A dedicated viewer of HGTV and budget-conscious person, I like to watch the High Low Project with Sabrina Soto. During each episode, Sabrina and her assistant decorate a space with high-end furnishings and trimmings, then recreate it on a shoestring budget. Bottom line: You needn’t spend a lot to look like you broke the bank. And you can apply this same idea to publishing. Recently, I reviewed a manuscript for a potential client. Her intriguing story needed work, so I gave her a sample edit—and a bid that didn’t fit her budget. The writer lamented the fact that she might not be able to afford the professional help needed to publish the quality book she wanted. Many writers fail to count the cost before they begin. They also fail to explore options that may whittle huge expenses into affordable services. How can they create their own high-low publishing project? Join a writer’s group, but be selective. Visit them. Are they a good fit for you and your work? (Check out both loca...

When you decided to become a wordsmith, you may have thought you could leave the world of numbers behind. No such luck! Today’s authors are entrepreneurs: even if traditionally published, once sales are involved, your writing becomes a business. For a multitude of reasons often expounded upon at this site, one of your main expenses may end up being editing services. Why does editing cost so much? Since editing is my business, I hear that question all the time. I thought I’d embrace BRP’s “Back to School” theme to provide a business math lesson as applied to editing. “Back to School” isn’t just a late summer theme for me, it’s the theme of my life. To keep up-to-date on trends in the publishing industry, I’m constantly seeking out new learning opportunities. Here’s a peek at what I spend each year on my continuing education alone (previous investment in post-graduate college education assumed): Conferences $500 Workshops/Classes $200 Professional dues $120 Resource material...

A recent post on an author forum caught my attention and generated many comments from other writers as well. Here’s the post: I am so pissed off right now. I spent $500 on an editor and caught errors. In the past I had edited my stories and then published them, but I kept hearing how good it is to have an editor and thought I would save some editing time. The problem? It's not the first time it's happened. I bartered services with two other people (who supposedly were good at editing) and had the same thing happen. It's just this time around, I thought if I paid a professional, then I would get better service, you know? Does anyone else have similar experiences, do you have a good editor who catches everything, or do you do fine on your own? Editors are not perfect, and no single editor can catch everything in an 80,000-word document. Which is why books need to go through an editing/proofreading process that involves many reads. What was most interesting to me was in th...

You know her as: Maryann Miller is an author and freelance editor. Her latest books are One Small Victory and Play it Again, Sam. Visit her Web site for information about her books and her editing services. If you have a good book, she can help you make it better. When she is not working, she loves to play "farmer" on her little ranch in the beautiful Piney Woods of East Texas. Let's find out more about Maryann in our second Meet the Editor interview. When did you first notice you were hung-up on typos? I started editing for a slick, quarterly magazine about ten years after I started writing freelance articles. I was hired to work with other writers to get new stories assigned, written, and edited. But I didn't do copy editing or proofing at that point. There was another editor for that. Which is good, because copy editing has never been my strong suit. I am better at working with an author to get a story right, or improve a piece of fiction. Later, I discovered that...

Our most popular and most commented on post. Not much has changed, including debate over fair and affordable editing costs. It's all well and good to tell a writer they need a professional editor to peruse their manuscript before submitting to an agent or publisher. But, how much does that cost? An informal industry perusal yields quite a range of costs. Let's take a look at some prices as well as methods of pricing. It depends in part on what you're buying. A line editor might charge $25 per hour and edit on average 10 pages an hour. Some editors simply charge $2.50 per page, which makes the math rather easy. A 300-page novel would cost you $750 for editing services. But, what does that get you? Just a cleaning up of grammar, spelling, and typos as a rule. Some good editors will take a little longer and make deeper suggestions to improve the writing. But don't expect too much more than the basics for that price. It's still money well-spent, and it can mean ...