Lesson 11

 
Editors; Lesson 11
 
Welcome back to another class and Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I hope your week ventured far and beyond your expectations, and today will bring you good luck. Today, you are ready. Hopefully you have had great feedback from everyone, family, friends, beta readers, and all your corrections have been made

Now you need to spend some money. You need an editor. Who is good? A man who did a YouTube video had the same dilemma except he had a friend who had four years of English in college. He tore his work apart. He thought his friend to be smart and made all the suggested corrections. He submitted his work to a publishing house who gave him a critique of his work and laughed at him. They told him his work was appalling. They told him to get it edited first. Let’s get back to class.
How much is it going to cost? How long will it take? Who can you trust? These are all good questions. Let’s start with money. I personally don’t like editors that charge by the hour. How many hours does it take? We don’t know, so how can you budget?
By the word is good. You know how many words you have, because your computer tells you, and you put the word count on the front page with your info and title. All you need is a calculator. I am also okay with by the page, double space, twelve font, and one inch margins. This is also easy to calculate, because you know how many pages you have in your manuscript. These you can budget.
Most editors want an upfront fee, but make sure to get a time schedule on its return. A good editor should have a turnaround in one week or less. The other question about money is what type or how much of an edit do you want them to do. Some have up to four different edit types. One is just punctuation and spelling. Two is number one plus sentence structure and grammar. Hopefully you used Grammarly, but I have heard it too has its issues. Three, they do number one and number two plus I guess constructive criticism, and four, I don’t know. They rewrite the whole book for you? That will cost you an arm and a leg.
Some people say you should get a feel for the person that’s doing the editing, and the best way to do that is only send them the first three chapters. You can check out their work, and see if it works for you. If not, move on to someone else. When you find someone you like, send them the rest of your book. I started with my college professor. At that time, she had a list of six people in the area that only charged $2.50 per page, and she charged $2.25 per page for her students. I thought she was knowledgeable, and through her editing, I did improve. However, after submitting three books to vanity publishers who also edited the Chicago way, and they came back with over fifty red marks per page, I wasn’t so sure that I picked a good editor. I also had one vanity editor berate me over the phone and highly suggested that I pay for an editor before thinking of submitting a book. How embarrassing.
Then I talked to a coworker and she suggested her mother, a retired English teacher who also edited for a Washington newspaper. She was terrific and only charged one dollar per page. My book flew through the publishing editing with only a few minor suggestions. That book was also my novel of 85,000 words. Like I said, I learned a lot from the other three books that were edited and applied everything that I have learned. She really knew her stuff. Unfortunately, she passed away.
I am now in the same process, trying to find a good one. One man states that he writes a few chapters and sends them out to an editor. They make a few corrections, and when he gets it back he will then send it out to a second editor. That editor will make a few more corrections. When those are put into his computer he then prints it out and sends it to a third editor before he sends it to be published. He must have a lot of money to burn. He also said in that same video, ‘who cares about small mistakes? People will blow right past them if your story is good.’
With the Internet, phones, and PayPal, you can hire anyone from anywhere. If you can find someone local like I had, I think it is best to meet and have a personal connection. But that’s just me.
Whichever you decide to do, start with a checklist, an interview for your new editor.

1. What genre do you like to read or edit?
2. How much do you charge?
3. What are your qualifications?
4. How open is your schedule?
5. What is your turnaround time?

I have noticed that a lot of editing people have joined book clubs on Facebook, and LinkedIn, so post your request and see if anyone tags in. I know I haven’t been too helpful, but hopefully I gave you something to chew on. Next week we’ll talk about Copyright and Library of Congress. Till then, enjoy your weather, your town, your life and
 
Happy Writing from rickkurtisbooks.com