Alternatives to hiring editors for self-publishing

I couldn't afford editing and saving wasn't an option, as writing is how I earn money. I had two volunteers... one looked at story issues and one copyedited. I also did a whole lot of self-editing. As well as reading through, I have lists of common mistakes and style guides, so I search for all those things. For example, a simple one is to search for there, their and they're to make sure they're in the right places. So far, the only complaint about editing was a reader who noted there weren't many mistakes, but they wanted none. Generally I've had good feedback about the level of editing.

This is for ebooks though, where if I find a mistake, I can get a new version out in about ten minutes and readers can download it anytime they want. I don't plan to publish paper books until I can hire a copyeditor to catch those last mistakes.

One thing I would say is to be very honest with yourself about your self-editing skills. It's nice to find people who'll help out, but they're not going to put in the same level of effort as you. If it's your weak area, it's going to show.

I have one book self-published, and I edited/proof read it myself. I would have liked to get someone to proof it, but it became a time/money issue. I have heard of people hiring college students to proof things with success. Find an English major.

But anyway, I proofed myself. I used to teach English, so I consider my proofing skills better than normal. I proofread it three times- once when I was completely done on my computer, another time a couple of days later after I had printed off my entire book on paper, and then a final time a couple of days after that, also on paper. If you're going to proof yourself, I urge you to do it more than once AND take some time off in between readings to settle your mind.
I must add that my book is a How- To/Reference type book. Because of that, I feel I can take more liberties with things like switching tenses, going from first to third person, etc... I don't do these things a lot in my book, but it definitely has a loose, conversational feel to it. I think this helps people understand and take in the knowledge my book offers. I have had some people review my book. No one has criticized the grammar/spelling yet. If I was writing a fiction book, I might have proofed it a couple more times myself, or probably found an editor to help me.

Bear in mind that the article was talking about paid editors both for self-publishing (generally a recommended step, but not always) AND for submitting to agents (generally a de-recommended step, but not always) at the same time.

I see editing generally recommended for self-publishing because an author who can edit their own work to a professional standard is very, very rare. I see editing generally de-recommended for subbing to agents because the publisher pays for editors after the book is sold. Victoria Strauss is a member here and I don't want to try to speak for her , but it looked to me like her article was not taking a stance on either one of these "should/should not" recommendations while simultaneously giving a large breadth of information. And note that all of the information she gives is excellent, whether or not you feel it's advisable to hire an editor in the first place -- expense, alternatives, scams, and the fact that editing isn't magic are all important things to keep in mind even if you are determined to hire an editor (for instance, I hired an editor but did so VERY carefully and after extensive rounds with betas, so taking advantage of alternatives to save money and get the most out of my pro editing worked in conjunction with hiring one). tl;dr: It doesn't look to me like she's saying not to hire an editor for self-publishing -- it looks like she's trying to give the whole picture.

As for whether you should hire an editor for self-publishing -- well, you'll get a lot of varied advice on this. It depends a lot on what your goals are, IMHO. If your goal is to put out a product to a trade publishing standard, that's different from if your goal is to put out your book for your family and friends to enjoy, which is again different from "this is an experiment let's see what happens," which is also different from "I'm going to make the smartest business decisions I can regardless of what I'd prefer creatively." In fact, there's a lot of nuance in any of these with what makes good business sense -- you might find your creative goals at odds with what you know to be the better business choices, and then you have a decision to make.

On the business side, remember: when publishers invest in a book, they're betting that they can sell enough copies to cover the cost of editing (and everything else). As a self-publisher, you have to think about (a) if you expect to be able to cover that cost, (b) if you can lose that money if you don't, and (c) even if you can lose it, whether the creative/production value is worth it to you to justify losing it. You're both the publisher and the author here, so you have all sides to consider.

All that said, for me personally: I hired a top-caliber pro editor, even after multiple beta readers told me they didn't think I had to. Editing was the single greatest cost in my publishing investment, and even though my book's doing decently, I'm still on the way to making it all back. But she was fantastic and I don't regret it, and I'll be hiring her for the other books in my series as well.

But. But! I've been considering the business sense of releasing some shorts that I would likely not hire pro editing for, small pieces that I'd consciously accept a different standard of quality on and would exist only to help drive people toward my main series. That would, of course, be based on a business decision while I squashed my creative impulses into a corner. It's not something I've done yet, but it's something I'm considering.

(I note that personally, one choice I would never make would be to hire a cheap editor -- if all the "editor" is going to do is catch typos and grammar mishaps, I can do that myself and save the money. Good editors do SO much more.)

Anyway. I hope that helps!

