I'm looking for an Editorial Service for my Fiction Novel

Huskrrrr | June 15, 2017 | Vanity

[Huskrrrr]

I have finished my first fiction novel, and I am requesting the names of editors that might help me with a developmental edit. My goal is to submit a polished manuscript (or sample) to potential literary agents. Any advice from experienced authors will be greatly appreciated. The genre is fantasy/romance. An adult or possibly young adult audience is my focus.

[Rock N Jones]

Have you tried CNN,ABC, MSNBC,or CBS? Their pretty good when it comes to fiction.

[JenB]

Finding an agent is hard. I’d advise you to do a lot of research there. (For instance: the phrase “fiction novel” in a query will often get you deleted right there because the agent will assume you don’t know what you’re talking about, and then not bother to read your pitch)

Self publishing is very attractive but it’s worth it to try to find a legacy publisher. If you want to publish with the big name companies, keep your conservatism quiet. There absolutely is a major bias.

What sort of editing do you want? Developmental, line edits, copy edits? I think you’ll get better milage if you find four or five readers - not your friends and family - who will read your book and tell you what they honestly think. Once that’s done, the self publishing world is full of editors, some worth it and some not. Try reading a self published novel or twelve in your target genre. Find ones that are well edited and then try to find out who edited it (hint: if you email the author, say “I bought your book, loved it, and left a five star review on Amazon, can you tell me who your editor is” you’ll probably get great results)

Good editors charge pretty high, and are often booked for months. Bad editors aren’t worth what you pay them.

[jcon40]

Bookbaby is a great self publishing site that offers cover design, marketing help and connections for editing ... Several friends publish with them and swear by them especially for first timers

Fiver.com is also worth a look but notice they are a worldwide site where sometimes advertisers are English as a second language. They also do cover design etc. with fiver you work directly with independents. You would still have to pull everything together yourself for a finished product.

Depending on the level of editing you need it can be quite costly.
Punctuation, formatting and spelling aren’t so bad but if you want full editing it can run around around 3 cents a word for a real pro... Do the math ... Yikes!

I just completed the first draft of a 150,000 word comedy / Sci fi . Turns out one of my test readers, an attorney friend, wants to edit for only having his name on the novel and taking a cut of sales as he thinks it is going to do well.

Another novel I wrote (130,000 words) I ended up contacting a seasoned writer from our local paper who was out of work. She cost me about $1500 and did an excellent job (in depth edit) I had already done 15 rewrites myself and she hacked it, cleaned it, juiced it up a bit but ended with a woman’s feel to it. I’’m now doing one more edit and will then self publish w Bookbaby.

She is back writing full time w the local paper and not available.

I have another friend who is writing her 8th romance and landed an agent after her 1st book (self published) her agent expects her writing to be already well edited then does their own version. She has published 7 books with them but makes very little $$$, especially for all the work.

Amazon also offers book writing help thru Createspace that competes with Bookbaby but the folks at Boookbaby are apparently the best ..

Good luck

[wafflehouse]

some of these links might be helpful



https://www.reddit.com/r/Edtiting/

https://www.reddit.com/r/author/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Future_Authors/

https://www.reddit.com/r/bookworldproblems/

https://www.reddit.com/r/freelanceWriters/

[GOPJ]

If you haven’t already, I’d suggest having some other people read it first - they don’t need to be literary types, though ideally they’d be people in your market. Another strategy is to give at least some of the readers only the first one to two thirds of your book on which to comment. If they don’t ask you for the rest to find out what happens, you’ll know you have more work to do.

Excellent advice - or as I say, "you don't have to eat all of a rotten egg to know it's rotten"...

[ought-six]

The editing or rewrite is the real talent. Find someone who has some talent.

[LS]

Sorry, my guy does non-fiction only, and no kids books.

[Huskrrrr]

Thank you all so much. You’ve helped more than you know.

[cyclotic]

My daughter is currently going to school hoping to become an editor. I wouldn’t ask her to do it for free but she is very good at what she does. She’s done a couple things for a national organization. My other daughter has expertise on children’s literature she she has a built in consultant. PM me if interested.

[ealgeone]

I self-published a fictional book about 8 years ago.

I was not pleased with my publisher. The editing process was horrible. I basically wound up editing my own work.

What self-publishing does for you is make your book available on Amazon and to bookstores if you're fortunate enough to have book signings.

A lot of editors you hire will run your book through a word processing program to check for errors. As you know these don't catch every error.

You need someone to put eyes on the page and that is a slow process.

Are you still in touch with your high school English teacher per chance? Might be a good start there as a low cost approach.

Has anyone other than you read your work? Would be good for a different perspective.

freepmail me if you have questions.

Good luck!

[publius911]

I'm looking for an Editorial Service for my Fiction Novel

There are many Freepers who would make excellent editors, save, perhaps, for what you call "developmental editor" thing. Makes it sound like a ghost writer or co-author.

What have you go to lose?

More input!!"

[WWBrock]

In the arena of “Self Publishing”, there are many scam publishers and few that are not simply expensive vanity press houses. I am 100% “Self Published” with six novels on the shelf and number seven in the works, but it has taken most of the last six years to teach myself the ins and outs of the business.
The best of the Print On Demand(POD)publishers in my opinion is Booklocker.com who I used for my first two novels. It was through their tutelage that I learned the basics of editing, formatting, and cover design.
Most editors will charge around $300/10k words to correct your manuscript, Covers run around $250, and publishing costs from $75.00 to over several thousand depending on which one you select. The other option is to use the traditional publisher approach and develop a compelling synopsis, write a strong query letter, and mail your package to however many agents that are accepting those items.
Best of luck with your project. If I can be of assistance, send me a personal.

[Magnatron]

I just published my book up on Amazon:

Dime Novel

A few Freepers here read it and I think my first reviews were Freepers as well.

Have you done any first or second-pass editing on the manuscript yet? Whittling it down a bit first can save you a lot of money. It's very time consuming to do your own editing, but sometimes it can be the best route. You might get sick of reading your story over and over again, but each time, you'll find a few things. I'm running through another edit right now, even though it's published. I've probably edited the manuscript 8 to 10 times. The first edit sliced a LOT of content.

If you go that route, a piece of advise I can give is that you should put it on a shelf for a while. It's very tempting to edit right away to get it published, but sitting it on the shelf -- even for as much as a year, can clear your head of your writer's voice and allow you to find things easier. You'd be surprised how many times you can overlook a simple mis-spelling, awkward grammar, or tense just because the text is fresh in your mind.

Good luck! It's fun to watch and obsess over the sales numbers once it gets up there.