Leave a reply Kickstarter Campaign

I’ve started a publishing business. This is not vanity press, but intended to help authors get their books in print. Right now they still have to source their own editing and art. Sadly I can’t afford to pay for covers or editing on what I make per book. That is $1 per printed copy ordered through my printer.

Many of my clients have money to pay for their cover and editing, often they already have a cover in mind when they talk to me. But I have clients without that kind of disposable income, whose books are every bit as valuable.

So this campaign is to raise money to subsidize the costs for those authors. I won’t pay less than $300 for a cover. Artists deserve to be paid for their work. Internal illustrations may range from $50 for a black and white sketch to $300 for a full colour page.

Editing is expensive. I do my editing, but that’s only one level. Copy editing starts at $0.1 a word. To put that into perspective. A fifty thousand word book would cost $500 Proofreading is less, but still at least half that.

All funds after fees, taxes and shipping (25%) will go to help fund projects of Celticfrog Publishing, and at least 75% of that to other authors. Here’s the far out stretch dream – to have $5000 to publish someone’s graphic novel.

In order to achieve this I’m putting my own art on the line, ACEO cards, 8×10, digital rewards, writing, knife making are all up for grabs. All perks include shipping anywhere in the world.

I see variations of this question on writing boards all over the internet. It is tempting for me to read a few lines of the book and answer the question for them. “No, it isn’t ready. Go back and fix these issues.” After all that’s really what I’m doing when I’m editing for people. I’m showing them the parts of the novel that make it not ready for publication.

But that is just my opinion. I’m one person with one set of ideas about what constitutes a well written novel. One of the things I’ve learned in my years of reviewing is that there aren’t many rules that can’t be effectively broken. I probably would have sent 50 Shades of Grey back for more editing.

I’m not going to tell you if your novel is ready for publication. I will tell you what I think are the strengths and weaknesses of that novel. I will push you to polish and make it as ready as possible.

So, how do you know?

I use beta-readers. Those are people who don’t know me and have had no part in the creation of the book whom I ask to read the book and tell me what they don’t like about it. It may seem harsh to ask only what people don’t like, but I find it is a very effective way of getting the most out of my beta-readers. If they don’t like something, the chances are very good that other readers won’t like it either.

I fix what the beta-readers don’t like. If there was a lot of things they had problems with, I might find a second set of betas and turn them lose. When I start hearing that the book works well -they finished it without a struggle, they didn’t have major issues with the plot and/or characterization in the book, then I know that it is close.

I have my content editor go through the book before I send it to beta. The line editor I have look at it after. I’m not longer going to make huge changes, but just make certain that I’m consistent, that I don’t use the same word too many times (unless I have a good reason to do that).

I make the changes suggested, then I sit down one more time and read the book from cover to cover. I don’t use a pen to mark it up. I just read. I want to see if the story pulls me in. Does it evoke emotion at the right places? Do I like this book? If I hadn’t written it, would I buy it?

Now I’m ready to answer that question. Is my book ready to be published? Not only can I answer it, I can answer with confidence. That is very important when you are marketing. You need to know that you’ve put out a quality product. If you’re apologetic or uncertain about your own book, you won’t sell very much.

I’m still learning. I can see the difference in my two books and I’m working to create as big a difference in my third book. That doesn’t mean the first two weren’t ready, though I’d do things differently now. It means that I’m getting tougher on myself and raising my expectations.

That’s why you need to ask yourself that question each time you finish a book.