I would hazard a guess that only 1/3 of self-pubbers here on AW have hired editors, if that (this is from my observation, I may be and probably am completely wrong / in denial). I think betas, critique partners, Share Your Work, and self-editing comprise the majority. Sometimes that's enough, but it always depends on the writer.
I had no editor, beta, or critique partner. I'm painfully aware that I'm too close to my work, but several things have held me back from getting 3rd party support (mostly my obsession with self-reliance and dangerous overconfidence). I won't know if my self-editing worked until my Kirkus review comes in.
But if you're not dumb like me, I would definitely recommend tapping the resources here at AW. A lot of these guys and gals know what they're doing.

slhuang covered what I think Victoria was saying pretty well.

Here's the really important takeaway, which perhaps deserved a bit more emphasis than the parenthetical it got:

...no writer is capable of being completely objective about his or her work, and outside viewpoints are vital.

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No matter what, get outside feedback.

It may end up being one or more editors.

Trade pub writers will have a developmental editor at their disposal.

Self-pub authors tend to not be able to afford this (arguably, most important) type of editing. So they need crit groups, first readers, BETA readers and so on to fill that gap. This is the big picture stuff about whether the story is well told.

Then there's the other type of editing which is copy editing with wide range of "features". This is the smaller level stuff about sentence level style, grammar, detail consistency, and typo correction. (To further confuse things, in self-pub circles light copyediting is often referred to by the misnomer "proofreading".) So basically, getting the detail of the prose as good as possible. Editors run the gamut on what they will do in this regard, so you need to ask questions, see what fits in your budget, and you further need a good sense of where you need help (based on all that important outside feedback). When self-publishers talk about "getting an editor" they are typically talking about this kind of editing.

In my case, I write short fiction and copyedit at my day job and have a crit group for stuff I'm concerned about and a first reader for anything/everything. Short fiction generally isn't as reliant on developmental editing as novels (and it wouldn't make financial sense regardless.) And I'm reasonably confident in my craft from my time selling fiction to magazines. I do a few copyediting passes myself (where I still invariably miss things) and then depend on my first reader for the last bits.

Were I to write a novel length work, I'd probably need to grudgingly hire someone for at least a light copyedit. I just wouldn't trust myself and my first reader to catch enough of the silliness that slips in.

I think it depends on the writer. If you're a writer who is extremely weak in an area, then it would be wise to hire a professional editor. But if you are pretty strong in general, I think you can get by with having beta readers be a second pair of eyes.

When I put my first book up for sale I did so without hiring an editor. Yes I had friends read it and someone who was good with "editing" who gave it a look, but no real editor. It was a HUGE mistake. My book and sales suffered for it.

I learned my lesson and found a professional to edit my book. She did so for what I think was a nominal fee & I replaced the files everywhere it was for sale with a "new edition" of the book. Ever since, I have not heard one critique about editing from my readers.

This is how I go about self publishing ever since then: I write the story, self edit about ten times and then it goes through at least four betas. When I think it's ready, it goes to my editor. By that point I don't need a content edit, just copy editing so it's not too expensive.

My feeling is, I don't want silly errors ruining a good story for my readers. They are paying their hard earned money for my book. They deserve the most professional book I can put out there.

I currently have 3 different editors I work with for different genres I write (erotica, erotic romance & new adult romance). They all always say I only need a copy edit when they get my completed manuscript and I definitely have my betas to thank for that!

*Also, I've learned so much from seeing how my book is edited by the professionals. It's made me a better writer.

When I wrote my first two books, I had an agent and went through three different professional editors. They made me cut my manuscripts ruthlessly, and that taught me a lot. On my latest two novels, I self-edited. I didn't cut them as harshly as those editors would have, but I have an understanding of what should be included and what shouldn't.
Am I good enough at it? I don't know, but I am satisfied with the results and I like not having to cut things I don't want to cut.

GigiBee said:

I also want to buy a nice copy of The Chicago Manual of Style and I already own The Elements of Style (which I need to dust off).

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If you're writing a novel, I don't see why you would need to follow Chicago Style at all. Save yourself some time, if you can.

GigiBee said:

I have ProWritingAid for checking for sentence length variation/overused words/ect.

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Sounds interesting- I will have to check that out.

For my shorts, I got by fine with my core group of beta readers (usually about 8 or so people), then my English professor mother and mother-in-law doing the copy editing, and a last proofread by me where I read the whole thing aloud.

For my novel I'll self-publish, I'm hiring my friend who is an editorial director at Puffin in the UK, plus hiring a copyeditor. I'll be running a Kickstarter in a few months to help raise these costs as well as cover art and other basic costs, so that I'm not having to put up so much money up front. Formatting the e-books I can do myself, but I might also hire a typesetter for the print version.

