I'm a writer of a science fiction series that I am working to publish in the early fall of 2022. This site serves as a way to document my progress towards that goal, share writing tips, and to connect with readers.
In my research of self-publishing companies, I am subscribed to receive emails and newsletters from many companies including BookBaby. They recently sent out a free $50 trial package for their editing, which covers five manuscript pages. I have already decided to use Red Adept Editing for my upcoming novels, but I decided to send off the first five pages of my manuscript of my first book.
This was an interesting experiment because I thought the beginning of my book was pretty clean from typos since I have hashed over it so many times, although I had recently done “surgery” to change some of it, which for me, causes more new errors. I call it surgery with a backhoe.
Reading the edited draft was similar to my experience with Red Adept when I was kind of embarrassed for some of my mistakes. I love the meme that says, “Anyone who doesn’t know the difference between there, they’re, and their is a idiot!” (intentionally not “an” idiot.) I do know the difference, and I don’t really feel like an idiot, because I know a professional editor is essential for my writing, and I would never try to make due without one.
Aside from a couple “their’s” instead of “they’re’s” and even a “your” instead of “you’re,” BookBaby added some commas, fixed my poor punctuation for dialog, and made suggestions for a few clunky sentences. I felt that Red Adept’s suggestions for re-wording sentences were a little more creative, but BookBaby made some useful suggestions. (Read my article below about my experience with Red Adept.)
The biggest difference between BookBaby and Red Adept Editing is the price. BookBaby is two to three times as expensive, depending on which service I compare it to at Red Adept.
Getting the sample from BookBaby did not change much for me, except it further reinforced the idea that professional editing is crucial, especially for my writing. Anyone who is aware of the importance of professional editing is not a idiot—an idiot.
I have been listening to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast (SFFMP)- which I highly recommend- and learned about selling books at conventions on episode 160 with guest Russell Nohelty. In his interview he stated he sold more books at conferences than he does on Amazon. My first response, like Lindsey Buroker’s, who is one of the hosts of the show, was that sitting at a table trying to sell books did not sound enticing. Russell’s interview, however, made me want to look into it.
I found out about the New Mexico Comic Expo through a friend who writes comic books, Chloe Handler, owner of Debate Me Comics. She had reserved a booth to sell her wares. I had never been to a comic-con and went with the intent to document my experience, see if perhaps I would someday want to try to sell books at one, and meet authors.
When I was walking toward the convention center in downtown Albuquerque, I knew I was in the right place because people in costumes were walking the streets and converging on the location of the expo. I had seen the amazing costumes on Youtube of people at larger conventions and had no idea how many people would dress up for this smaller one in Albuquerque. I was not disappointed.
I made it in and took photos along the way of people in their costumes. It didn’t take long to find Chloe at her table. Her booth was nestled in the artist area of the convention. Russel Nohelty had described authors’ alleys at larger conventions where all the writers were grouped in one section, but I liked how they were intermixed with other artists. The majority were fan-art booths filled with super hero art and Star Wars art! My budget was however much cash I had in my wallet. My first purchase was a couple small prints of a cartoonish Boba Fett and his ship floating in some extra colorful swirls of space!
After purchasing some comic books from Chloe, we walked over and she introduced me to Jacqueline E. Smith, who had a booth filled with books. This was my first experience being introduced as an aspiring writer to another writer and having a conversation about writing and publishing. I had done tons of research, but talking to a real person about her experiences was a glimpse into a new world. It was also the first time anyone had asked me what kind of writing I’m working on.
My goal was to purchase books from as many authors as possible. Jacqueline had books from her Cemetery Tours series, her Boy Band series and a book called Trashy Romance Novel, among many others. I asked her where to start, and since she knew I liked sci-fi, she recommended her anthology of short stories called Broken Mirror and Other Stories. She mentioned one story in it about a writer’s retreat to Mars. I did not hesitate to buy a copy.
After meeting Jacqueline, I wandered aimlessly, taking pictures, and visiting more booths. I bought a book called Lucky by RH Webster. It’s her debut novel which she described as a space western similar to the Firefly. She admitted to liking Han Solo-like characters and was inspired by that type of hero. I realized I am more of a Luke Skywalker fan and we had a great discussion about characters.
I just finished reading Lucky. A worthwhile read with a sweet romantic element. It was inspirational to read her debut novel, and I could tell she put her heart onto every page.
The next author I met was none other than Timothy Zahn! I told him I was a fan and we talked Star Wars! I had read all of his Stars Wars books in the 90’s. We talked about the setting of his newest book Thrawn: Aliances and how the new Star Wars movies should have followed the books more closely- like including all of the children of the characters. Unfortunately a $45 hardback was not in my budget, but I will get the paperback at a later date. Meeting Timothy Zahn definitely made my day!
