EditorJennifer.com: Author’s resource and contest
By Steve Jordan
Shadow Armies, Jennifer's serialized novel
Rita Toews of Read an E-book Week recently alerted me to EditorJennifer.com, an editorial service available to authors of contemporary, romance, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, western and young adult novels, at very reasonable opening rates.
In order to garner attention and interest, Jennifer is hosting a contest for e-book writers: Send in your submission, and you might win $250! Contest open to all self-published or independent e-press published novels. Your novel must be available to the public for purchase before you enter.
Each of 30 semi-finalists will have their novels showcased for a day on the Editor Jennifer website - including their book’s image, a 250 word description, and a link to the site where it can be purchased. (Details after the break.)
Rules are as follows:
1. Deadline for entries: midnight, PST, August 31st, 2009.
2. Entries must be received directly from the author either in print form or
as a PDF file. Minimum novel length is 30,000 words. Novel must be published
between January 1, 2008 and August 31, 2009, and must be published by the
time you enter.
3. Along with your novel, submit your name, a one-paragraph bio, a 250 word
description of your novel and a link to the site where it can be purchased.
4. Thirty semi-finalists will be announced, one per day, on the Editor
Jennifer website, starting October 1st, 2009. I will post an image of their
ebook with a 250 word description and a link to the site where the book can
be purchased.
5. The winner will be announced November 1st, 2009.
6. There is no fee to enter.
7. No portion of any entree will be posted on this site. Authors retain all
rights to their books.
8. All images and descriptions must be appropriate for a family-friendly
website. No porn or ultra-violence, please.
Send questions and submissions to: jennifer@editorjennifer.com
All you e-book authors: Go for it!
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:03 am
Services like this are scams, plain and simple, selling dreams to the unwitting and naive. If someone’s writing is good, they should be able to find an agent. If someone’s writing is promising, they should practice, find a good writing group and possibly find a good creative writing program. But anyone who offers to edit a manuscript is scamming. Find a good agent, and your agent will do that as part of their service, not charging you a penny until you pay them comission on your published book. Find a good publisher, and the editor there, someone whose job it is, will do a much better job than the scammer here. Please, please, please don’t give these con-artists more attention than they deserve.
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Thanks for your comments, David. I’d welcome further thoughts from you and others on the topic. Please note that Steve in this case was speaking for himself and not necessarily for TeleRead. No endorsement here. Furthermore, I totally agree with you about the value of writing groups—or simply the right friends or teachers.
But I myself would avoid the word “scam,” which seems pretty harsh without knowing more about Jennifer. Her site says her rate is $3 per thousand words of manuscript, or less than many would charge. Clearly, to go by the site, she does have a background in lit.
Still, I have no idea about the quality of her service, and in the place of prospective clients, I would ask, “What well-known or outstandingly successful books have you edited if any; and have your clients placed any fiction with major publishers? Which books? Houses? Any of the books win contests besides yours? Which contests? Just what do you edit for? Literary qualify? Commercial appeal? Both? What can you offer me that a writing group couldn’t? How many hours will you spend reading a typical 75,000-word novel?”
Jennifer herself is welcome to drop by and give her side. In fact, I’ll invite her.
Everyone: Keep this civil and factual. But, yes, within those bounds, speak your mind.
Thanks,
David
(trying to make sure we’re helpful and fair to everyone)
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I don’t know Jennifer and can’t speak to her services. But I do know this: a good editor can be the difference between success and failure — even in obtaining an agent. Everyone believes that they have the next international bestseller in their mind and only need to find time to put pen to paper to become the next JK Rowling.
It just ain’t so!
And getting an agent is problematic. Agents — particlarly the ones with good connections — are inundated with manuscripts. A good editor before finding an agent can help a writer land an agent.
