Tag: #AuthorWebsite

Posted on

Affordable Book Editing: Transform Your Manuscript

Have you thought about having an edit on your writing project? You can have it on a full book, or a short story/memoir, or even a poem.

What’s the benefit?

  • A second pair of eyes.
  • A dialogue with an experienced editor who is focused on your work, and what you want your work to achieve.
  • One-on-one interaction.
  • A live Zoom discussion.
  • And lots more!

What’s an edit look like?

Kinda like this, though every book is different:

crisp clear notes to show you why I am suggesting what I am suggesting, and collaboration that suits you.

How much does an edit cost?

As a member of ACES and the EFA, I edit based on the standard scale. That means I charge a per-word fee. This is because words can be cut during editing, and words can be added, but the price is based on the original word count. Some editors charge an hourly fee, but I don’t do that, because what if I read much faster than another editor? The other editor is going to present you with a much higher bill, and you’re going to pay for that person’s lack of experience and speed. Word count is much fairer to you, the author. The EFA recommends three to four cents/word, and I charge three cents. For that three cents I will do a combined edit: developmental, line/copy, and proofreading. I’m a registered business in Los Angeles, California, and I give you a contract, so you know what you’re getting, and when you’re getting it. I also offer a free query letter if you’re going to send your work out to agents and publishers. If you decide in the future that you want to publish with Current Words Publishing, I hold a spot for you for two years (no obligation) and do not require a second edit. If you choose to self-publish you can hit us up for any tasks you need help with, like formatting the manuscript. Sometimes authors choose to do a small piece at a time, depending on what they have time and budget for. I’m open to what works best for you. As an example, a 50,000-word piece would cost $1500, and take one week for me to complete, but would include free Zoom meetings and a free query letter, and help and suggestions on how to start promoting yourself as an author.

What makes me the best editor you can hire is that I am so experienced. I have spent over 25 years working with new authors of fiction and non-fiction in many colleges on both coasts. I published an award-winning student literary magazine at UMES for four years. As an editor I have worked on a lot of mystery, horror, dystopian, speculative, fantasy, magical realism, women’s, LGBTQ+, erotic, memoir, and short story collections, including the celebrated Echoes from the Hocker House. I studied under Juan Felipe Herrera, Syd Lea, Luanne Smith, Betsy Scholl, and Christopher Buckley, to name a few. I ran a very successful workshop that met bi-monthly for seven years. I run a poetry coop, and a literary magazine, and I have curated, edited and created many anthologies of horror, mystery, and literary fiction. I have also been a guest editor at literary conferences including the Atlanta Writers’ Conference. I’ll be at the self-publishing conference in Atlanta this spring, where Current Words Publishing is one of the sponsors. There are so many things an experienced editor can do that most “editors” can’t. You have to be choosy. And going with one of the large “we have editors” sites really hamstrings you, because those editors are not allowed to become a part of your literary life. They’re only allowed to do the job and move on. I am not like that. I invest in the authors I work with for the long haul.

The new year is just around the corner. January is already filled for me, but I am open to your project any time after January 31st, as needed. Depending on what you need I can turn around a full novel in as little as a few weeks. Some folks just like to have me edit their new work, a short story or a chapter in the novel, as they finish it. I am very open to a collaboration that suits you.

And, once the year is over, it’s over, and we, much to our frustration, cannot go back. So maybe what you need in 2025 is that push, that meeting, that obligation to send something to someone who is going to interact with it, and you. Let’s make 2025 the year that your book or collection becomes a reality. If you’re interested email: dianne@currentwords.com, or choose a meeting time that suits you.

Here’s to a happy, healthy, and literary new year!

Dianne

Posted on

READING BEN, AGAIN AND AGAIN

I met Ben Talbot when he somehow found me online, and asked me to edit a short story he had written. I read the short story, and it was, well, you know, my kinda fiction. It was funny, sly, and odd in the best possible way. It took me by surprise, and, as a person who has read thousands of books and probably hundreds of manuscripts, it is hard to write something that presents to me as fresh. Ben’s story did all of that.

Ben writes a blog.

When an author works with me I give advice on the whole “I’m an author” thing, and my advice is always that each author needs a website (the author’s personal shelf in the bookstore that is the WWW, where readers can find him/her/they), and then to communicate, even if it feels like whispering into the void, so people know about you, have a chance to get to know you, as an author and a human. Most folks don’t take my advice, and even I have trouble with my own advice, as I just don’t get the time I need to attend to my own blog, but Ben took my advice and is blogging… daily. 

Ben already had a website with a blog, but he has started making blogging a very regular part of his life, and that takes some stamina and commitment to one’s writing career. Ben has both.

Ben is also a person with a unique way of seeing the world in general, and I think that is his literary “blessing,” if you will, that makes his fiction so compelling when you read it. You can get a taste for it in his blog. If you wonder what the elusive thing called “talent” is, I guess I would say, loosely, it is the ability to do what other people can do (right? Like even I can play a little piano…) but to do it in an either especially skilled way, or with a unique interpretation, or a different way of “playing the instrument” that results in surprising and new ways of…. seeing, hearing, etc. 

Ben is releasing his first book in 2025, a collection of short stories that function as a novel, much like the classic, WINESBURG, OHIO, by Sherwood Anderson, that is actually labeled as a short story cycle. Ben’s collection is called Periscope City: Where the Lonely Go to Live Alone. Reading Ben’s blog will give you an idea of his style, and keep you up to date on when his book releases. It’s under construction with us now, and I’ll be certain to post when the pre-order is available.

I especially like today’s post by Ben. I left a comment on it that it’s like poetry, of a sort. It’s not so much what Ben has to say, as it is the way in which he says it.

Over two million books get released each year. The first step to being read, which the blogging has an opportunity to help with, is having people know that your book even exists. The second step is, once you get them reading, keep them hooked. And that’s where Ben’s writing shines, at least is does for me, a reader who has been bored way more often than hooked, by books sent my way to edit.

So take a look at today’s blog entry from Ben, and see if you see what I see in his style that I find so intriguing.

And if you’re working on your own book, ask yourself if you are willing to out yourself out there, over and over, whispering into the void, to try to find your readers.