Recently, I read this line on a chat group I hang with: An editor who does not charge is not a true editor. That sort of logic if taken to writing would say that an artist or writer or composer is not a true WHATEVER unless he or she is making money at it; unless and editor is making money at editing, he or she is not a real editor. This sort of snobbery has existed in NYC book business forever as they pay editors so well (HA!). I have had many many editors, some who woud place a comma between many many and some who would not, and I have as yet to find one properly compensated by anyone. I have also operated my own editorial services (Knife Services) from my website, and I charge half or a third of what some editors charge, and lately, the business is slow as molasses.
No one wants to pay for editing services. To this I can attest. To qualify that, few want to pay for editing services, but one way or another every author needs a great editor or two or three in order to truly get a MS to sing.
An editor for your work is worth his or her weight in gold, even if he or she edits your work for nothing but the opportunity and "privilege" and charge you nada...for no charge. Despite the line this blog began with, there are capable and surprisingly fine editors among those who do not charge a fee; I know because I have availed myself of some excellent editorial help at no charge over the years. These people are my early readers. People I have cultivated a strong friendship with as a result of our making great books together, people who wind up in my acknowledgment pages.
It may upset some pricey editors (some priced at ten dollars a page if you can imagine it) to hear such talk from a professional writer and published author, but I have relied all my life and career on people who have a sixth sense about what works and what does not work in a manuscript, items you want OUT before the MS goes to press or release to Kindle or Smashwords or wherever you are publishing nowadays.
My Children of Salem, my highest grossing Kindle title, was put through the grist mill by two editors in particular who suffered and struggled with me like Jonah and the Whale until we GOT it. My work in progress, Titanic 2012 has had the tremendous help of two editors in particular who have wrestled that one to the mat where they MAKE me wring out rather than ring out the right words and save me countless embarrssing moments as well as point out plot weaknesses and sags. They are simultaneously copyeditors and developmental editors these folks.
I go back as far as 1965 or 6 working with my Wells High School managing editor on the school newspaper for editorial advice, and damn but she was good with langauge and writing; one lesson she taught me then stayed with me all my writing career - Acitve over Passive. I get cudos for making my work "compelling, fast-paced, a page-turning roller-coaster ride" etc. etc. due in great part to my editorial board -- and now that I am a writer turned publisher putting out Original to Kindle titles, I rely even more on my early readers, my editorial board. They have recently truly impressed me, digging damn deep to make the work the best it can be to the point it is no longer about me but the novel itself that comes first. Of course, it helps that the publishing industry has long, long ago beat the living ego out of me.
My apologies to those who consider themselves legitimate editors because they charge a fee, whether fair or exorbitant, but sorry as I am, I must say that there are people who are not just willing to be early readers for an author but who become invaluable editors an author can and does TRUST, often just as much as he trusts an editor within a publishing house or with a logo. I love editors, love them all, and feel they all deserve a raise but the practice of authors cultivating two, three, four early readers is not likely to stop but increase as we go to press as Indie au
new posts in all blogs
With all the hoopla, smoke, and mirrors going on in the publishing world over ebook pricing or what they call the sales model for ebook pricing, there’s been a lot of confusion. Confusion is in fact the natural state of most authors in relation to their publishers. Publishers routinely keep writers in the dark about many aspects of their practices and why not on how they price a book? I don’t mean to sound as bitter as I actually am but there you have it. For when it comes to such matters as cover art, for instance, or the size type on your title or name or both, and when it comes to how a book is distributed, if the publisher uses or does not use jobbers, if the publisher has cut any sweetheart deals with big box stores like Costco or Wal-Mart, and if in such cases an author earns any royalties, and if a royalty statement ever comes to an author can it be read?
The long long history of writers and their publishers has not been a gentle, kind one but rather every horror story you have ever heard at the bar about a writer and his publisher is true, true, true. In the end, typically, the writer gets it in the end—and I mean that literally. Now comes an opportunity offered by Amazon.com for authors to go “Indie” – to become their own publishing concern in partnership with Amazon acting as bookstore and distributor in one, and for the first time in history authors are getting paid what their efforts are worth.
