Choosing an Editor for Your Indie Published Work

I make my thoughts on editing no secret. Self-edits have their place — initial rewrites, shorter information products that need a very quick turnaround, etc. But for most indie publishers there’s no good excuse to release your work without it crossing the desk of a professional editor.

Even more than that, I’m a strong believer in hiring an editor. I don’t care how many editors you’re friends with. Your friends have an incentive to take it easy on you (even if they say they won’t), and an editor’s job is to be completely objective.

What do you do when your baby is ready for the eyes of another? How do you choose the right editor for your books, stories, or e-books?

I’m currently narrowing down my own options for a short story series. Each story will be released individually online. When the entire series has been published, my plan is to release both a print book and e-book collection. That means I need an editor who not only can handle the horror genre effectively, but one I can count on for a good stretch of time.

I’ve narrowed it down to three editors, and they’re all qualified. I’m still trying to decide who to contact first. But I suspect I’ll start with the editor a close colleague recommended. That colleague is similar to me in that she wants an editor who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is.

That’s my issue with editors I’m friends with. They know I’m a no-BS, very blunt kind of gal, and that can be intimidating to some of them. I need someone who can get down and dirty with my work and meet me on my own level to call me out on any crap I might produce.

I trust this colleague’s judgment without question. So if her editor is available and willing, I’ll probably start there once I finish my own rewrites on the first story (in a week or two at most).

The other editors were ones I happened upon on my own. One I found through a search engine while looking for editors in the horror genre. The other was found in a directory of professional editors. Both are perfectly fine ways to find an editor of your own, but to me there’s no substitute for a personal referral.

What about you? How did you choose the editor for your indie published work? If you were looking for a new editor today, how would you go about finding one who is a good fit? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Changing Your Book’s Target Reader (After You’ve Written It)

My nonfiction book, The Query-Free Freelancer, has been moving along in an extraordinarily slow fashion. That’s due to a variety  of things (from several months of illness where I focused my limited work time on clients to simply shelving the project for a while for a fresher perspective).

Now that I’m moving forward with that first draft again (my own edits to the manuscript before sending it off to a pro), I’ve come across a serious problem. I targeted the wrong audience.

Well, technically I didn’t target the wrong audience so much as I targeted a smaller audience than I should have. I targeted freelance writers. But really the book applies to almost any kind of freelancer you can think of. And even the title seems to imply that, so I was concerned other freelancers would pick it up and be disappointed that the content was so heavily tailored to writers.

It’s a challenge and it means edits will take longer than planned, but here’s what I’m doing to fix this before the book is released:

• I’m editing most writer-specific language to apply more generally to freelancers. Specific case studies and examples may still focus on freelance writing. 
• I’m adding other examples to illustrate points using other types of freelancing.
• I’m going to conduct a series of interviews with a variety of freelancers about how they attract clients without direct pitches. These will be featured as sidebar-style extras.

I’ll also have to make some major adjustments in the early chapters where I talk about querying. While this kind of pitching is common in most freelancing specialties, the term “query” is most commonly used by writers. So I’ll need to clarify the intent better.

In addition to this target reader change, I still need to write one or two new chapters to cover information I feel deserves more attention, especially after cutting another chapter I wasn’t happy with in earlier edits.

While I have little interest in being an obsessive perfectionist, I think the extra time and edits will be worthwhile in this case. After all, they’ll open the book up to hundreds of thousands of additional possible readers over time, and they’ll enable me to use other elements of my platform (such as a small business site I own) to actively promote the book to that broader audience.

Have you ever written a manuscript only to realize you need to adjust your target readership? How did you handle the changes (or did you decide to stick with your original plan)? Tell me about it in the comments.

Indie Publishing Teams: Who to Include

We’ve talked about the fact that indie publishing is a business. And you know that if you’re serious about selling a top notch book you can’t go it alone. That’s where your indie publishing team comes into play. As a true indie publisher (rather than just a small publishing company with in-house staff), you’ll most likely work with independent contractors.

