Today Spells of Old starts at a bit over 105,000 words. Based on where I am in the story, the first draft will be done this week. To remind people how I work, this means that once the first draft is done, I share it with friends who go through, pointing out egregious spelling and grammar issues, but who primarily focus on weaknesses in the story. Once they’ve gone through it, I go through, reading everything and fleshing things out/rewriting parts. Then my readers go through again, looking for flaws. I fix any minor flaws, then I send it to an editor.
I don’t know how long this process will take. I’ve written Spells of Old a lot more cleanly than Ancient Ruins, but the process took almost 2 months for Ancient Ruins, without the editor. I’m just trying to manage expectations.
In other news, I finished formatting Ancient Ruins for Print on Demand, and ordered a proof copy. The soonest it’ll reach me is sometime between the 20th and 25th of March, likely the 25th. Assuming it didn’t screw up (I used their templates), at that point I’ll approve it and publish it, so people will be able to order physical copies of Ancient Ruins.
Ancient Dreams 
I’m curious, how much would an editor cost to go through 100k+ words? Or is this more of a situation where you trust the people you’re giving it to to give feedback on the plot and wouldn’t trust a hired editor?
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Editors prices vary wildly. I’ve generally seen prices for most editors based on 75k words, but for 100k I usually see about $1,000-$2,000, depending on how much work the manuscript takes. But this is specifically for copyediting. Other forms of editing…actually, I’m going to write a blog post on this, because it’s better to explain to anyone who’s curious.
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Hmm, if those people read right away it might be possible to have the book by the end of the month, but let’s be realistic that we won’t see it before that april knock out march. Hehe, soon Sistina&co will be there! Oh and I sooo wanna see how the kingdom is going to try to mend their relationship with the Genius Loci.
Writing and having a quality read depend on time, so I am patient about it. Meanwhile I focus on other works and buy physical copy of books when I can for my bookshelf, so… The news about Ancient Ruins getting physical medium is awesome.
Oh and Brian, some friends can be trusted. But getting an editor to check your work is… how to say? more of a clinical matter. They focus more on turn of sentences and grammar than the plot and how the characters fit into the given situation. So yeah, getting people interested in what you write and be objective about it is more suitable.
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It could be faster. I’m just not going to promise before May, because…who knows what might come up? I don’t want to get people’s hopes up. I’m trying to be realistic, and also keep everyone informed as to where I am on the story.
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That’s fair.
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