Sadly, good editors and good editing are greatly undervalued in the world of spellcheck and self-publishing — both by authors who think they can do it all themselves and by publishers who are more interested in quarterly profits than quality products.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Steve, thanks for passing on the information about my contest. And David, thanks for inviting me to respond to the other David’s comments.
I agree with you that an editing service isn’t for everyone. Lots of people get published without ever paying for editing. I also want to say that no one should pay for editing until they’ve taken several other steps.
First, they need to edit their own work. I always laugh when someone says, “I’ve gone through my manuscript THREE TIMES! I’m Done!” Hmmmm. Try going through your manuscript thirty times. Or Fifty. Or more.
Second, bring your manuscript to a writer’s group or a critique partner. Do this ten to twenty times. Listen to people’s comments and critiques. Take them seriously. Experiment with your manuscript.
Third, try getting rid of twenty to thirty percent of your word count. That’ll tighten things right up.
So when should you hire an editing service? When you’ve done all the above and your book still isn’t quite right. Perhaps there are still plot points that just don’t add up. Perhaps your grammar skills aren’t what they should be. Or perhaps you have hit a wall and don’t know what to do next. When you get the gut feeling that your book isn’t everything you want it to be, consider hiring an editor.
David [Lomax] feels that all editing services are scams. As a writer, I’ve had my fair share of disappointing experiences with “services”. I’ve spent more on one class that got me two critiques of a thousand words each than I currently charge for a substantive edit of 80,000 words.
I have done everything I can to set up a fair and ethical business. I would suggest that anyone who hasn’t had my service personally recommended to them by a friend should begin with my $19.99 starter package. Believe me, I pull no punches. You’ll know after that whether or not you want to work with me.
I’m also proud that my contest is one of the few with a cash prize that is not funded by entrance fees. It’s free to enter, so no one can lose. Thirty people will get free publicity for their novels. Three will get prizes.
I hope anyone who has any more questions about my service or contest will get in touch with me. I love talking about the business side of the business as well as the writing side.
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:17 am
Thanks to Rih, David and Jennifer for their thoughtful responses. I still see editing services as the wrong way to go. I can’t think of one talented, professional writer I know or know of who pays someone outside of the the usual Writer-Agent-Publishing-house-Editor loop to doctor their manuscripts.
David Rothman suggested that a question to ask of a prospective for-hire editor would be what well-known works have they edited. I think it might be better to start at the other end: take some works you admire and look at the author’s acknowledgements at the end. What you see from doing this is that very few works are produced in a vacuum. But the people being thanked aren’t hired guns. They’re friends, lovers, critique groups, and, yes, agents and publishing house editors.
Jennifer suggests several steps before hiring her services, and I submit that if anyone were to truly and sincerely try these steps then they would either end up with a publishable manuscript or they will never end up with a publishable manuscript.
I think of editors-for-hire as being in the same category as those poetry “contests” where every one is a winner, as long as you buy several copies of the “anthology.” It’s a way of taking people’s money in exchange for faded carbon copies of their dreams.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:38 am
David L,
I understand what you’re saying. But you have to realize that the traditional publishing model doesn’t apply for everyone. Self-publishers don’t have access to a publisher’s in-house editor, so if we know we need editorial services, where will we go?
I do not believe that publisher’s editors are the only editors worth their salt. They only happen to be the ones on-staff at publisher’s organizations. As so many have indicated, the editors on-staff at publisher’s organizations make their share of mistakes, too… they also regularly skew their opinions towards what the publisher wants to make a book commercially successful… not necessarily right, or even good.
So, with all due respect, I don’t think you have a good reason to throw a blanket criticism at all independent editors, nor to imply that all publisher-employed editors are superior to them. It’s simply not true, any more than the idea that all self-published authors are inferior to all Big Pub authors…
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:05 am
Steve, you’ve brought up a good point and one I should have mentioned above. Some of my clients have no intention of submitting their work to a publisher, and therefore aren’t going to get edited by an in-house editor.
When you are your own publisher, you pay for your own editing.