I accomplished all I hoped on my mission. I met authors, saw their products and booth set-ups, and got submerged into a new world. I wanted to scout it out to see if someday selling books from a table might be desirable. I think it would be rewarding and fun, but I realized I would not want to be in a booth on my own. My daughter is a crafts person who makes dolls of her own characters and of widely recognized characters like Totoro. Sharing a booth with her would be great because not only could she draw people in, she could also help pitch my books of which she is my number one test reader. Better get sewing Sienna!
Crocheted Pikachu was definitely within my budget!
I received news that my short story submission for the Area 51 anthology was accepted. Getting my story accepted was incredibly encouraging and is an accomplishment my family is excited about.
The first step after acceptance was to sign the contract. It all seemed understandable and reasonable. In my naivety I thought the contract was the last step and I would just wait until the release date of the anthology, which is September 20. A couple weeks later, however, I received an email with an edited version of my story. I read through it and was really impressed with what the editor found and suggested.
I had to email the anthology publisher for directions because I didn’t know I simply had to right click on every highlighted word to accept or deny their changes. Thanks, Teresa, for so patiently dealing with a neophyte!
What an enlightening experience it was to read my story with a professional edit! I had some consistently recurring errors with my punctuation for dialog. I also felt like I was back in grade school when I had learned about different types of sentences and the teacher had asked, “What kind of sentence is this, and how do you punctuate that type of sentence?” For starters, I used way too many exclamation points! The editor removed ninety percent of them. The remaining exclamation points were used appropriately for exclamatory sentences. The end result of using them sparingly gave them more exclamatory power. Another improvement the editor recommended more than once was adding in some past perfect tense verbs. Example: “The boys hadbrought their own tents for sleeping.”
In addition to grammatical errors, the editor also fixed awkward sentences. In some cases she only changed the word order to create a better flow. The editor did also suggest stronger verbs. Example: “They erected their Easy-Up tent.” instead of, “They set-up their Easy-Up tent.”
After reading my edited manuscript, the first idea I had was, I wish I could get this kind of editing for my novel manuscripts. It turns out that I can, and I will, through the company, Red Adept Editing who did the editing for the short stories for the Area 51 anthology. Check out their website. Go to Editing Services, punch in your word count into their project estimator, and get the price for editing. They offer many packages so it seemed challenging to know which one to choose. I contacted them, and Lynn recommended the Full Polish Package for new writers. At 50,000 words, a manuscript would cost $530. Their most basic package for that word count is The Sweetheart Package at $347.
Until this experience, I thought that if I could get enough test readers and maybe a grammar-wise school teacher to read my manuscripts, I could skip editing, but now it’s clearly an essential step, and I am fortunate to have found an editor with reasonable prices and an excellent service. I do not want to spend excessive amounts of money on my writing projects, but professional editing is something I definitely will not skimp on.
Proper editing made a huge impact on my short story. They didn’t change my writing style, or what I was trying to convey. They just made my story clear and correct, and now it flows more smoothly. Finding an editor is one box I can now check off my list as I continue on my writer’s journey.
The purpose of this blog is to document the beginning of my writing career as it progresses and to share my experiences. I am not an expert, but I am constantly researching and learning.
She talks about positive thinking versus the pit-falls of negative thinking and impostor syndrome, which is a term I’ve heard before but could never relate to, until now. I am two thirds of the way through an ecological science fiction trilogy that has given me feelings of hope, accomplishment, but sometimes doubt. On a good day, I pat myself on the back, and on a bad day I ask myself, who are you trying to fool- you’re never going anywhere with this. I am fine with that, though, because the worst case scenario is that I will get some paperback books printed to give to my friends and family and to put on my bookshelf to cherish for the rest of my life.
I’m now experiencing something new as a wannabe writer. I heard about a call for submissions for an anthology of short stories about the raid on Area 51. I learned about it first thing one morning, sitting on the toilet while on Facebook. By the time I had showered and shaved, I had a pretty good idea for a story. I am now over four thousand words into a story that I think is good, but I have absolutely no idea if anyone else will like it. With my attempted novels, this has not been an issue, and with them I fully realize that what I’m writing does’t need to appeal to everyone. (Although I do have my twenty year-old daughter in mind as my target audience!)
I am not the nervous type. I’ve competed in skateboard competitions and downhill races without getting butterflies, but I feel very nervous to submit something that may or may not get rejected. I squeezed in small windows of writing time over a couple days, to get the story started. Then I spent a good chunk of my Saturday working on my story, and I didn’t quite get the same sense of accomplishment I do when I write a few thousand words on my attempted novels. Was that just a waste of an entire day? I am trying to reassure myself that it’s good practice, I like the story, and it’s not a waste of time!
Philip Ginn Writer 