In the meantime, while many authors have been partnering via ebooks over the hard years when it was generally believed by print publishers that ebooks were a flash in the pan and would go the way of many another fad—authors and Amazon have been in the business of ebooks. Major publishers of the NYC variety have eschewed and seldom understood this area of book sales and in fact have not supported it. Until now. Until the day it appears ebooks can and do outsell paper books on occasion—as with this past Christmas. Now suddenly, Macmillan is decrying the situation as Amazon has defined it—that no Kindle book would cost more than ten bucks, because as Macmillan CEO says, authors can earn more money if their ebooks are priced higher, and so he flies to Seattle, meets with Amazon CEO and offers up an ultimatum when Mr. Bezos says no to 15 buck ebooks for Macmillan titles. Most Macmillan authors think that they won when Amazon backed down and accepted the price increase for Macmillan books, and the general consensus among Mac authors and many others is that the giant publishing firm struck a blow for writers.
Nothing further from the truth. Amazon knows its clientele better than anyone on the planet, and they know that few people believe that an ebook priced at above the 9.99 promised price for years now is going to earn out far more monies for authors than the higher prices—which will be boycotted in huge measure by readers of ebooks. Ebook readers are not interested in titles priced high whether they are bestsellers or not. Ebook readers love FREE books, public domain books are being gobbled up at an unprecedented rate! Followed by the .99 cent book and the 1.99 cent book. Ebook readers are voracious and most have enough reading piled up for the moment to last them months. They are not in the market for Dan Brown’s latest at paper price or ebook price if it is over 9.99.
Of these facts I am sure because I have been watching this trend for years, and I have had ebooks on FictionWise for years, and I have ten Kindle titles onboard with plans to add seventeen more, and the titles that are moving, selling, are not my 7 dollar titles priced by
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Children of Salem, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 5 of 5
By: Rob Walker,
on 7/29/2010
Blog: ACME AUTHORS LINK (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: editing, mystery, early readers, Children of Salem, #writing ebooks, editorial help, suspenseful editing, editing ebooks, Add a tag
Blog: ACME AUTHORS LINK (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: editing, mystery, early readers, Children of Salem, #writing ebooks, editorial help, suspenseful editing, editing ebooks, Add a tag
8 Comments on what Editors Know, last added: 8/1/2010
Display Comments
Add a Comment
By: Morgan Mandel,
on 2/5/2010
Blog: ACME AUTHORS LINK (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Robert W. Walker, Amazon, publishers, ebooks, Walmart, Macmillan, Children of Salem, Add a tag
Blog: ACME AUTHORS LINK (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Robert W. Walker, Amazon, publishers, ebooks, Walmart, Macmillan, Children of Salem, Add a tag
The long long history of writers and their publishers has not been a gentle, kind one but rather every horror story you have ever heard at the bar about a writer and his publisher is true, true, true. In the end, typically, the writer gets it in the end—and I mean that literally. Now comes an opportunity offered by Amazon.com for authors to go “Indie” – to become their own publishing concern in partnership with Amazon acting as bookstore and distributor in one, and for the first time in history authors are getting paid what their efforts are worth.
In the meantime, while many authors have been partnering via ebooks over the hard years when it was generally believed by print publishers that ebooks were a flash in the pan and would go the way of many another fad—authors and Amazon have been in the business of ebooks. Major publishers of the NYC variety have eschewed and seldom understood this area of book sales and in fact have not supported it. Until now. Until the day it appears ebooks can and do outsell paper books on occasion—as with this past Christmas. Now suddenly, Macmillan is decrying the situation as Amazon has defined it—that no Kindle book would cost more than ten bucks, because as Macmillan CEO says, authors can earn more money if their ebooks are priced higher, and so he flies to Seattle, meets with Amazon CEO and offers up an ultimatum when Mr. Bezos says no to 15 buck ebooks for Macmillan titles. Most Macmillan authors think that they won when Amazon backed down and accepted the price increase for Macmillan books, and the general consensus among Mac authors and many others is that the giant publishing firm struck a blow for writers.
