In the course of writing and preparing a story for publication a writer has to swallow some pride. As much as we’d all love our fingers to produce literary gold, gushing forth into our word processors, it really doesn’t happen like that. I know that many have read this advice before, probably better said by greater and more authoritative people than myself, but it needs repeating. When you hire an indie editor, please pay attention to their suggestions. If you hire someone and then summarily reject their advice you end up looking like a dork. I, for one, probably wouldn’t be interested in working with you again.
Does that sound harsh? You bet. But it’s the truth. If you are seriously determined to get the best possible story out to your public you’ll pay attention to your editor’s suggestions.
Let’s look at it from the indie editor’s point of view a minute, shall we? You have, hopefully, done some research and found an editor who syncs with your vision, who – to borrow a gamer term – groks you and your story. You’ve given them money to go through it; to find typos and repetitions, places where the story is dull, things that can be enhanced. It’s a service and the freelance editor is being paid to do a job.
There is no personal investment on their part other than pride in a job well done. You, the writer with the fingers of Midas, have every right to reject every single thing that is given back to you. Really. It’s your story. But then why did you pay them in the first place?
The freelance editor wants to help you and is being paid to do so. If they tell you a sentence reads badly, that it’s not communicating well, they aren’t telling you that because you’re an awful writer. No, they are trying to help you improve your story for your reader. So what if you don’t like it? It’s not entirely about you, but it will be about your public. If they can’t follow you you’ve lost. It would behoove you to look at that sentence and see if you can make it better.
The indie environment allows for a lot of flexibility in how an author puts out their work. You could completely reject everything your indie editor tells you and publish your story as-is. I highly doubt it would be as good as it could have been. In the end however, the indie editor has no investment beyond what you’ve paid them. They aren’t working for the Big 6 in New York City. They’re working for you, helping you develop your voice and your story so that it has the best chance of communicating clearly to your public.
So don’t be a dork, listen to what they have to say, will ya?
