After I sold a new client’s proposal, she said to me, “Now that I’ve sold, I’m going to save some money and fire the freelance editor who helps me with my writing.”

This was not one of her better ideas.

A freelance editor helps authors make their work tighter and more engaging. Ultimately, the work will then sell better, both to a publisher and to readers.

Against DIY Editing

It’s difficult, if not impossible, for an author to perform a final edit of his or her own novel as effectively as an editor. An author is typically too close to their work, even after a period of several months or a year. It is particularly difficult for an author to remain impartial if he or she has spent years on the project.

Working with a freelance editor allows your novel to be seen with fresh eyes. A new perspective can be invaluable, not only for spotting errors in grammar, but also structural and thematic issues.

An editor may highlight opportunities for adding depth and solidity, making the most of a manuscript’s strengths and identifying problems that might otherwise get between the story and the reader (whether that reader is an agent, a publisher, or a potential fan of your work).

Freelance editors build relationships and careers

An editor with whom a writer already has a working relationship is precious. This person will be familiar with the author’s style and aims, making his or her advice more personalized than that of an editor who has never encountered the author’s work before. If an editor knows your work, it will be easier to identify recurring issues, which will improve your current project and your writing going forward.

The editor as a tutor

Working closely with an editor is a good way for a writer to develop his or her craft. Over time, authors can learn to see things from the viewpoint of an editor. Avoiding plot holes or weaknesses is far better than having to fix such issues in subsequent drafts. Editors can make better writers. Better writing saves time and money, in addition to satisfying readers.

Chuck Sambuchino, for example, is an inspiring editor over at Writer’s Digest Books. He also works as a freelance editor and has worked with many authors who have gone on to sign with literary agents. Chuck knows as well as anyone that writers who work with editors improve the general standard of their writing dramatically.

If a fiction editor’s job is to make a novel as good as it can be, then this is someone that authors want at their side. A good freelance editor is worth good money, because they can and will make your book more salable.

Here is valuable advice from Sambuchino:

“The cost for freelance editors varies greatly. It can be anywhere from $2-10 per double-spaced page. It all depends on the editor in question and what you’re getting out of the edit. If you want an in-demand editor with a track record of success stories, prices will be higher. The good news is that if you do your research and look around, you will find all kinds of options out there. You can find people who specialize in proofreading and copyediting. You can find people who pride themselves on developmental story editing. And you can find people who specialize in a certain area or genre, such as a mystery writing book doctor, or a picture book guru.

Since freelance editors cost money, here are three quick things you can do to protect yourself before spending a lot of cash:

1. Ask other writers for referrals. It’s a lot easier to pull the money trigger when a writer you know vouches for someone’s skill and professionalism.
2. Engage in a small edit before you engage in a big edit. Let’s say your novel is 250 pages. Perhaps you can arrange a small deal where the editor critiques your first 30 pages for a fee. That way, you can gauge their work on that small chunk of pages and decide if you want to move forward with a full edit, which will be more costly. Some freelance editors will even critique a few of your pages for free in an effort to show you their skill and vie for your business.
3. Look for success stories, not necessarily just testimonials. A testimonial is when a writer says “Editor Bill Smith did such a great job with my story. He was worth every penny!” Freelance editors use testimonials such as this (from former clients) to attract new business. But these are surprisingly easy for freelance editors to drum up. All I would have to do is contact writers X, Y, and Z (perhaps they’re even my friends or acquaintances) and say “Hey, if I critique your book for free, will you write me a nice blurb of praise?” Of course they’ll say yes. Voila. I’ll have three fat testimonials real quick. So testimonials aren’t necessarily the telltale sign of an effective editor. This is why I don’t list these on my freelance editing website. I only list success stories, which is praise provided only after a writer signed with an agent, or got a traditionally published book deal. These are a lot harder to provide, but they go a lot further in terms of conveying the effectiveness of the editor. So look for success stories.”

TMP: I was really impressed when I met you at the Florida Romance Writers Fun In The Sun Conference 2017 and heard your story of how you became a published author spite of your visual disability. Thank you for sharing your story.
DG: Thank you for giving me this opportunity to tell the story of how technology has made it possible for me to do what I love—write.

