Hi David,

I am very happy to read your article, I am also happy with reading from the internet or books. in my opinion, someone’s work can be determined from his own handwriting. sometimes I am annoyed to see editors who only edit a little of the original work but instead have more readers, but on the other hand I understand that this is where the work of the original authors became famous. so the conclusion in my opinion, mutually beneficial one side. please correct me if I misrepresent. or do you agree?

In reply to Heather Lovatt.

Yeah, I’ve made some odd life choices too. I swear they all seemed reasonable, or at least funny, at the time. And yup, Eisler was successful before going indie.

The Secret’s on the way. Dunno if it’ll make it past a spam filter. Maybe! {8’> But actually if you have trouble with the attachments just let me know & I’ll send you a download link.

In reply to David.

Funny thing? All the characters you describe in these paid jobs?

We have them on Wattpad. Same day, different shite. *grin*

Heather, confirming the universe, yet aAGAIN!

In reply to Richard.

But see, Richard, that head honcho is the real problem. And indicative of too many jobs I, personally, in my life, have quit.

The good ones leave, is the first thing young people need to be aware of; something about the job is limiting them and so they move on. Leaving openings in power, like this head honcho who are probably mediocre talents, at best. And have the power of the grammar nazi bible, in their left hand. *grin*

Imagination is what expands this universe. And I am here to say:

Amen to the men who imagine.

Thank you, David. I’m around.

Heather, holed up on Wattpad

In reply to David.

I can appreciate what this first poster has said. All cutthroat business environments have hierarchial problems like this. (McDonald’s anyone?) And so long as you have ’employees’ that put up with this shit, it will continue. Many of these businesses have a really high “Aren’t we wonderful?” kinda visibility. Funny, that. Young kids grow up on this minimum wage war treatment and take it into real jobs. You need to just say no, when you’re being abused. *blinks*

A person, doing a job, needs to be validated. If you aren’t being validated to your satisfaction, quit that job. And start your own.

We have shitloads of kids, on WP who offer editing services in exchange for something; usually a follow or you read their stuff. This kind of division of talent is occuring on Wattpad as well.

Thing is: we don’t deal in dollar signs here. But a lot of the kids that do this are STILL part of that ‘educated’ realm of writing. No ‘stumping’ allowed. *grin*

Heather

In reply to David.

Sorry. Didn’t see this. Obviously. *grin*

Start sending me your books, David. PDF? Email. I guess. Been doing internet technology since 1997 but I stopped even having a phone when I came out here from Toronto to Manitoba. I do internet. *grin* And I do fine. *grin*

I don’t have a tiny Kindle box of any kind. Nor do I have buyer’s status on places like Amazon. No credit card. Never did those. Don’t do money much really. Been living in Canada inna house with no heat or water, going on three years. I live strange. Been doing it a while. Sorta why I get you, I guess. *shrugs*

I’m not bothered by reading gyspies. Is there any other kind of human being out there? Oh? Really? *laugh*

Twitter and Facebook always struck me as dumb. How many ways can you say buy my book on Twitter or Facebook, for starters? The duplicates I used to see of posts drove me batty. BOTH those devices work with people like the manband “Take That”. They’ve been famous BEFORE those marketing devices. You know?

Wasn’t Barry, as well? *cocks head* They rarely factor that into their conversations on this ‘you can win on the in-ternet,’ yes?

I always liked the way you wrote. I simply got off the ‘Amazon’ and ‘publishing’ train and went to WP to write stories. I’ve learned a lot of stupid shite there too. People politics.

I hadn’t realized I’d already read this post. I was gonna reply again, cos more recently, I’ve had the whole “critiquers” who know best horseshit…. here, at WP, up to the gills.

Be they university students or bookclub people; mostly what I meant is someone ‘educated’ them in a way that finally made me realize this:

writers write, editors don’t. They ‘correct’.

And god help you if you don’t believe every single word they tell you, PARTICULARLY that you should be using your book revenue *grin* to pay THEM to edit your books.

yes? *grin*

I’m around. I know you may not be.

So be well, no matter what.

Heather

In reply to Gavin.

Hi!

The more time that flows by and around me (because of course I’m immune to any of its direct effects), the more I question whether I’ll ever know what the hell is or ain’t important. I have some notions about in-house versus freelance editors that I posted here, but OTOH I certainly don’t guarantee any accuracy therein.

Glad to see people are still reading this thing. It’s been around for quite a while now. Scribendi-folk (by which I mean the company) still haven’t responded to me! {8’>

Just wanted to say ‘hi’ and I’m glad I found this discussion as I’d been thinking about applying to Scribendi as a proofreader, but have now had second thoughts!

I also thought I should add that while I’m trained as a proofreader, I still have some idea about the editorial role, and I think the changes they made to your sample paragraphs are outrageous! Where fiction is concerned, authorial voice is key, and they totally removed that in what they sent back to you. Even with the words that you chose to capitalize, an editor should be looking at your piece as a whole – if it’s inconsistent, then they should flag this with you and try to reach a mutual agreement about the best way forward. With editing, the ‘query’ is key.

I guess the main difference between working with editors in-house and businesses like Scribendi, is that the former have a vested interest in helping you make your book ready for publication, whereas the latter just see it as another income source and don’t care so much about what happens once it’s sent back to the author. It sound like your use of beta readers is a good way to go (particularly if they have the possible incentive of a name credit in the acknowledgements at the back of the book).

In reply to Richard.

Done! I’ll send you an email later tonight.

In reply to David.

Well, this is my email address: [REDACTED]

Could you remove it from here as soon as you’ve used it or not used it, please?