How many self-published authors get external editors?

There is a lot of territory between agents and self-publishing, if you goal is to make a book available for readers in a respectable form and not lose money.

If you have $1000 to spend, do spend them Or they'll burn a hole in your pocket and you'll be waking up in the middle of the night wondering what if... what if you did spend them on an edit and your book sold hundreds and thousands copies. We'd never know, what if... Personally, I don't think an editor will make a bad book into a great book. Maybe they could make it a bit less bad. I'm not saying your book is bad, that's just an example of how editing works. Self-pub readers have quite a bit of tolerance, so a little improvement won't make a great difference in sales. And btw, you don't actually need to edit the whole book either for self-pub. Just polish as much as the free sample will be, if you use the "look inside" feature on Amazon and the like. That's all you need to make a sale.

Curlz said:

. . . And btw, you don't actually need to edit the whole book either for self-pub. Just polish as much as the free sample will be, if you use the "look inside" feature on Amazon and the like. That's all you need to make a sale.

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The problem with this is that if the quality changes after the opening, and it's enough to annoy a reader, you'll likely not make a sale to them on your next book, and if the book is available on Kindle Unlimited, you might get a low page view for the first one.

Actually, I think the results from polishing only the Look Inside can be even worse.

I don't leave one-stars, or even Amazon two-stars. I don't want to be accused of unfairly sniping at the competition, and I like to be kind. Sometimes I just don't leave a review. But this sort of case is the only time I really want to slam a book.

I think of a Look Inside as a promise to the reader. They're getting a free sample that's supposed to give them a reasonable expectation of what kind of book this is. I checked the Look Inside on a book recently that had a somewhat gormless, mildly humorous guardsman as the protag, and I bought it. But then, before the end of the first chapter--yuck! A rape. I felt suckered.

I dislike GRRM's most popular work. But he was honest enough to show me what kind of book it was going to be in the first few pages. I just didn't buy the book, and no hard feelings.

I would definitely feel taken in if I bought a book on the strengths of the preview and it turned out the rest didn't match. Far better to weed out the people who won't like your book on the preview, and thus avoid the one-stars, IMO.

Can I also say that I learned SO MUCH from my experience with a professional editor? Saying it's not "worth it" for a book for which you only expect to sell 20 copies is legit, but working with a good editor is educational. It will pay dividends down the road.

Curlz said:

If you have $1000 to spend, do spend them Or they'll burn a hole in your pocket and you'll be waking up in the middle of the night wondering what if... what if you did spend them on an edit and your book sold hundreds and thousands copies. We'd never know, what if... Personally, I don't think an editor will make a bad book into a great book. Maybe they could make it a bit less bad. I'm not saying your book is bad, that's just an example of how editing works. Self-pub readers have quite a bit of tolerance, so a little improvement won't make a great difference in sales. And btw, you don't actually need to edit the whole book either for self-pub. Just polish as much as the free sample will be, if you use the "look inside" feature on Amazon and the like. That's all you need to make a sale.

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I mean if your goals are to attempt to sell some and head for the hills, ok? Also if you don't mind a solid one-star review on the thing, because I don't know who wouldn't go out of their way to slam that crap if they paid for it based on the preview only to find the rest was entirely dissimilar in terms of quality. I'd be wildly pissed, far more so than if I just bought something that sucked and it was my own fault for not checking.

If someone ever wants to sell anything else, or have any kind of reputation, I would really, really recommend not trying to fuck with people like that.

CathleenT said:

Actually, I think the results from polishing only the Look Inside can be even worse.

[...]

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There's also that pesky matter of ethics. Polishing only the first 10% (which I believe is about what the sample gives) is sort of a bait and switch con IMO. Also, as others have mentioned, you may sell that one book, but if you ever write another... well, you may have a reputation to live down.

As an author, and as a person, I want to tell the best story I can, but I write hoping to entertain (and perhaps provoke thought in) others, not to make wads of cash. I had my job as an engineer for the later, now I want to perhaps leave a legacy or at least entertain my friends and leave something for my kids and grandkids (hey look, my grandpa once wrote books!). What I write and put out in the world speaks to what sort of person I am, and I hope to put good out in the world.

cornflake said:

Also if you don't mind a solid one-star review on the thing, because I don't know who wouldn't go out of their way to slam that crap if they paid for it based on the preview only to find the rest was entirely dissimilar in terms of quality.

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Amazingly, most self-pub books don't attract negative reviews at all. If something costs 0.99, people just click on it and forget. They probably have a hundred of those 0.99s on their kindle but somehow almost nobody bothers to review. That's my impression from looking at reviews.

From what I understand, publishers won't accept a 140,000 word book from a new author. It's because anything over 80,000 sees diminishing returns or something like that. A 80,000 word books sells for $6 say while a 140,000 word book sells for $7, just a dollar more, meanwhile the printer charges by the page so for the publisher, a 140,000 costs them a lot more to print than a 80,000 book.

I'm thinking about hiring an editor. If I can find a good one, it will help me advance as a writer. $1,000 is cheap tuition, IMO.

Good luck on your self publishing!

And a thousand dollars is also on the cheap side for 140k. It could easily go much higher. I'm not saying it wouldn't be worth the investment--I just like people to have reasonable expectations when they budget.

