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Monday, August 2, 2021

Here I am, back from a long hiatus after a month-long trip. Here are the bullet points:

• drove from California to Florida (and Georgia); had a great time

• chose an editor who is expecting my book by mid-September

• got practically zero time to work on my book or other authorly duties because I was having too much damn fun

• currently freaked out about finishing because it feels like I have a mess of crap in a word doc. right now

• The school year is about to start and I want to work really hard this year at acclimating to my new school and being the best teacher I can be which means my time available for writing is being drastically dimished

• Send help.

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Self-Publishing Adventure: Finding an Editor

I stand at the precipice of a crucial decision: choosing my editor. This is my first novel and, to be honest, the process has been a little stressful. It’s basically me paying someone to pick apart and judge a piece of my heart. That’s why I tried to do my research first.

I began by asking around the #WritingCommunity on Twitter for recommendations, but did not get a lot of responses since I’m still small-fry. Instead, I decided to bite the bullet and use a site called Reedsy, which connects all sorts of professionals involved in book publication.

I was able to filter by certain preferences, like genre, and choose up to five in the first go to offer an introduction and reading sample.

As a teacher, I know a good introduction can not only set the tone of a relationship, but also the expectations. I told them about my book, my experience, my budget, and what sort of services I sought. After that, I got quotes from and messages from 2 out of 5 editors who felt they could meet my criteria and timeframe.

Now, originally, I was hoping to get out of this with a budget of $300 or less, but with a book of ~45,000, that would have meant finding someone who would read and make suggestions about a book for less than $0.007/word, which I found is not typical.

Whoops.

It turns out that was a gross underestimation. I was over 200% wrong, if that makes sense.

Now I had to get thrifty. I could no longer afford all the different types of editing stages one might need.

It was apparent that I could only choose one.

Based on the description of what I needed, my potential editors suggested a service I hadn’t come across in my research called “editorial assessment.” This meant different things to the two editors, both services aligning with things I wanted like overall impressions, general notes, language suggestions, character analysis, etc. As far I as I understand, it’s a paid beta read.

Both offers were close in price but emphasized different things AND provided feedback in different forms (an organized overview vs. in-document comments).

Ultimately, it came down to my preference. And that’s what it’s all about, right? Finding someone who jibes with my style?

That being said, I still wasn’t sure WHAT I wanted, so I requested a sample and gave them the time they needed. (Editors are people too, after all.)

And so here we are. Waiting.