Nothing further from the truth. Amazon knows its clientele better than anyone on the planet, and they know that few people believe that an ebook priced at above the 9.99 promised price for years now is going to earn out far more monies for authors than the higher prices—which will be boycotted in huge measure by readers of ebooks. Ebook readers are not interested in titles priced high whether they are bestsellers or not. Ebook readers love FREE books, public domain books are being gobbled up at an unprecedented rate! Followed by the .99 cent book and the 1.99 cent book. Ebook readers are voracious and most have enough reading piled up for the moment to last them months. They are not in the market for Dan Brown’s latest at paper price or ebook price if it is over 9.99.
Of these facts I am sure because I have been watching this trend for years, and I have had ebooks on FictionWise for years, and I have ten Kindle titles onboard with plans to add seventeen more, and the titles that are moving, selling, are not my 7 dollar titles priced by
6 Comments on eBook Wars - What They Portend For Writers by Robert W. Walker, last added: 2/6/2010
Display Comments
Add a Comment
By: Morgan Mandel,
on 1/29/2010
Blog: ACME AUTHORS LINK (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Authonomy, Children of Salem, Echelon Press. Robert W. Walker, Add a tag
Blog: ACME AUTHORS LINK (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Authonomy, Children of Salem, Echelon Press. Robert W. Walker, Add a tag
 Martin Scorscese was awarded a special life's work Golden Globe award for directing films, and his acceptance speech was a long eulogy to all those who came before him, all those he learned from and built upon. Ever watch a young artist at work? Go to any museum and you will find a young painter at an easel set up before one of the Masters—Van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso, Rembrandt. A look over the student's shoulder shows that she's not painting just anything, but rather she is attempting to duplicate the master artist's method, trying to determine precisely how the artist in question used line, shape, light, shadow, brush stroke, color, medium, pick, pencil, charcoal—the whole of it. A student of art learns skills, tools, and techniques via mimicry and imitation, or if you prefer stealing—focusing so closely on how Renoir did it to learn it and own it. The how and why of the masters has to be harnessed. Even if one doesn't care for Picasso's art, one needs to know how he pulled it off. Writers do the same, but they do so via voracious reading. As a writer reads, so shall he reap. Learning the art of establishing shots, openings, dialogue, settings, character, plot, props, symbols, metaphor, simile, texture, depth, color, tone and the marriage of all the parts amounts to working on a PhD in Letters. Steinbeck liked to say, "I'm just a storyteller" and that's all well and good, but he was also an artist to learn from—a writer's writer in other words. Writers who succeed in finding their own brush stroke(s) or style do so by closely examining and trying their hand at crafting words in the "voice" of variou
2 Comments on On Becoming An Artful Writer by Robert W. Walker, last added: 1/31/2010
Display Comments
Add a Comment
By: Morgan Mandel,
on 1/15/2010
Blog: ACME AUTHORS LINK (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags: Rob Walker, Children of Salem, setting is character, Add a tag
 James Lee Burke’s novels come instantly to mind when one thinks of the New Orleans area, in particular New Iberia, LA. Mark Twin leaps to mind for Life on the Mississippi and for Missouri in particular. Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens for 18th Century London and environs. Some authors are so closely associated with a given geography that we must know it is due to their depiction of that area in such intimate terms due to their intimacy with place. Setting does not always take such prominence in a novel, but when it does get “captured” like a running film with all its quirks, pimples, darkness, and light, it becomes a character in a sense, one the main character interacts with, relates to, is fascinated with and loves and often protects, or detest and is often at odds with and will decry its ugliness for instance. And true sometimes the protagonists has terribly ambivalent feelings about his or her surroundings—be it Chicago, LA, New York, Miami, Houston, etc…etc… In Pure Instinct, I became so enamored with Hawaii that I provided a complete character of it, but in the novel it is my interpretation, the place having been put through the prism of Dr. Jessica Coran’s eye—sifted through the mind and heart of my protagonist. This makes the character of Hawaii in that novel uniquely mine, yet it is based on facts and research and having visited the state, and having come away with a powerful, moving impression that the place made on me, the author. Until then, I had never so thoroughly engrossed myself in presenting setting as character, but here was a setting that informed all