(Note: Quotes moved out of order to preserve the sense of my replies.)
AllieKat wrote:
I am not gonna fall for the thousands of dollars scam but am thinking of paying $500 for a basics package. I'm not going to pay the extra $200 for the editing as I know a recently laid off English professor who will edit my work for me for only $50 (I suspect she has AS too but I don't know her well enough to ask her outright)
You missed several of my points. First, none of those "packages" is worth the money. The stuff you can't actually do yourself still isn't worth it in that framework. You need to figure out exactly what your book needs, and - on your own - find the person who can provide that. Not some cheap, work for peanuts hack who churns out the generic dreck you get in those packages.
For example, editing. Two hundred dollars for editing is a dead giveaway you're getting nothing but a useless proofreader. Any laid off English professor who will do it for fifty bucks isn't worth it, either. First, because although an English professor
could also be a competent editor, not nearly every English professor is even capable of successfully editing a book at all. Editing is a specific skill. Even many good writers are poor editors. This is true when working with established writers. You aren't an established writer. Your books will have
more problems that need to be isolated and worked on than what a decent editor typically has to deal with. And you'll need more guidance in fixing those problems. There is no one on earth who is capable of doing the work you'd need in terms of editing in less than a month. They need to go over the manuscript a couple of times, reviewing it carefully and pointing out problem areas. Then they need to work with you as you fix them. And then, they need to go over it all over again. So you need someone to put in
at least a month's work on this.
That's assuming someone good enough and fast enough to keep it to a month. And that's assuming hard, skilled work. If you don't pay for what you need, you might as well just use a grammar checker and spell checker on your computer. For fifty bucks, you aren't going to get much more than that, even if this former professor is desperate. They just can't afford to devote enough time to something they're only getting fifty bucks for. Either they know that, and aren't telling you, or, if they don't know that, then they're no good at all as an editor. For two hundred bucks? Same thing. And bear in mind a decent editor is worth a lot more than minimum wage...
(If you can't afford a decent editor, at least you need to understand that. And take a
lot longer learning how to polish your own manuscript, and then doing it. If you think you're getting it "edited", you won't be even as careful as you could be. And whatever cash you spend on that "editing" will be poured down the drain. This is one of those things you either do right, or don't bother doing.)
If you're going to self-publish a book, whatever copies you manage to sell will be out there, with your name on them. And if you ever hope to publish another, how well or badly the first one comes out will influence many people's opinion of the second one. If you ever hope to get noticed by a publisher, you've got to be even more careful. One reason many self-published books flop is because their authors didn't take the time and money and effort to do it right. That isn't the only reason. Many of them were written by people with terrible writing skills, or ideas that aren't worth publishing (tired old retellings of stories others have done much better). But there are self-published books that
could have been at least a modest success, but aren't because their authors thought one of these ridiculous packages was enough to rely on. It isn't how
much you spend that matters, it is how much of that money is
wasted because you got mediocre work.
When I was in high school, back in the 1970s, I published 500 copies of my book. Without the internet to help, I sold them all within less than one year. And most people liked the book. I still wish I hadn't done it, not then, because I've learned so much since then. But that isn't my point. Even most people that use the internet to shill their self-published books don't manage to sell five hundred copies. And most self-published authors end up trashing their own reputation. There are still a few people who remember my book - and they don't see the flaws I see. (Why haven't I published more? It has nothing to do with this, really, but I was dealing with AS back when no one knew about AS, so I was undiagnosed -
and I'm legally blind.
And I was overprotected. When I hit college, those three things combined - especially the AS I didn't even understand I was struggling with - ripped my life apart. By the time I even started to pick up the pieces, I learned enough to see how much better I
could have done. Between the continuing problems of struggling with AS without even knowing that was what I was doing - I only figured that out last fall - and endless hesitation as I wondered if whatever I'd just written could be improved further and as I learned how to improve it, I just never got to that point.)
AllieKat wrote:
Do you think either of those books would be marketable in the AS community?
The other book is a fictional children's book about a 10 year old girl with AS and the challenges she faces in fifth grade (not based on my childhood as this is growing in today's times so the adults around her understand but her peers still think she's weird). My aim is to market that one towards tweens and young teens with AS as well as NT tween girls who like "realistic school fiction" stories in order to bring AS awareness into that particular population.
The memoir (you almost certainly will do better aiming for a memoir than an autobiography) may well be marketable; it would, of course, depend on how well it is written, and edited, and how interesting your particular life story is. Forming an opinion of what is marketable from a very short description is impossible; even seasoned editors reading a full manuscript can only guess at how well it will do in the market.
As for the children's book...
I'm going to make a painful comment - but one that I hope will help you to improve the book. You say "so the adults around her understand". What???! !!??? Have you spent much time looking around Wrong Planet and reading the posts here? I do agree that knowing - yourself - what you're fighting is a huge help. But there are plenty of people posting on here who were diagnosed as children and are still desperate to find
one adult who understands. There are many more who do know some people around them who understand, but also spend a lot of time dealing with those who don't. And I don't think you'll find too many people who would say all or even most of the adults around them as they were growing up - even after their diagnosis - understood anything about them, let alone everything.
I'm just guessing here, but I suspect that you've gotten this idea into your head that it was so hard growing up undiagnosed (as I have my own reasons to know it
was) and that if only you'd been diagnosed it would have been so much easier. And so you want to write what amounts to a fantasy playing that out. If you really want to write a children's book which will help other kids, make it
real. Take the time to understand that a diagnosis is not a magic bullet, that kids still struggle with adults who don't understand, or don't care, and who are cruel. Read the news, about diagnosed kids whose parents murder them, whose teachers abuse them, whose therapists fail them. (There was a high school student in my area, diagnosed with Aspergers. His special interest was crime. He grew obsessed with how to commit the perfect crime. And his idiot therapist didn't figure out this might be reason for concern - until he killed another kid.) Then write a real story, about a real kid who faces real challenges - not just her peers, but the adults who look the other way when she's bullied, the ones who don't believe her.
Finally, I'm sorry, because this post, like my other, is so badly written. I simply don't have the time to do anything other than dump my thoughts out on screen.
_________________
AQ Test = 44 Aspie Quiz = 169 Aspie 33 NT EQ / SQ-R = Extreme Systematising
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Not all those who wander are lost.
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In the country of the blind, the one eyed man - would be diagnosed with a psychological disorder
10 May 2011, 9:03 pm
But don't bet on that decent income... or on fame in any larger sense. When I mention midlist author's name to people who aren't among her fan base, they just scratch their heads and say, "Who?". Heck, she went into a bookstore in her own home town to ask if one of her books was stocked, and the clerk had no idea who she was... even though she has thousands of fans.