TMP: What is your vision impairment?

DG: I was born with a deteriorating eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa. I lost the ability to read print in my early twenties. Even when I had sight, seeing the printed word was always difficult.

TMP: How did you become an author?

DG: Reading a book would take me twice as long as a person with normal sight. I became frustrated with this and began to make up my own stories. I would tell them to my friends on the way to school.

TMP: So you began telling stories at an early age.

DG: Yes, but I couldn’t do much with them. It wasn’t until the invention of computers and the screen-reading software called JAWS that it became possible for me to put my stories onto paper. Without that, I would never have been able to become a published author.

TMP: What do you mean?

DG: I couldn’t see the screen. But JAWS, the screen-reading software, reads aloud to me everything I type into my computer. Now I can read email, do research on the internet, and use a dictionary and thesaurus CD called Microsoft Bookshelf 98 Reference for Mac.

TMP: But social media is important for authors. What about that?

DG: Yes, it’s a sighted world, and people love pictures and graphs, whereas screen readers like JAWS do not. Sites like Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram can be quite frustrating for someone like me. Freedom Scientific, the developers of JAWS, are constantly trying to keep up with these advancements, but they are always left one step behind. Thankfully I’ve noticed that a number of websites are becoming more user friendly for vision-impaired people. Although I have to say the speech software, JAWS, has advanced to the point that if there’s a picture posted on Facebook, it will say things like “two people sitting smiling,” or “three people standing in front of building.”

TMP: Are there any sites that are easier to use for vision-impaired people than others?

DG: Those that have more graphs than text are difficult. But there are sites that have a text-only option.

TMP: You have to be able to see the screen to use a mouse, don’t you?
DG: Yes, so with JAWS you do not use a monitor or a mouse. You do everything with multiple key strokes. Let’s take editing a manuscript with track changes. To read the track changes and comments you have to hit certain keys. JAWS reads aloud the changes, then you turn those keys off, and then you turn on a different set of keys to make the edits. This can be extremely time consuming. JAWS has many optional settings including one that reads all punctuation. But I find that when you’re reading back through the manuscript, hearing all the punctuation read aloud is quite maddening, so I turn off that setting. But I miss some of those pesky commas.

TMP: How do you do research?

DG: I use a reader associated with JAWS called OpenBook that scans books or documents and turns the text into speech. This is useful for doing research if the information can’t be found online. I also use it to read handouts from conferences.

TMP: How do you research online?

DG: I google most things. For example, I needed to know about what type of cars would have been produced in England in the 1930s. I discovered the Swift Motor Company had exactly what I needed.

TMP: Writing can be a family business. Are there things you have to delegate?

DG: My husband, David, is my first-line editor. He is the first one to read everything I write. He catches grammar and punctuation mistakes. He comes to my rescue when I run into sight-related roadblocks. For example, he helps me when I want to post my book covers, or pictures from writing events, since I can’t tell if I’m posting these right way up.

In losing my vision, there have been many challenges, but thanks to JAWS I was able to pursue my dream and become a published author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Debby Grahl lives on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, with her husband, David, and their cat, Tigger. Besides writing, she enjoys biking, walking on the beach and having a glass of wine at sunset. Her favorite places to visit are New Orleans, New York City, Captiva Island in Florida, the Cotswolds of England, and her home state of Michigan. She is a history buff who also enjoys reading murder mysteries, time travel, and of course, romance. Visually impaired since childhood by Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), she uses screen-reading software to research and write her books.

Her first published book, The Silver Crescent, a paranormal romance set in her home state of Michigan, won the Paranormal Romance Guild Reviewers’ Choice award. Her latest book, Rue Toulouse, a contemporary romance set in New Orleans, was a finalist in the National Excellence in Romantic Fiction Award. Debby belongs to Romance Writers of America, Florida Romance Writers, and First Coast Romance Writers.

We all know we can’t squeeze more hours out of a day. We can manage our time and our goals more effectively though. The key is to do so incrementally.

If you try to change too much too fast, the chances are you will find yourself sliding back into old habits. By making small and steady improvements over time, you can move towards significant and lasting lifestyle changes that will provide you with more time to write every day.

