.livejournal.com/108588.html

Why I Decided to Hire a Freelance Editor

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