What You Can Do, Can't Do & Should NEVER Do! Part 1

I believe that authors are amazingness itself and can learn to do just about everything related to writing. Notice, I did say “just about” and meant it. While I believe that any author can learn to become an editor, if desired, there are certain kinds of editing that NO author should EVER do to their own writing—even if you are the second coming for other authors.
This is going to be a series that will define what editing truly is, a bit of how to do what editors do (it isn’t black magic and does not require sacrifices, despite what you think when you see a newly edited WIP), and the likelihood of doing each type of editing well on your own.
*Aside: Please do remember that I do not believe in NOT having editors.  GOOD editors are a necessity to good writing.*
So... why would I teach that authors can learn to edit their own work AND say that editors are necessary? Many editors want to be paid a set price per word, or per chunks of words (e.g. 20K-30K=$$, 30K-40K=$$$, etc.), and a rare few will charge by the hour.
So, if you hand your WIP to an editor who charges by the word and it requires content streamlining and rearranging to the tune of 10,000 fewer words—you just massively overpaid an editor to do something you could have learned to do yourself. Indie authors, especially, already pay so much out of pocket for so many things, with so few even breaking even…expanding our learning of editing is just a tool we can use to make the business of writing better.
(It does help quite a bit to find that rare jewel of an editor who not only explains the why’s of the corrections but takes an active role in teaching you what to find and how to find it so your craft mistakes are not carried through.)

Read the entire article in the February 2019 issue of InD'Tale magazine.

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