the characters in the story and shaped them as well. After writing Pure Instinct, I began a concerted effort to always “characterize” my settings; to make setting equal out to character. As a result, that plan has served my novels well from my depiction of 1893 Chicago in my Inspector Alastair Ransom series to modern day Atlanta in Dead On, Houston in my Edge Series, and a variety of major cities in my Instinct Series as well as Early New England of 1692 infamy in Children of Salem. Whether an author chooses to use quick and generic brush strokes or fine and detailed brush strokes regarding setting, the attitude an author strikes about this extremely important element in story is all important. In short story, I feel, the quick, generic strokes are needed due to space limitations, but in a novel, I look to do the finest detail work I
10 Comments on Where to go w/Your Set Piece…SETTING the Stage…Setting is Character, last added: 1/16/2010
Display Comments
Add a Comment
By: Morgan Mandel,
on 12/31/2009
Blog: ACME AUTHORS LINK (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags: Rob Walker, DeadOn, Children of Salem, Add a tag
 I won’t catch every misplaced modifier or weak metaphor or missing comma or apostrophe, but I know for a fact that I am too close to the trees to see the forest, or too close to the forest to see the trees, or both since like a client in a courtroom who represents himself, I have a fool for an editor. I know it needs a judicious second and even third eye; in fact, better than most, I know I need all the help I can get. To this end, I have cultivated close friends whose advice and editing eye are spot on—folks I can rely on. Such friends can drive you insane as they are so detail conscious, but they are, as I said, spot on. I have seen errors in my finished books, however, and this after I have written and rewritten the story to exhaustion, and it has been vetted by my readers, and it has had a thorough going over by my editor and a copy editor as well, and guess what – still typos and words like Lamb for Lame filter in or are crammed in by the ink gremlins (creatures that abound in magazines, playbills, brochures, how-to’s, and novels). Still we try and try and try. No novel in the history of novels has been rewritten more than my Children of Salem and yet my hero, Wakely gets spelled as Wakley at least once, and tomb should have been tome in the first chapter. So it goes, but we must strive to make the version that goes to an editor’s desk as clean and error-free as we can possibly make it, as this is a major part of the job at hand. TEN items I edit for as I write (in fact both sides of the brain can work in tandem with experience) 1 - Edit for LY words and other modifiers, adjectives, adverbs to hug the word they ‘modify’. 2 - Edit to catch pronouns that are ‘fuzzy’ or confusing for whatever reason and in need of being replaced by naming the person, place, or thing the pronoun is standing in for. Constantly ask who are they…what is it…who is he/she. 3 – Edit out as many prepositions and prepositional phrases as possible as in switch: ‘stood up from the chair’ with ‘stood’ – and such phrases as ‘out of the back of the car’ with ‘from the car’ and excise so many sentences that unnecessarily end with ‘to me’. Anytime you can replace two or three prepositional or directional words with a single word that is a WIN. 4 – Omit as many of the word VERY as you can find along with many another qualifier in the narrative; look up the part of speech that is called a qualifier and avoid them like the plague; they are related to adjectives, adverbs, and modifiers and are o
10 Comments on There's Editing & There's Editing...What's Your Process? By Robert W. Walker, last added: 1/4/2010
Display Comments
Add a Comment
|
Rob, I get your point. (I usually do)but I disagree somewhat. Readers, beta, alpha or rho are not the same as editors nor do they fulfill the same function for you. I admit sometimes you can't tell the difference, but that may be the author's ms. prob. not the reader's.
As a professional in some fields, although I do a lot of pro bono work, I have a basic expectation of payment for my expertise. Likewise, I expect to pay the expert editors I employ. Doing the business of authoring in a business-like way has many more upsides than down.
Interesting post, Rob. I tend to feel like when I pay for an editor's services--which they well-deserve, I likely have their undivided attention.
Not to say you always get what you pay for, but....
Rob, you are so right. A good editor is worth his/her weight in gold. I am so very, very fortunate to have a good one.
Still can't wait for the Titanic book!
Rob, I have to agree with Carl re: Reader vs Editor. Readers sometimes allow their prefs to intrude w/in their comments.
In the past I've edited pro bono.
Reason: I may have come across a midlist writer - already published-who is attempting to 'add' a bit of another genre into their WIP...
Usually it's just a question of tweaking.
You talk about writers who try to publish before a book is ready.
