WRITER WONDERLAND
  • Blog
  • Romance Rocks
  • Goddess Fish Tour
  • About

Self Pub Trial by Fire/ Amazon GC Giveway

9/24/2013

6 Comments

 

Join me as I detail my self publishing journey with the first stop being editing.

Picture
Today, I will be talking about editing and giving away a $20 Amazon gift certificate to a random commenter. After I  completed 68,000 plus words of of my story, I pasted a chunk of it on Grammarly. I use Grammarly for online proofreading because to check if my work is original. I know I wrote it, but I wanted to see if I actually came up as something new. It did. :) Grammarly also showed me areas where I could improve. 












My First Step

This is my novice journey into the world of self-publishing. I did learn self-publishing and vanity publishing are very different.

Please do not fall prey to vanity publishers. Author House contacted me early in the game and offered to publish my book for $10,000. Lucky for me, I didn’t have that type of money. They sent me copies of slick paperbacks they did publish.  One book had Los Angeles spelled Los Angles in the title.

The big difference between vanity and self-pub, besides the price, is the ability to change your work. I pointed out a mistake to a friend in her children’s book that she was able to correct in five minutes. If someone else publishes your book, you’ll learn to live with the mistake and move on. This is one of the major lures of self-publishing. The other lure is that it is cheap, but it’s not as cheap as you think.

Pick up a copy of The Naked Truth about Self Publishing to find out the real nitty gritty. Popular self-published authors who learned the hard way compiled this book. I downloaded a free Kindle book where the author told me she published her own book on Kindle free. She created the art work with Power Point and did her own editing. She admitted it didn’t look too hot, but it was a learning curve. Do any of us need a sloppy book out there with our name on it?

You really can’t do it on your own at first. No one edits her own work well. Even editors seek help.  Most people want to know how much will it cost. It depends. I've heard some people brag they publish for zero. Others paid thousands of dollars.  You can expect to pay for editing, proofing, cover art, formatting and an ISBN number. It depends on whom you use. A higher price doesn’t mean someone is better. Case in point for me was editing.

Sometimes you can get what you want.  Most writers want a copy editor who highlights mechanics mistake, flow, inconsistencies and sometimes  research inaccuracies. A content editor basically tells you how to write your story. This type of service doesn't come cheap. The lowest you can expect to pay is $3000 and it goes up from there.

I shopped for my editor. Editing is such a personal thing that there needs to be a good relationship between the author and editor. I interviewed several people. If you are wondering how you interview an editor, you allow them to edit a couple pages of your work. Here are some of my results.

*One woman rewrote my work in her own voice.

*Another one cleaned up my Western characters’ language, so they spoke proper English.

*Another seemed clueless about what she was doing. She didn’t understand fiction editing and wanted to take out any extraneous adjectives and adverbs, which meant all of them.

*One woman came highly recommended from several published romance authors and she’s very good.

They all offered me different prices. The most expensive wanted a five hundred dollar retainer and would bill me hourly. I had this woman edit one page I wrote. It took her one hour to edit it. It didn’t take me that long to write and research it. With this is mind, a 300 page novel would cost me almost $11,000 dollars.

Normal rate for an experienced copy editor is .008 a word for an edit. Keep this in mind when you are having prices thrown at you. I am thankful for all the helpful authors who broke down the prices for me at the conference.

This is the tip of the iceberg. Next, I’ll address cover art.

6 Comments
Andrea Figard
9/23/2013 10:40:22 am

Wow! Never knew how hard it was to be a write and get your work to finished product. Good Luck and can't wait to read your book.

Reply
Morgan K Wyatt
9/23/2013 10:57:29 am

Hi Andrea,
I am a little surprised too. It's a business is all I can say. Thanks for commenting.

Reply
Karen Magill link
9/23/2013 11:30:10 am

I am both self published and traditionally published and one of the main reasons I didn't fall for those expensive scams is that I didn't have the money. Sometimes being broke is great, isn't it?

Thanks for taking the time to warn other writers of the hazards when you start to self publish.

Reply
Morgan K Wyatt
9/24/2013 05:10:25 am

Hi Karen,
Thanks for giving everyone a little more insight into hybrid author world.

Reply
Angela Adams link
9/24/2013 10:18:00 am

Thanks for the education!

Reply
Morgan K Wyatt
9/24/2013 10:45:49 am

No problem. Thanks for stopping by.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Christmas Cozies

    BOOK THREE

    Archives

    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    September 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    June 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    July 2012

    Categories

    All
    Abraham Menard
    Atty Eve
    Bitten By Romance
    Cathy Maxwell
    Celebrate Freedom Blog Hop
    David Caruso
    Dorien Kelley
    Emergency Call Series
    Emergency Calls Series
    Free Book Sites
    Fun Summer Reads
    Harry Potter
    Historical Romance Blog Hop
    Historical Trivia
    Incognito
    Interracial Romance
    Joan Stewart
    Johnny Depp
    J.R.R. Tolkien
    LaNora Mangano
    Lindsay Downs
    Marcus Aronson Interview
    Mature Romance
    Michael A. Rothman
    Perfect Stranger
    PJ Fiala
    Prizes
    Realistic Characters
    Reciprocity
    Scarlett O'Hara
    Secret Cravings
    S.E. Hinton
    Street Team
    Sylvia Hubbard
    Teresa Gallagher
    The Fault Is In Our Stars
    The Hunger Games

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.