Tuesday morning, I have a telecom with a book editor. My marketer provided me with the name and I’m going into this with absolutely no expectations and only slightly more understanding of the services.
As is now my habit I went to Grok and asked it. “What are the various types of editing that a fiction author might contract for his book.”
And the LLM responded in part:
“Below is a breakdown of the main types of professional editing that fiction authors typically contract for, listed in the usual order they occur during the publishing process. Each level assumes the previous one(s) have been completed.
Now, this is a lot of stuff. And if you add it all up for even a short 65,000-word novel (like mine), it’s at least, several thousand dollars.”
That’s a lotta dough.
So, my intent is to listen and take notes and see just how much in the way of editing I want and/or can afford. I intend to be open about my lack of a trust fund and my unwavering faith in my literary muse. So that should eliminate the developmental editing and line editing functions from the discussion. And honestly, even if I had endless cash to spend, I think I want the words and ideas to be my own and in the voices that I’ve invented.
As far as copyediting and proofreading, I guess I’ll decide whether the benefits justify the costs. After all, I can spell pretty well and for the most part spellcheck does tell me what bothers it. And I did do a pass through the manuscript myself already so I think it would have to be a reasonable fee to win me over.
But regardless of all my reservations I find it stimulating to go through these processes in publishing a book. After all, I’ve been reading professionally published books all my life and I’ve never seriously considered what value was added by the editor. I mean, if the author had terrible spelling and didn’t pay attention to normal grammar and orthography maybe that would have bothered me as a reader. But I’m guessing that the golden age sf writers were all pretty reasonably literate and capable of providing a clean manuscript.
But now I’ll speak to someone who does this for a living and maybe I’ll get a perspective I didn’t consider. Well, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll decide to buy some editing.
And I’m still waiting for the cover artist to get back to me to discuss that piece of the puzzle. Well, one thing at a time.
photog, I’ll line edit, copyedit, and proofread your novel for $0.02 a word.
Tyler, I”ll have to let this play out before I even know whether I’ll be doing anything but self editing. I’ve invested a big number for marketing and that doesn’t even include the Amazon ads I’ll need to buy. So, stay tuned and I’ll know a little better what I’m going to do.
Self-editing is definitely the way to go if you’re willing to take your time and do it. Yes, all the professionals will say otherwise, but they’re the ones getting big fat editing checks.
Get Camera Girl to read through it, too. She will catch errors that you may have missed.
That’s a good idea about Camera Girl. She’s much more reliable than I am.
Yes, you definitely need to get a second set of eyes on it. Camera Girl will do well.