by
Steve Lazarowitz
October 2000
CREDIT THE EDIT
Okay, here's the deal. Why don't you come work for me? I can give you as many hours a week as you'd like. You can set your own hours. You work on your own, in your own home. The catch? You won't get paid for at least six months and then, I have no idea how much money you'll make.
Seem implausible? Perhaps. Yet that's what editors agree to when they sign on with an independent e-publisher.
Because independents run on shoestring budgets, there's no money to pay people up front. So you offer them a percentage... a share of the royalties. An editor wagers that a book is going to sell enough copies over the course of time to pay for the work they finished months before it comes out.
Naturally, you're not likely to get a whole lot of professionals with this kind of deal. You'll get people that love to read. People stuck at home, elderly people, people that don't have to work for a living. And because they're not editors to start with, you might think they'd get some kind of training.
You'd be wrong. Editors, in most cases, are handed a book and sent on their merry way to edit it, regardless of their experience. In an online chat, I recently asked Jennifer Dunne, author and editor for Starlight Writer's Publications, if she'd received any training before editing her first book. She laughed at me.
I understand her reaction. No one has time. E-pubs are swamped with submissions and since no one is being paid up front, it's hard to find help at all, let alone good help. Yet herein lies one of the biggest problems of all.
In order for an e-publishing house to survive, the quality of the editing must be professional. If it's not, reviewers backed by print publishers will pick their books apart... for print publishers stand the most to lose if the independents get strong.
I'd imagine the executives are quaking in their boots. For so long, Madison Avenue publishers have sat smugly behind their desks, deciding for the reading public which books they'll have access to. No more.
Now you can read books that don't fit the mold. Books that shout defiance. It's David and Goliath all over again. If people actually find another source of creativity, something fresh and different, one that charges less, works on less of a margin and is willing to deal with niche markets and new ideas... what will happen to their profits?
The same thing that should have happened to their profits a long time ago. I'm not bitter and hope I don't seem that way. But I've heard the story too many times to count. A writer writes a book and it's rejected dozens of times. Finally someone accepts it and it becomes a success. The problem of course is this...
How many people give up after the first dozen rejections? How many masterpieces now sit in the bottom of a filing cabinet, because a great writer couldn't manage the necessary persistence to keep submitting it? Why should it be that way?
The publishing industry has changed. Once, publishing houses and editors WANTED to nurture new writers. To take an author and work with them. To help develop new talent. Those days are long gone.
Today's editor is looking to make a killing by selling a book. It's all about money. Perhaps I've grown cynical in my not-so-old age, but I had once thought writing was a form of art. Why are people in suits deciding which art is worth displaying? Talk about stifling creativity!
So I go to the net. I go to the net for e-zines. I go to the net for e-books. I can download two e-books for the price of a paperback. That's a good deal. It's even a better deal when I like them more than the average paperback, which happens with increasing frequency.
And why is it happening with increasing frequency? Because the standards for e-books, including the quality of editing, is going up. Editors are becoming more experienced and some e-publishers are actually doing something to train them, which is important. There is nothing more distracting than reading a book filled with typos and amateur errors.
The e-pubs that survive will be the ones with the best editing and the highest standards.
So when you next visit an independent e-publisher's website, keep this in mind as you browse through the wonderful cover art and read the exciting sample text.
Editors have worked hard to bring each book to publication. They've spent countless hours of their time, for a reward that is by no means certain. And the worst of it is...
You'll probably never even know their name.
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