Written by Benjamin Medrano

Editing

So, Spells of Old may be slightly delayed from being released at the point I had hoped. This comes for several reasons.

First, the mistakes people have found in Ancient Ruins have…irritated me, to put it mildly. The most recent one with me messing up the Constella family name is just another straw on the camel’s back of frustration with myself. With Ancient Ruins, I couldn’t afford to get it professionally edited. Most of the estimates I’ve seen would have run me more than $1,000 to get it edited, and I didn’t have the money to do so. I freely admit this. So I let friends and family read through it, and read through line by line, trying to catch all the mistakes…and I know I’ve missed some. This is frustrating beyond words to me. But it was something else that truly made me consider delaying Spells of Old.

I was approached by an audiobook producer yesterday, interested in looking at Ancient Ruins. I’m not naming names, nor am I saying whether it will happen or not, but this happened at the same time that I realized the mistake with the Constella name. If I am to have my books put into audio format, I want them to be the best possible so I don’t have glaring mistakes copied into the audio.

So I’ve looked at my budget, and carefully looked at projected income from what sales I’ve made. I should be able to afford to pay for a professional copyediting of Spells of Old, but only after I’ve been paid for February (which will be in May). Most of the services I looked at said they have a turnaround time of 3-5 weeks, and then I have to go through it again. This means that Spells of Old will likely be published in June, assuming everything keeps going the way it has.

I’ve made a personal decision to keep you all as honestly informed as I can. I have done enormously better than I ever hoped to at this, and I don’t want to disappoint you all.

3 thoughts on “Editing”

  1. If I’m perfectly honest, I’d say you have two choices here: the commercial one, which means getting the next book out as soon as possible. Most independent authors (have to?) operate like this, more or less. That often means that series don’t live up to their potential and proofreading/editing gets cut-short, but looking at the effects of that on amazon seems to imply that it doesn’t matter all that much for sales.

    Or you go for the quality one, in which case I’d recommend not rushing anything. It’s done when it’s done. Since generally nobody goes back and changes dissatisfying things about their book you basically have to live with everything you write forever. It’s worth making sure you’re satisfied with it, and that it’s not just yet-another-novel (plenty of those around). A few months delay or so is nothing (Baen takes about half a year for the editing process, just to compare).

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  2. My goal is a bit in between. The trilogy will be complete this year. That is my one, overriding goal. The goal is in part driven by the need to get it done before my muse insists on working on something new, I’ll admit. The release of the books…I’m willing to delay that up to 3 months after I’ve finished the second draft (believe me, the rough draft of the first 6 chapters of Ancient Ruins was horrible. I had to rewrite every paragraph, almost totally). I don’t think it’ll take that long, but it’s what I’m willing to do.

    But, and this is a big thing…if I get the funds to where I have everything I need set aside for full editing and the like for not just Spells of Old, but Halls of Power as well? I’m going to go back and send Ancient Ruins through the same process. And I will update the original ebook to fix it. To me these books are a labor of love, not just…to make money. I wouldn’t have published them if I was out to specifically make money (that I’ve made enough to even consider doing a full copyediting with my first book is mindboggling to me). I want my books to be written right. To make sense, and for people to be able to enjoy them.

    And…now back to writing.

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