I probably COULD get by not hiring editors for the novel, but for peace of mind I'm going to. Beta readers have been absolutely invaluable, though, and I owe them so much.

Polenth said:

This is for ebooks though, where if I find a mistake, I can get a new version out in about ten minutes and readers can download it anytime they want.

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I've seen so many people say this, and I really hate to see that attitude. Why should it be okay to put out lesser quality work just because it's an ebook instead of print, and why do people think they can just put up "new edition" after "new edition"? People have already purchased a copy - why they should have to keep "upgrading" because the author didn't get it right the first time?

JMO, but if it isn't ready for print, it isn't ready to publish, period.

I've been an editor by profession for a while, but hired a copy editor before publishing. I was fortunate enough to recover the cost in the first 2 months of sales, but I certainly can understand the challenge of not having the funds to invest.

If you can't pay for editing, one alternative might be to use an online service like Pro Writing Aid. It doesn't replace a pair of human eyes by any means, but it can find issues that normal spell/grammar checking functions in Word won't.

GigiBee said:

When researching, I read that Chicago Style is the go-to thing for both fiction and non-fiction. I wanted to have two style guides to reference back to. Is it okay to just have one?

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I mean, I see what you're saying. But at the same time I've read tons of books in the past year, fiction and non, that don't have any citations and whose index doesn't follow any citation style guide. I think the Chicago Style is used more for university presses, people writing a thesis for a masters degree, and the like.

Your use/non use of Chicago Style should have no influence on your book's sales, is what I'm getting at. So I would just save the time of not having to plug in everything into that format. A simple "Book Title", Author should be more than enough. Heck, a lot of books nowadays don't have any citations.

I only have the one book out right now and I didn't hire a professional editor. I looked into it, but most that I found charge per word and since my book was long that was gonna get costly fast! I knew I couldn't self edit, grammar is so not my strong suit, so I had 2 friends who had a much better grasp on grammar rules do that for me.

I don't have a ton of reviews but the ones I do have haven't mentioned any grammatical errors so I'm going to say as they did a great job cleaning up my writing. With my next book, I'm planning on using them again because being on a single income, the husband appreciates when I can keep costs low.

CMoS is a great style guide, but it's very technical and detailed. It's unlikely that you'll need to refer to half of the stuff it covers: and it'll take you ages to read it all and absorb everything in it.

All you need do is revise your book as thoroughly as you can; and then give it a final go-over to ensure that you've got everything consistent.

Note also that using a style guide only really deals with a tiny part of copy editing, and isn't a substitute for structural editing or a full copy edit.

shadowwalker said:

I've seen so many people say this, and I really hate to see that attitude. Why should it be okay to put out lesser quality work just because it's an ebook instead of print, and why do people think they can just put up "new edition" after "new edition"? People have already purchased a copy - why they should have to keep "upgrading" because the author didn't get it right the first time?

JMO, but if it isn't ready for print, it isn't ready to publish, period.

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The books are as free of errors as I can make them. They went through multiple rounds of edits. The novel had editing passes spread out over a couple of years. I'm not advocating tossing up something unedited on the basis that it can be fixed later.

It's the reverse really. Errors bother me to the point that it can harm my ability to take part in anything that involves writing. I'm painfully aware that there are people who think I shouldn't be a writer due to dyslexia and non-verbal thinking. If I make a mistake and someone notices, I feel that I'm proving them right. Which means I edit everything obsessively, to the point I don't post most of my forum replies or tweets, because I think they'll have errors in them. My writing speed is a crawl because of the number of editing passes I do. So for me, it's a great comfort that I can correct ebooks and an anxiety that I can't correct print books.

Do my books have too many errors to be in print? I don't think so. But that's irrelevant to my reaction. It doesn't matter if my level of mistakes is comparable to a trade published book. It's going to bother me, because it's a mistake I can never correct. At least if I've had an editor, I can reason that other people also missed it, so it was a difficult error to spot for anyone.

Judge as you will, but that's the reasoning behind my choice.

Polenth said:

Do my books have too many errors to be in print? I don't think so. But that's irrelevant to my reaction. It doesn't matter if my level of mistakes is comparable to a trade published book.

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I guess my point is more about actually pulling an already published book, editing it again, and then re-publishing. If you feel comforted just knowing you could, but don't, that's great. But a book that's been published should be left alone.

Polenth said:

I'm painfully aware that there are people who think I shouldn't be a writer due to dyslexia and non-verbal thinking.

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If anyone on AW makes you feel that you shouldn't be writing, point me towards them. I won't have that. Grrr.

I see nothing wrong with your writing. I would never have guessed that you have dyslexia.