Today it's so easy to do. Vanity press consortiums hold contests of self published works. Participants PAY to enter. Their names and works are posted on the promoter's website. The writers drag the brag and 'award' to their web site.
None of these 'awards' are recognized by any traditional publisher in the industry.
It is a legal scam IMO.
The winners 'pay' for stickers to put on their books to help sell to unsuspecting readers on Amazon.
Most of these writers don't know the difference between a 4th grade English teacher's grammar 'fix' and a developmental/substantive vet....Most have never heard of the latter.
I don't see the problem improving anytime soon....But I do see a lot of writers turning readers 'off' and ending up on a "DO NOT READ" list. sigh
I charge for editing because that's how I make my living. However, I advocate that every author have early readers as well.
One of my clients has a group of readers with a variety of knowledge. One lives in the locale where the books are set and helps ensure geographic accuracy. Some can verify the historical facts in novels set in the past. Others are just avid readers of historical novels who give their reactions from a reader's perspective. All the comments from the early readers come to me rather than to the author, and I advise him on which suggestions to accept because a few will argue over whether there should be a comma between many many. :-)
I have critiqued other writers' work at no charge and vice versa. However, I don't edit complete manuscripts for free. I think there is a difference between an early reader and an editor.
Lillie Ammann
A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye
I just take issue with blanket statements like the one I began with, that anyone not charging, anyone doing pro bono? anyone doing it because they LOVE it is not an astute editor. I draw on one fellow who is fantastic with technical stuff....I say stuff to emphasize I am all thumbs with technical sciences and applied science yet I have futuristic scenes in some of my works like Titnaic 2012. I also have historical chapters, alternate theories of the Legends grown up around the ship. My one techie editor is fantastic, and my other chief editor is fantastic. I know that you guys who edit and speaking to me that paid editors are better have no idea of the detailed job I get from my early readers. If my current success and paycheck keeps evovling, I may well pay these friends but I am likely to be turned down should I make the attempt. Sometimes it is more about the work than anything else, and I have been extremely fortunate in this.
You might care to know that I had not paid a cent to have Children of Salem worked over because all who worked on it did so because they felt it a book that they one wanted to read, two got as involved in as myself, and three felt a sense of pride in being a part of it, and it must've paid off as the book is on Kindle alongside 44 other titles and it has sold 104 copies without a single return in the past four weeks, and as such has beaten out my modern day medical examiner titles begun with Killer Instinct (NYC edited). Not one complaint or return since being placed up months ago.
I wrote this blog to encourage people who want to get involved in ebook publsihing to trust their instincts; if they love editing as they read, a lot of ebook authors NEED their help. It was not meant to cut into any "honest" editor's workload and I am sure it will not, but it does say that money is not always the only or the best motivation, and frankly, all editors I have known save a few truly love their work, paid well or not. If pay was the initial motive for "legit" editors who have degrees in English, Linguistics or Publishing no one would go into the field. Carl...have ye ever agreed with anything I've ever uttered? I can't recall it....lol
Rob
Rob,
If my comment came across as saying anyone who edits for love and not money isn't a real editor, I apologize. I wasn't saying that all. I was just explaining that, although I love editing, I'd get mighty hungry - which probably ins't a bad idea for a little while until I lose the extra weight I'm carrying :-) - if I didn't charge for it. Also the authors I work with tend to be people who have stories to tell but who aren't excellent writers. They need a lot more help than someone like you.
I don't think our ideas are very far apart.
Lillie Ammann
A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye
Lillie -- not at all; you are entitled to anything you can get as an editor and I know as most of my clients for Knife Services - well it requires a complete book autopsy as I call it and I charge under NYC rates but I do charge. I can't say what my no-charge readers actually say bout working on my books cause I would come off like completely arrogant....and I'd have a Scarlet letter round my neck as well as scarlet face....but they find it a privilege to work on my books...Their word, not mine.
But you cannot put bread on the table that way, so they do this as a matter of being a part of something larger than .... etc....and it is a respite from pain, suffering in some cases, and boredome in others....and in at least one case, her working on my book may well have saved her life if I can go by what one early reader says. Have had similar remarks by elderly students in my classes. I can only imagine....
rob