Fortz said:

From what I understand, publishers won't accept a 140,000 word book from a new author. It's because anything over 80,000 sees diminishing returns or something like that. A 80,000 word books sells for $6 say while a 140,000 word book sells for $7, just a dollar more, meanwhile the printer charges by the page so for the publisher, a 140,000 costs them a lot more to print than a 80,000 book.

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Printer charges are a thing, yes, but I don't think that's what's behind the suggestion that writers try to trim their books. It's like the "never write a prologue" advice: just as many writers, often less experienced ones, write poor prologues, many who've written longer books could make the narrative more satisfying if they revised away 10 or 20K. 140K is a yellow flag, not a red one.

(Some genres, fantasy in particular, are full of books - even debuts - that are 140K and up.)

Mike Rousseau said:

Absolutely not what I said, so I hope this isn't directed at me.

What I said is that since I don't see more than four people buying this book, which will net me about $20, I can't justify a $1,000 purchase. Not that I have $1k laying around and want to spend it on something else. I live paycheck to paycheck, and it's not something I can mortgage my future against. I absolutely WANT an editor, and would pay for one if I could, but I literally cannot without becoming homeless. That's not an option.

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That's understandable, and in which case, I stand by the suggestion to start by visiting the Share Your Work sections here (the password for everything but erotica is: vista -- the reason the password protection exists is to keep the shared work from being open to the Internet as a whole, so it's not considered published work or accessible to search engines), start critiquing others, and once you've got over 50 posts, put up some of your own work for critique.

Most often, problems that exist in the first couple thousand words are pervasive throughout, though SYW won't catch issues a developmental type edit will. You can discuss plot concerns in other areas of the board, and save up for a professional edit if you're looking to go the self-pub route, while you learn and grow as a writer.

Mike Rousseau said:

Absolutely not what I said, so I hope this isn't directed at me.

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Not directed at you at all.

If I had a decent editor , I'd have said that when weighing the cost/benefit of hiring an editor, one might also consider the educational aspects of the relationship as an investment in future projects.

It's not the right thing for everyone for a lot of reasons. I just wanted to point out that there can be more to working with an editor than spiffing up the current piece.

And OP, on book sales, your worst-case scenario means you might only sell four copies this year. You're self-pubbing, so the only way your book goes out of print is if you decide to discontinue it for some reason. You have years to sell this book. Sales will also come from sell-through on other books. And it's never too late to start promoting, once you figure your path forward in that area.

I know that doesn't affect budgeting decisions now, but I wanted to point out that the future might be somewhat rosier than anticipated.

The average self-published book really doesn't sell that much, and I do think it is perfectly reasonable to want to make a profit or not much or a loss. You are getting a lot of confident advice based on really not knowing very much about your book. You can send to agents, you can query publishers that don't require agents, you can self-publish, you can pay $1000 for an edit, or $100, or service exchange, or self edit. You could publish it as a single large book, a series, or some other format.

None of us really knows which could or will best serve whatever your goals are. People have been very successful and very unsuccessful a 'meh'-level successful with all of these options. I can tell you a lot about how I achieved 'meh' to 'good-for-you-bud' and used writing to pay the bills at an important time of life doing a combo of 2 and 3c but that doesn't make those a good option for you and your book.

Mike Rousseau said:

Absolutely not what I said, so I hope this isn't directed at me.

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Nope, it wasn't, you're good. It was directed at (1) the general sentiment which is sound, (frankly insane to invest 1000 dollars into anything a person might make 100 dollars on... unless it also serves another purpose like education...)... and (2) possibly was directed at something I said on page one, which was similar but used other words.

Welcome to AW. Lots of good people, lots of advice. You're good.

I can't afford editors and I haven't found one where I liked the samples they had online anyway. I do have some people who aren't me that check it though. My critique partner offers story comments and a family member helps with copyediting. That said, I'm not bad at self-editing and will find a lot of mistakes. It helps to be someone who starts off with a pretty low number of errors.

I wouldn't worry about whether betas liked it. What you really need is their detailed comments on it. If people are struggling to finish, it might suggest it's a little slow in places (it's a big word count, so I'd consider doing a pass to see if you've waffled around more than needed in places).

I suppose if you view self publishing a book as a serious hobby, outlaying a grand for editing may not be out of line, as long as you view it as expendable money. Lots of people have expensive hobbies. I know a guy that spends $10K or more a pop building large scale RC aircraft, which he could only sell for a fraction of the cost if he chose to do that. He can't fly worth a crap so he has other people fly his planes. He just does it because he enjoys building them.

I spend about $250 total out of pocket for editing and cover art for an 80K word novel. Yes that is cheap. Overall I am ahead, but unless I find a way to more effectively promote my books I will operate at a loss if I keep doing it. That doesn't mean I won't necessarily, but pulling in a profit is certainly a psychological motivator even if it isn't significant.

My line editor is a writer for several online magazines and she's very good at it. I've learned a lot by her corrections. I also have several beta readers who help me with developmental editing. All of them of course do not charge for their services since we are long term friends. A few of my beta readers have been inspired to write their own stories and I am looking forward to beta reading their material. For covers I employ an artist on Fiverr dot com. He does a great job with the imagery I send him for a decent price.

Make some writing friends, network! Just be sure to pay them back in some manner.