Affordable and good editors

[Guest]

Hi! So I'm at the stage where I can wrap up the first book in my fantasy series as a 75 000 word book. But I'm also pretty much broke as I'm mainly unemployed. I'm wanting to submit the book to a real publisher as I've gone self publishing way and was awful.

What I'm wandering about is affordable and good editors that I can work with to bring my book to the best place it can be for submission. Has anyone found someone similar?

[John]

Don't use an editor for anything other than a writing lesson. Join a writing group, read some books on craft, get good, and find a beta reader that can spot grammar issues you can't clear yourself. A privately paid editor has zero platform to claim that their changes will get you published and paid, and zero platform to claim artistic superiority.

[David]

You get what you pay for. If you choose cheap, don’t expect good.

[William]

People who make money as editors are going to tell you that you have to have an editor – if you have critique partners, or beta readers, both of which can be found for free, especially if you’re willing to help others… You can bang it into professional shape and query without spending thousands. If you would like, I’m happy to start at the beginning and read as long as I’m drawing in, which is about one in 30 times for first chapters and one in 100 times for full manuscripts over the 500 or so manuscripts I’ve experienced in the last two years – leaving feedback as I go along.

[David]

If you’re going to try for traditional publishing, you don’t really need an editor. You can go through it yourself and use beta readers to catch plot holes and errors, polish as much as you can, then start querying.

If you get picked up by a publisher, they’ll provide an editor, and you’ll have spent a fortune for nothing.

[Tom]

Please understand I don't say this to discourage but to prepare you for what's ahead. 75k is exceptionally short for a fantasy novel. Especially in this era. My own first draft is 119k and that's still below average these days The shortest ones I'm aware of in decades are Will Wights cradle series and the shortest of those is 86k. Plus he self-publishes. Mark Lawrence also has some relatively short ones for the genre but nowhere near that short, I'm afraid that even if your book is very good you are almost certain to have much greater than normal difficulty getting any agent or legit publisher in the fantasy genre to take it on or even look at it. I'm sorry if this comes off negative or if I'm telling you, something you're already well aware of. Best of luck to you

[Batman]

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