There are benefits to this:

• You don’t have to worry about long-term hiring, withholding income tax, or paying worker’s compensation insurance.
• You can handpick the best contractors for each individual project (the best designer for a children’s book cover might not be the same person as the best designer for a business book cover for example).
• You save money because you only hire people when you need them to complete specific tasks rather than paying a regular salary.

Now who exactly should be a part of your indie publishing team? What kinds of professionals might you want to hire as you bring your book to market? Here are several examples of contractors you might need to work with.

• Book marketing consultants
• PR consultants or publicists (not exactly the same thing)
• Cover designers
• Typesetters
• Developmental editors
• Line editors
• Proofreaders
• Copywriters (for your back cover blurb and marketing materials)

You may hire all of these people. You might be qualified to do some of the work yourself (I work as a freelance business writer, where I handle copywriting on a regular basis so I wouldn’t hire a copywriter, and I used to run a PR firm so I can handle that end for example). And some projects simply don’t need some of these people (a developmental editor would be more for a novel than a nonfiction book).

I’ve yet to meet an author who can honestly do all of these things themselves. And I can tell you from experience that trying to do it all yourself can wear you down and kill your project’s potential over time.

I’m sure I’m missing some other contractors you might consider working with. So who would you add to this list? Are there any here you hadn’t thought of while working on your own book? If you’ve already released one or more books and you could go back and do it over again, would you bring in any of these professionals to help? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

How Indie Published Books Can Maintain High Editorial Standards

Last week I shared my planned editing process for my books with you, and we talked about the ups and downs of self-editing. Let’s now look beyond self-edits and talk about other ways indie authors can maintain high editorial standards — one of the biggest concerns people raise when criticizing self-published books as a whole.

The editorial options you choose will vary based on your type of book, your budget, and other factors. But here are some of the basic options available to indie publishers:

• Self-editing
• Beta readers
• Developmental editors
• Line editors
• Proofreaders
• Critique partners
• Writers’ groups

In an ideal world I’d like to mix and match at least three of these options for bigger projects. And I intend to have my fiction go through more editing steps than my nonfiction (for example using a developmental editor to help me with the story concept and flow before sending it to a copywriter to be tightened up).

Which of these editing resources or methods do you find most helpful? What does your editing mix look like? What other options do indie authors have that I haven’t listed here? Leave a comment below to share your stories, tips, and favorite resources.

The Value (and Limits) of Self-Editing: Part 2

Previously I shared the editing process I came up with for my own indie published books. That process includes extensive self-editing, a professional editor, and objective beta readers. Let’s continue to look at the self-editing side of editing your books. I consider self-editing a necessity. But it’s not the be all and end all. It’s just one part of the process. There are ups and downs. Let’s take a look at a few.

The Benefits of Self-Editing

1. Self-editing makes you look at your work more objectively than when you first drafted it.
2. When you self-edit your books you have the opportunity to make big changes before paying a professional editor.
3. I find that self-editing makes me feel more invested in a project. The more time that goes into it, the harder I’m going to work to make it a success.
4. Knowing you plan a few rounds of self-edits gives you more freedom and flexibility when writing your first draft. For example, I know I can add something with a note to research it later if it wasn’t in my original plan. Or I can write free-flow without concerning myself with spelling and grammar until I get to the editing process.

The Risks of Self-Editing

1. Self-editing a manuscript can give you a false sense of completion. There’s the potential “good enough” mentality.
2. Self-editing can encourage a “me me me” mindset where we do what we want and what we think is right or best without any input from those who might know better (and therefore be able to help us improve our craft).
3. It’s easy to miss things in the self-editing process because our brains know what we meant to say even if it’s not what’s really on the page.

I’m sure those are far from the only benefits and risks of self-editing for indie authors. What does your editing process look like? How does it vary based on the type of project? What are some of the other high and low points of self-editing? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts.