Support for Indie Authors discussion

I'm looking for editors and I just had a few questions. Like what is a fair price for editing the average 50,000 word novel? Do you send your book to three or four different editors? Or just one? And what is line editing and copy editing?
I'm just still kind of new at this. :)

Line editing focuses on the fluidity of the reading. Are your sentences too long? Do they cause confusion? Are you repeating thoughts over and over? Things of that nature.

Copyediting is only done after line editing and focuses more on the technical side: punctuation, grammar, spelling, etc. It's a very deep proofread.

I do proofreading, myself, and my clients only come to me when their manuscript has passed the line editing stage. I'm usually the last one to look at a manuscript before it goes off to publishing. But then again, I mostly work with self-published authors. If you worked with a publishing company, the copyeditor would likely be the last stop.

A reminder: no self-promotion. This question is addressed to authors. Please answer as authors and please do not post contact information. If you have a service to offer, there is a completely separate forum for that.

Alright, here goes. Unfortunately, there is no way to gauge the proper price for editing. I saw some posts where some editors gave their price for a two-pass edit. That means just this. They go through it two times and fix everything they find. Then it's payday. Don't expect perfection from a two-pass edit. Rule of thumb: The more passes, the cleaner it is. In fact, do not expect perfection at all from any edit. Expect excellence.

Not all editors are created equal, and the clock is ticking... tick, tick tick. An editor makes a living from editing manuscripts. The quicker the project is done, the quicker they get paid, and the quicker they get to the project, which is another paying customer.

50k words? It depends on the following factors. (1) Like I said before, how many edit passes they are willing to do, (2) Whether or not all they are doing is simple grammar, punctuation, and spelling corrections (3) If the editor is checking for anachronisms and plot conflicts and either fixing them or pointing them out for you to fix. (4) How booked they are and how much they can charge and get for their services.

The lowest I heard for 100k was $150 for a two-pass edit. I have heard of as much as $3000, but I am sure this would be a very booked professional with high profile clients and doing much, much more than a two-pass edit. And there is everything in-between depending on what you get, and who you get.

Since I am speaking as an author, here, let me put this into perspective. I have edited my own 132k manuscript over 50 times. I am doing the last an final polish because I am submitting this to an audiobook producer and I will not be editing it again. We are all familiar with Harper Lee, the author of the classic, "To Kill A Mockingbird." Harper was like me, making a project out of making her work perfect. She literally edited this book for a lifetime. She was so obsessed with perfection, that she died with her second book unfinished. We'll never be able to enjoy her second book.

The idea is to find a happy medium and get cleanly edited books and do more than one before you die.

My advice? Make sure you used a word processor with the spell check turned on and fix what you can first. Next, get a one month prescription from Grammarly and fix what you can yourself. Then go shopping for an editor. Find someone who is not available to start tomorrow. If they are not busy, they might not be any good.

Thank you! This is all really helpful!

Grace wrote: "Thank you! This is all really helpful!"

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA, which was founded in 1965 and runs the annual Nebula Awards) website has a plethora of info on how to find and vet editors:

http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/f...

It also has a list of resources to get editors from the Editorial Freelancers Association (since i noticed that you're in the US) as well as common rates:

"The Editorial Freelancers Association is a similar organization in the USA. Its website includes a Code Of Fair Practice defining ethical standards for freelancers and their clients, as well as an excellent job board where requests for editors can be posted. There’s also this helpful chart of common rates for editorial services."

It also has links to articles about the point at which you should have your ms edited.

I found my editors through kboards.
It's a very useful resource for everything writing related, and the yellow pages section ( http://www.kboards.com/yp ) has an extensive list of editors, and the services they offer.
In terms of price, they do vary widely from editor to editor, but the price will also vary depending on the quality of your manuscript. I would recommend self editing as much as you can before submitting. It will save you money in the long run. All reputable editors will list a price scale, and request a sample of your manuscript before they quote you a fixed price. This is so they can assess the quality of your work, and help them to estimate how long the job is likely to take, and, therefore, how much they will charge you. They will also provide you with a sample edit, so you, yourself, can assess the quality of their own work.
You should definitely acquire quotes and sample edits from several editors. Not only will this give you a selection of services/prices to chose from, but it will also help you select an editor who is the best 'fit' for you. Go for an editor who clearly understands your work. As Morris said, not all editors are created equal, and the important thing to remember is that you are the customer, and should only go for an editor who you are one hundred percent happy with.
On a final note, don't chose an editor because they are the cheapest, or because they lavish your work with glowing praise. Sometimes the harshest analysis is the most valuable.

Only one other piece of advice comes immediately to mind. Do make sure that your chosen editor works in your version of English. By which I mean if you are based in the UK you need a UK based editor. Ditto US. Otherwise it just doesn't work, spelling, the use of idiom, and even some of the finer points of grammar are just far enough apart to cause real problems.

Happened to an acquaintance in Canada. He got a UK based editor and pandemonium ensued.

If you cannot afford an editor, you can swap the service with some fellow author(s). "I'll edit your book and you edit mine." - that kind of thing. DON'T use friends as editors.
Another option is Ginger. I spotted a lot of bad things simply passing a manuscript through this program. It's not at editor-level, but still a relatively cheap option (obviously not with the same quality as a good editor).

Jane wrote: "Only one other piece of advice comes immediately to mind. Do make sure that your chosen editor works in your version of English. By which I mean if you are based in the UK you need a UK based edito..."

Thanks! I'll be sure to keep an eye out for that!

Grace wrote: "I'm looking for editors and I just had a few questions. Like what is a fair price for editing the average 50,000 word novel?"

Some things to keep in mind:

1. An editor is a pair of educated eyes. Their goal is to catch your mistakes, not turn sow's ear writing to silk purse level. Were they capable of that they would be selling their own writing and making a lot more money.
2. Except for technical, mistakes, an editor doesn't make changes, they point out the problem. So it follows that you must understand how to make it right. For example, if the editor says a given paragraph is passive, or a break in viewpoint, would your response be, "Huh?" or, would you say, "How could I have missed that?" and get to work fixing it? Yes, the editor will point out plot problems, like, "If the character is smart enough to do A, he can't be dumb enough to do B, here." They may even make suggestions, but it's your job to fix it.
3. Every genre has its norms. An adventure editor, handed a romance manuscript to edit, would be horrified. So if your potential editor says they can handle everything, be wary, because they probably haven't worked in the industry, and may make generic suggestions, so far as characterization and behavior, that don't apply in your genre. Sadly, many people claiming to be editors are people who love writing, but came to editing without either experience as an editor or successful sales of their work. But then, as T.S. Elliot observed, “Yes, I suppose some editors are failed writers - but so are most writers.”
4. Editing is expensive. How long would a customer take to read your story? Four hours? An editor, reading and evaluating each line individually, and making annotations, is going to take a lot longer, and expects to be paid a professional rate for that time. . And that second pass isn't a check to see what you did where there were notes (unless there were only a few), they have to look at it as whole, because to fix a given problem, you may have changed lots of things to conform to a change in the character's personality.

So obviously, you want your manuscript as clean as possible before you send it. And that means you must be writing, and self-editing, on a professional level—ideally, one where a submission to an agent would result in a request for the full manuscript, or pretty close to that (see point one, above).

So first, ask yourself if you're there. If not, you can dramatically reduce the amount of editing/rewriting needed by learning a bit about self-editing, and the tricks of the trade that the pros take for granted.

And here's where I'm working on speculation, having not seen your writing: Based on your comment of, "the average 50,000 word novel?" a bit of digging might help, because by traditional usage, 50 k/words is a novella.

Hope this helps.

Or let them know. Some might be good in both, but they need to know before hand.

Jay wrote: "1. An editor is a pair of educated eyes. Their goal is to catch your mistakes, not turn sow's ear writing to silk purse level. Were they capable of that they would be selling their own writing and making a lot more money...."

Not too sure about the 'A LOT MORE' money. For the editor, it's money straight in their pockets (minus taxes of course) but the author has to deduct that part, often the book cover, the marketing etc before they start earning money. So no wonder when you see a bunch of authors in a group, you immediately see tons of supposedly editors ready to grab their penny's worth.

It also takes less time to edit than to write. :P

Jay wrote: "And here's where I'm working on speculation, having not seen your writing: Based on your comment of, "the average 50,000 word novel?" a bit of digging might help, because by traditional usage, 50 k/words is a novella...."

Yep a bit of digging helped alright...According to WIKI, 50k is a NOVEL and not a NOVELLA. :P So Grace was right. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count

Various sources will have different lengths, but 50K is usually considered a novel, yes.

Various sources will have different lengths, but 50K is usually considered a novel, yes.

You can call a pig a swan, but it won't float. Submit a 50k manuscript to an agent/publisher and they'll laugh. That "definition" of what makes a novel has come in recently, and applies to self released work, because by making it easier to call ourselves a novelist, it increases the customer-base for Kindle and the POD houses, who's primary customer is the writer, not the reader.. They've reduced the "official" length to 40K, and will probably try to eliminate such distinctions as novel and novella in the future, but printed, a 50k book would look more like a pamphlet than a novel, I'm afraid.

Given that our competition is the professionally prepared and published work, it behooves us to be competitive in all ways, including length.

I use writing magazines as my sources, mainly Writer's Digest. Call it a pig or a swan or whatever you wish.

I learned to write primarily from studying the words of Hemingway, Orwell, Faulkner, Golding, Vonnegut, Steinbeck and many others. Most of them had novels published that were roughly 50K or less. But, you may be right. Trad publishers may laugh at me, which is why I self-publish.

My only competition is myself.

Guys, I think we are veering away from the question Grace posted. And Jay (yes I started a sentence with the dreaded AND), I'll remind you that we are a group that supports Indie Author and being condescending about Indies is against our rules.

There is a lot of good information here--and throughout all the posts. Copy editing and line editing can be very involved. There are however experienced people that may be interested in kind of a mentoring type of involvement. There is an SIA Showcase Workshop group and a place where you can offer or request services. Maybe you can ask for an editor there. If you have questions, check with one of the mods, here or at the Showcase, they are always very helpful. Best of luck!

Locking this thread as it has gone off topic. Grace, if you search the author help folder for info on editors, you'll find additional information there. Thanks.