Start With Small Change

What are you doing that supports your writing? Do more of it.

What are you doing that detracts from your writing? Do less of it.

Modify Your Schedule

What can you change on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to give you more time to write?

• Consider whether or not there is a committee you can bow out of.
• If you have teenagers, is it time they did their own laundry?
• Look at your calendar and find an appointment to cancel. Cross it out and replace it with ‘writing’ instead.
• Could you get up an hour earlier in the morning or go to bed an hour later in the evening on some days of the week?
• Turn off the television. If you have a favorite show you don’t want to miss, record it and watch it at a time convenient for you, such as at the end of the day when you are too tired to write.
• Is it time for a social media sabbatical? How many hours a day do you spend on social media? Yes, hours. Even turning off notifications while you are writing can provide you with more time to increase your word count.

Multitask

It’s important to know what other authors are publishing. Reading, however, takes up valuable writing time. By listening to audio books, you can enjoy novels while driving, working out, preparing meals, and other activities.

Choose a driving vacation and take turns at the wheel. When you’re not driving, this is your chance to write.

We know people who’ve written novels traveling on the New York subway. Turn a commute into a productive writing session by seizing the opportunity and having a positive attitude.

Modify Your Goal

It may make sense to change or even drop a goal instead of part of your routine. If your goal is to publish ten sci-fi books, for example, you can make publishing ten books more achievable by changing your genre. Science fiction tends to have longer word counts because of all the descriptions involved in building the worlds. By choosing a genre with a lower word count, such as romance (50,000-75,000 on average), and you might achieve your goal in half the time.

Completing a novel isn’t the work of a single morning, so allow your improvements in time management to happen incrementally too. By consistently managing your activities, your attitude, and your goals, you can make more of your available writing time

Authors with traditional publishing deals can also make the most of advantages offered by independent publishing. Here’s a look at when it makes sense for a traditionally-published author to self-publish.

You are writing in an experimental genre that traditional publishers won’t touch

Independent publishing is great for targeting niche markets. As an indie, it is not only possible to react quickly to changes in the marketplace, but it is less risky financially to go after niche subgenres, such as Steampunk or Sword and Sorcery.

If you are blending genres in a new way, you will find hardcore fans online, but the best way to reach them might be to do so alone. For a traditional publisher, the numbers might not be persuasive. Authors can make good money, however, by heading directly for digital venues, with little competition from traditional publishing.

Your traditional publisher can’t publish you as fast as you can write

For the most part, traditional publishers are slow-moving compared to their indie counterparts. The larger your trade publisher’s backlist, the longer it may take to see your work published.

One of the reasons Stephen King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman was that his publisher wouldn’t change its publication schedule to keep up with his production schedule.

With indie publishing, you set the publishing schedule. If you are able to publish a book a week, you are welcome to do so. This gives you the opportunity to build up your backlist, improve your digital footprint, or create promotions involving multiple books.

As a hybrid author, you can coordinate with your traditional publisher to use indie novels to bridge the gaps between traditional publication.

You’ve written a short-form piece such as a novella that wouldn’t be appropriate for traditional publishers.

Digital publishing has demonstrated that there is a market for novellas, but they are prohibitive to traditional publishers due to the cost of producing and shipping them, shelf space, and limits on for how much they can sell them. Unless you are a huge name with a following, novellas are a tough sell with traditional publishers.

As an indie, you can overcome most of these issues. Novellas are a viable product for an eager audience that appreciates shorter reads.

You have backlist titles whose rights have reverted and you want to get them back on sale

As an indie, you can very quickly get your old books back on sale. You can control how you manage your backlist, including where they are listed, how much you will sell the books for, and any promotions.

If you have out of print books, you can digitize them with a service such as 52 Novels, upload them, and start making money the same day.

You want to participate in writing projects with other authors

As an indie, you can try new things for creative expression or cross-promotion. Anthologies, story collaborations, and linked novels, in which authors share worlds and/or characters, are increasingly common in the indie space.

If you want flexibility, look to indie-publishing. And remember that your choice of traditional or indie publishing need not be mutually exclusive. Use the best of both approaches to get the most out of your writing and publishing.