Editing myths…
Last week I considered some of the incorrect advice often given to writers. Now I’d like to consider some editing myths. Some of these have been created by people with an agenda (for example, a copy editor wants to make money, after all); some have been created by traditional publishers who are threatened by the indie writing movement; and some are just old warhorses that should be eradicated once and for all.
Self-published books and indie writers often fight negative stereotypes. Every stereotype has some basis in fact, but they’re often nasty extremes designed to insult. Irishmen are drunks (yes, we tend to like our liquor). Writers are nerds (yes, we tend to be introverts, but not always nerds). Psychiatrists are nuts (I won’t touch that one). Women are distracted drivers (most men could never compete with Danica Patrick). Men never ask for directions on a road trip (why should we? We always know where we’re going. Sure!).
One of the negative stereotypes about indie books is that they’re unprofessional in the writing, editing, and presentation, especially ebooks. As a reviewer and avid reader, I can look at a book and form an objective opinion about quality. Let me restrict my attention to ebooks where one might think that this quick route for releasing a book is a temptation to gloss over details that distinguish a professional product from an amateur one. Over the last few years, I’ve focused on ebooks in my writing, reviewing, and casual reading. I haven’t found that the unprofessional stereotype rings true. There are exceptions that fit the stereotype, but, in general, indie authors take pride in their work and ensure its quality.
In fact, I’ve seen more sloppiness in those ebooks released by the Big Five, especially in their reissues of once popular pbooks (hardbounds or paperbacks). Any comments I make about the writing and content and copy editing in this case would also apply to the original, of course. Believe me, as much as the Big Five likes to limit themselves to betting on the sure horse (i.e. writers with an established platform), there is no guarantee that the ebook you download isn’t a clunker, whether it’s from the Big Five or not. But the formatting process is often sloppy. It’s possible that limiting my ebook downloads to ones costing less than $10 biases my statistics, especially if we apply the stereotype that one gets what he pays for!
So, my statistical sample corresponds to the ebooks I read, whether self-published or not, that cost less than $10. (I set the limit at $10 because, if I put the limit at $5, self-published beats Big Five by default—the Big Five’s set is almost empty in that case. Indie books are a better bargain.) In this smaller sample, there are self-published ebooks that fit the stereotype, but not enough to state the stereotype is correct. Let’s take my three criteria—writing, editing, and presentation—and compare.
1) Writing. My impression, developed via the ebooks I read or review, is that indie writing is just as good as and often better than what you can find in Big Five books (I count ebooks from small imprints here—“small” meaning those NOT owned by one of the Big Five, which defines “large”). I’m talking about fiction—specifically, the plot and characterization used in a novel. Some writing technicalities are subjective—setting, back-story, flashbacks, choice of POV, etc. I might find that a historical novel has too much back-story, for example, or that the prose is long-winded and flowery—I’m more of a minimalist writer. These are stylistic choices the writer makes. They don’t necessarily reflect on quality. My basic question: is the story a good one? Neither indie nor Big Five authors can guarantee that!
Content editing is part of editing and some of it goes beyond stylistic choices. The Big Five editorial staffs employ content editors. Often, especially for newbie authors, if they can get beyond the gatekeepers (the agents), these “experts” will badger the writer into making so many content changes that his or her original style becomes pedestrian and lifeless. The idea that a writer can’t do his own content editing is a myth. I refuse to let a content editor touch my product, in fact. I consider it part of the general writing process (or, what’s a word-processing package for?).
One of the advantages of indie writing is that you don’t have to cow-tow to a Big Five editor, or even an agent bent on giving a publisher what he wants. These people think they know how to write. (Obviously they don’t, or they would be writers!). But this is also a disadvantage if you can’t be objective about your own prose. Be brutal with the cut and paste features on your word processor. Your story is much more successful if that prose flows and makes the reader want to turn the page. If you must, pay for a content editor, but make it understood that you, the writer, reserve final option on whether to include his or her suggested changes.
