Doing it…all. Myself.

Yep, I’ve already talked about this. Doesn’t mean there isn’t more to say. I saw this post by Passive Guy today, and it bugged me.

Now…he put it up without commentary, and I don’t want to impute an opinion. Also, I’d love to be wrong in mine. The title was “From Good to Great: What Editors Do for Authors” and…well. At one point the author of the original piece has this to say (emphasis mine):

My ideal author would be one who is anxious — not just willing — but anxious to work with me. I don’t mean me, Chuck Adams. I mean me, the editor. Someone who understands that, while they are happy with what they’ve done, there may be room for improvement. They’re open to listening to my suggestions and, once I have shared my wisdom with them, they do something with it.

I’ve tried roughly fifteen editors. I suppose I’d try another without much in the way of provocation. Thing is…I get junk in response. I don’t mean that my prose is masterful or that my sense of story is flawless. ‘Cause we all know better, and I promise: Regardless of what you see here, I’m more aware of my flaws as a writer than you could possibly imagine.

When I say junk? I mean:

• I get manuscripts back with lots of new grammatical errors. Basic ones.
• I get them back with stuff removed from Chapter One that makes Chapter Two ridiculous…and I’m not talking about chunks of backstory: sometimes it’s a single sentence that’s half the reason Chapter One exists to begin with. You know…pivotal stuff.
• I get comments to the effect that I write pretty sentences but need to work on my cinematic vision.
• I get comments to the effect that the story is good but I need a good copyeditor ASAP. (Yes, I’ve gotten both this and the above in response to the same chapter…which Amazon reviewers to date seem to feel works fairly well.)
• On the structural side, I get things like suggestions to scrap half the book…and sometimes the suggestions aren’t awful, because I can see how the book the editor envisions could be good. In Pagan Sex, for example, an editor didn’t like my female protagonist and wanted her largely removed. Which, given the odd but deliberately chosen structure of the book, would have also removed my reason for writing it. So…not an option. When I pointed out that the book would no longer be a romance, and that it would be much much darker, and that I was trying to accomplish specific things with the story…I got nothing back. Which struck me as somewhat unfair, in that my goals weren’t immoral or impossible to achieve. They might or might not be impossible for me to achieve at my current skill level, but so what? Trying to grow as a writer is kind of important. Writing my book, rather than another book with a single character lifted from my manuscript, is important. But what could I do? I paid the editor for her work, and moved on.
• Seriously. What I get is just not helpful.

As an indie I hate to admit it, but there was a single exception to my list of complaints regarding the quality of editorial feedback: I submitted a book to a “traditional” publisher. An editor there eventually let me know she liked it and asked for some very straightforward revisions. I made them…but a few more months went by (this process took nearly two years) and when I tried to contact her again I learned she’d left for another company. Nobody at the publisher seemed to know anything about my book. So: she was an editor, she wanted specific changes for specific (and reasonable) reasons, I made the changes, and it still turned into a waste of my time and emotional energy. In fact I quit writing fiction at all for nearly six years afterward (a mistake I won’t repeat). The changes she requested mostly made the book a bit less edgy…I don’t know that it was either better or worse as a result, but I didn’t have any particular emotional investment in those bits either.

So, are you an indie author? Have you met other indie authors? Did they want you to read and review their books? Were the books largely awful? Were you stuck trying to figure out what to say? These indie editors (by which I mean the ones who aren’t outright scam artists) have so far left me feeling pretty much the same way. So I’m working really hard on getting better at self-editing, as I have not found a viable alternative approach.

Then there are book covers.

Lots of people out there say they’ll create them for a fee. If you look at their portfolios, most of them suck. Now…in this case I’m certain there are lots of pros who actually know what they’re doing, and it’s clearly worth the money to pay them.

I’ve tried three. Not one cover designer actually delivered. In all three cases I got promises…but no cover. It can’t be me, as I never saw a cover to be difficult about. The most recent artist was supposed to start a week ago, and I’ve heard absolutely nothing. I don’t feel I have a reason to contact him at this point.

Buying pre-designed covers won’t really work for me either, because I have multiple books out and want their covers to have some design elements in common. Also, I really need my covers in a format that includes layers so I can edit their text as needed. Very few designers offer this.

So I’ve signed up for a six-week course starting this Wednesday, and we’ll see what I learn. At the very least I ought to be in a better position to judge covers I commission…should I ever receive one.

Ebook Formatting? Book interiors?

Okay, on the ebook side I just started doing it myself. I saw lots of things out there I didn’t like, and put some time into figuring out what I did. And frankly it’s not very difficult to publish a readable ebook. OTOH I’ve been putting a lot of effort into learning print book interior design. There are a surprising number of things I didn’t know I didn’t know. Some of this will carry over to the ebook side of things. And…I have to say I love doing it. So: I’ve never tried to hire a pro for this stuff. I probably never will.

At the end of the day?

I’m here in my writing cave. Slogging along. I’m having a great time with all this, but I do wish finding and hiring competent help were as easy as others imply. And if you’re in the same boat with your own work? I figured it might be helpful to let you know you’re not alone. [UPDATED/EDITED TO ADD: Also, I want to know why we’re in a boat in a cave. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.]

Have fun out there.