Several members of my family have dyslexia, and it's a bastard. I have dyslexic tendencies and think in visual terms. I have problems with spelling, short-term memory, and organisation--all typical of dyslexia. I've still managed to write a load of books and edit a load of others. It's not something that will ever go away, but it is something I've learned to cope with.

shadowwalker said:

I guess my point is more about actually pulling an already published book, editing it again, and then re-publishing. If you feel comforted just knowing you could, but don't, that's great. But a book that's been published should be left alone.

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I've seen writers hire bad editors and publish a book only to receive many reviews mentioning errors. If a writer finds a bunch of errors in a book, there's little harm and, I think, something to be gained from fixing them. At least future readers will get a cleaner book. What's out there can't be retracted, but going forward, fewer errors. I would definitely fix it if it were mine. It's also hardly a chore to fix a typo or two when updating the ebook's front and back matter anyway. Seeing errors and leaving them makes no sense to me.

But I do think it's important not to publish with the attitude that it can be fixed later. Make it as good as possible the first time. While fixing things later does benefit future readers, it doesn't erase the ones who've already read it and noticed them.

I've gotten several Kindle notices that new version of an ebook I purchased was available. Since these were all fiction, I knew it was simply new editing or corrections. There's no way I'm going to re-download and re-read a book I've already read, so that's completely wasted on me.

shelleyo said:

I've gotten several Kindle notices that new version of an ebook I purchased was available. Since these were all fiction, I knew it was simply new editing or corrections. There's no way I'm going to re-download and re-read a book I've already read, so that's completely wasted on me.

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Same here. It's just not worth the time for a book I'm only reading casually. For non-fiction that I'm going to be using, maybe.
But then, why wouldn't the author specify what the new version has changed? If it's not a substantial change, new information, or a new example, or update to the method, I don't care.
And if it's a novel that I really like, I'm just waiting for the paper edition.

As someone who teaches writing and edits, I have lots of thoughts on the subject! Good editing is expensive, and as someone else said below, self-publishing writers need to do the math to see how many additional copies they'd need to sell to cover the cost. Depends on lots of factors, of course, but for most s-p writers, it probably will not pay, financially, at least not in the short run.

But it's not all about the benjamins. A good, professional editor can teach you a great deal about writing that you can then apply to other work which is priceless. It's like a tutorial in which the entire focus is on your book. And there is also the pride factor: do you really want to put out a book that's less than it could be?

All that said, I agree with the suggestions you mention, not necessarily instead of hiring an editor, but prior to. Peer critique groups like Book Country and beta readers are a great place to start, and a good part of the benefit is the requirement that you pay it back by helping edit other writers' work. There's no better way of sharpening one's editorial eye--which can then be applied to one's own work.

Courses in fiction writing are something every writer should do, IMO, regardless of publishing status, because a good one can seriously shorten the path we all take in learning the craft. If you look around, you can find some that focus on self-editing a WIP. I teach one called Revising Fiction in my own Next Level workshop, and I know Writers Digest online school does as well (since I used to teach it.)

If you can afford it, you should still have a book edited before you self-publish, even if you do all the other stuff. Peer critiques are generally a lot gentler and often less insightful than professional critiques. Courses are more useful but you don't get feedback on the whole book, just sections.

On the other hand, if you're planning to seek out an agent, I wouldn't recommend paying for an edit. If the book is good enough to sell, you'll get excellent editing at no expense to you. At the very least, I'd test the market with a bunch of submissions and draw conclusions from the results. If you get nothing back but form rejections, you're probably not close enough that an editor would make the difference. If you get a bunch of personal, "Almost but not quite" rejections, it may be worth considering.

shelleyo said:

But I do think it's important not to publish with the attitude that it can be fixed later. Make it as good as possible the first time. While fixing things later does benefit future readers, it doesn't erase the ones who've already read it and noticed them.

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These are the points that I would emphasize.

First, too many writers are so impatient to get their stuff out there, or too lazy to edit "yet again", and see absolutely nothing wrong with editing and republishing based on readers finding the errors. They plan on doing that. It's somehow considered SOP.

Second, while there are readers like you who don't mind these errors and subsequent revisions, there are others who expect to get their money's worth the first time. I'm one of them. I can accept an occasional mis-step, as we're all human, but if I'm seeing ongoing errors, I'm not happy. Getting notices about corrected versions would add salt to the wound. More than one such revision and that author would be on my "don't bother with" list.

Nonfiction is a bit different. If new versions come out with updated information or factual corrections based on new knowledge - no problem. I want those changes. But if it's just a bunch of writing-connected corrections, I am going to start wondering about the author's overall 'validity'.