As a self-publishing author, you’re faced with a daunting number of decisions. How do you choose the right professionals to work with? How can you ensure your book’s quality while staying within budget and meeting your timeline?
It’s all a bit overwhelming.
In my previous post, “Dear Indie Author, You Are a Publisher!,” I explained how you’re a publisher and outlined the steps involved in publishing your book. Today, let’s dive deeper into one of the most critical decisions you’ll make: selecting and working with vendors, with a particular focus on editors.
Understanding how to navigate these choices is crucial for your book’s success. We’ll explore the “fast, cheap, good” dilemma that every indie publisher faces and why quality editing should be your top priority.
Fast, Cheap, Good: Pick Two
Here’s the rub with hiring any vendor: The buyer generally wants three qualities in the service— fast, cheap, and good—but you can only have two. Vendors willing to give you fast and good will charge for it. Vendors willing to give you cheap can also give you fast or good but not both.
To add to the complexity, fast, cheap, and good exist on a sliding scale. There’s a balance that you and the vendor must negotiate until both are happy.
That’s why you need to keep your goal and final product in mind. You need to understand your budget and all the services you need to pay for. You need to know your timeline and quality of both the whole project and the service you’re currently negotiating.
Balancing Quality and Budget Across Your Project
Could you lower the quality of the paper the book will use to get a lower price on printing? Would that allow you to afford more editing? Could you hire a more experienced editor who can work more efficiently and fix more errors in one editing pass instead of hiring two editors to do two passes?
It’s imperative to keep in mind that while we purchase with our eyes, making design and form important, we’re persuaded with the experience. For example:
- A pretty label on a wine bottle persuades you to buy one bottle.
- The first sip persuades you to finish the glass.
- The glass persuades you to finish the bottle.
- The bottle persuades you to buy another. And another. And another.
That bottle of wine was an unknown product when you bought it. Good design got you one sale. A great product, the wine itself, is what led to more sales.
Why Editing Is a Make-or-Break Investment
Okay, I hear you saying, but someone who buys my book once will not buy the same one again and again. And you’re right.
Instead, think of it like this: a great read gets you a reader who will buy your next book. Or, at least, a reader who will want to learn more about your product or service and eventually purchase that product or service.
And just as a great bottle of wine will encourage your customers to share their enthusiasm with other wine drinkers, a great book encourages your readers to talk about your book with other readers.
You want to pay the most attention, then, to the chief experience of your book: the text itself.
Choosing your editor and the editing you need is key to your book’s success. It’s not the only thing, but it will play a big role. You can get away with a good but unexciting design. You can choose less-expensive paper or a less exciting cover. Lots of books have “meh” covers or cheap paper and still sell well.
But you need the best editing you can afford. Because if the first sip of wine is sour, the rest of the bottle goes down the drain and the complaints go online.
Invest in your book’s success with professional editing. Our team is ready to help you polish your manuscript and make your publishing dreams a reality. Contact Erin now to get started!