2) Editing. Because I’ve included content editing as part of the writing process, we’re limited to copy editing here. When you think your MS is finished, this is the final polishing that precedes ebook formatting. Second editing myth: you have to pay a copy editor. That’s absolute BS. There’s a going rate for this, but with a wide range. Even the lowest rate is too expensive for an indie writer releasing ebooks on a shoestring budget. If you publish traditionally, you probably won’t get much copy editing help either, so your MS always has to be the best it can be no matter how you publish.
It’s easy to run over your MS using the spell- and grammar-checker in your word processor. That will pick up typos and many other things, but be forewarned that it often won’t pick up homonyms or other word usage problems, and it often gets confused on grammar (mine often accuses me of confusing it’s with its or vice versa, but often it’s wrong, not me). The grammar checker often goes overboard on passive, lengthy sentences, and fragments too—all those are stylistic choices in fiction. When it flags a phrase as passive but offers no alternative, that’s a give-away—turning that passive voice to active might just be so cumbersome that it turns off readers!
You should develop a list of errors you often make and use your word processor’s find option to look for them in each MS (this list should grow from MS to MS). After twelve books (soon to be fourteen), my list (I call them error-searching algorithms) has stabilized. Examples: overuse of –ly adverbs (search for “ly ”—the space is necessary); use of “joint collaboration” instead of “collaboration” (I was once a scientist and learned to write “prose for bureaucrats”—the “joint” is unnecessary here, even for medicinal purposes, but tell that to a government civil servant). And so forth. You should know your own writing well enough to flag your quirks. You, the writer, and not a copy editor, are the best person to look for them. Of course, you can also pay a copy editor—he or she will gladly take your money.
Do you believe you can edit right on the screen because that’s where your ebook MS will be displayed? Your answer should be no. If you want to wait to make changes in proof reading the formatted ebook file, go ahead, but your formatter (maybe you?) will love you if you don’t make him or her do all those corrections. (I cringed when one of my reviewers for Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder caught the name change of a character halfway through. It was easy to fix, but I was not happy—I value my formatter’s sanity.) One option is to get that MS into different media. Print it out. Sure, you’re killing some trees, but not as many as releasing in pbook format. Seeing the MS on the printed page changes your perspective. Another trick is to let a beta reader carefully read the MS. A different pair of eyes can do wonders.
3) Presentation. This includes formatting and proof reading the formatted text. Do you trust your formatter? That’s the question you have to answer. (I do, because she’s also a writer.) If you, the writer, are the formatter, be careful. You’re very close to the product and are liable to skip over things in the proofreading an independent proof reader might see. Again, if you’re not sure, pay someone. There are plenty of people out there who do both proof reading and formatting. In any case, when your ebook is formatted, proof the formatting yourself, even if your formatter has gone through the process. It’s your name that will appear on the ebook after all.
It’s this last step where the Big Five often fail, especially in their low-priced re-releases of mossy old pbooks as ebooks. (They often still follow the traditional release sequencing: first hardbound, next paperback, and finally ebook.) Recently (after Apple’s lawsuit), they’ve started releasing the ebook at almost the same time as the pbook, but when the ebook is only a few bucks less than the pbook, you just know they’re gouging the consumer, because ebooks cost less to produce.
My final comment on presentation is that part of the ebook formatting is making a good ebook cover, one that displays well as a thumbnail on Amazon. Don’t make your ebook look like a graduate thesis (unless it is one). If you have no artistic abilities, here is where you need to invest a bit of money. Your cover should relate to the content (difficult for anthologies—pick one story). It should be attractive but not gaudy and make the potential reader peek inside using Amazon’s feature.
The final words: Because indie books have a negative stereotype, every indie ebook author has the responsibility to make his ebook the best possible. Indie ebooks compete well with Big Five ebooks already, so I believe that most indie writers follow the above—probably with their own personal variations. There are several services that exist now which are close approximations to small imprint publishers—they just don’t do pbooks. But they take your MS and do all the rest of the work for you, but your MS has to be accepted by them. None of this will make your ebook a success. There are no sufficient conditions in this business. But the ones above are necessary. Take personal pride in your product.
In libris libertas….
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