When I first heard about Amazon's new "Netflix for books" program, Kindle Unlimited, I thought it sounded crazy. Who would pay nearly $10 a month, every month, for all the Kindle books you can read? I read through a few of the lists Amazon was using to promote their new feature and didn't see any of interest to me.
Then I looked again and thought, Well, maybe that one...And there's Life of Pi, I never did read it...And I love The Hobbit, I could read it again...and so forth until I clicked on the free trial. One month free to try it out. You can download any books regardless of price as long as they're listed on Kindle Unlimited. You keep up to 10 at a time, so if I have 10 and want another, a pop up shows your list and asks if you'd like to return one.
Amazon says 600,000 books are available on Kindle Unlimited right now. Not very many when you figure there's 2 million Kindle books. However, I'm looking for quality, and so far I've been able to find some pretty amazing books.
If I lived in the States, I'm not sure I'd go for it with the availability of libraries. But where I am, I can't run to the library and check out a stack of books-- in English. So when my free trial ends, I'll keep paying $10 a month for Kindle Unlimited. We pay $9 a month for Netflix and I don't watch as many movies as I read books. As long as they have good titles I want to read, it makes sense to me.
Have any of you tried Kindle Unlimited yet? Do you plan to?
Showing posts with label ebooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ebooks. Show all posts
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Quality Sells Ebooks
Sometimes in the rush to get a book to publication, quality can be compromised. It's especially tempting when self- publishing an ebook because downloading the file and clicking that button are just too easy.
Quality Control Check before publishing:
1. A fully-edited manuscript. (And even then, typos just have a sneaky way of slipping through. Grrr to typos!)
2. Formatting. Pay a professional to have it done right, it's worth it!
3. Cover. Your cover design should reflect the tone and genre of your story. Especially with online sales, the cover can make all the difference. It should look professional.
4. Description. I've seen book descriptions with misspelled words, missing punctuation, poor grammar, and I wonder what the book will read like if so many mistakes slip through a brief paragraph or two. The ideal description will make a person want to pay money for the experience of reading the book.
5. Details. Small details can enrich or (unfortunately) ruin the reading experience. Everything from typos and formatting to how chapter headings are designed, how paragraph breaks are done, whether or not the character names are suited to the story, and even comma usage. One or two departures from standard punctuation won't bother me, but when I'm into an ebook several chapters and notice repeated errors (like commas used for semi-colons and semi-colons for commas) it's a huge distraction.
A book must be so well-written, so thoroughly edited, so polished and professional that it really is a wonder when anyone tries to do it alone. Very few of the successful self-publishers do. They hire professionals to help them with all parts of the process to get that quality product readers want.
You want book sales? Don't forget the Q word!
Quality Control Check before publishing:
1. A fully-edited manuscript. (And even then, typos just have a sneaky way of slipping through. Grrr to typos!)
2. Formatting. Pay a professional to have it done right, it's worth it!
3. Cover. Your cover design should reflect the tone and genre of your story. Especially with online sales, the cover can make all the difference. It should look professional.
4. Description. I've seen book descriptions with misspelled words, missing punctuation, poor grammar, and I wonder what the book will read like if so many mistakes slip through a brief paragraph or two. The ideal description will make a person want to pay money for the experience of reading the book.
5. Details. Small details can enrich or (unfortunately) ruin the reading experience. Everything from typos and formatting to how chapter headings are designed, how paragraph breaks are done, whether or not the character names are suited to the story, and even comma usage. One or two departures from standard punctuation won't bother me, but when I'm into an ebook several chapters and notice repeated errors (like commas used for semi-colons and semi-colons for commas) it's a huge distraction.
A book must be so well-written, so thoroughly edited, so polished and professional that it really is a wonder when anyone tries to do it alone. Very few of the successful self-publishers do. They hire professionals to help them with all parts of the process to get that quality product readers want.
You want book sales? Don't forget the Q word!
Friday, February 17, 2012
"Free on Amazon" Should you or shouldn't you?
Is Free the new .99? .99 ebooks don't get the attention they did a year ago since so many are listed at that price. With zillions of ebooks flooding the internet, how does one little book get noticed?
Recently WiDo Publishing did free promotions on their titles that are in the KDP Select program, which allows a book to be offered free for five days during its 90-day cycle on the program. In WiDo's experimentation with price adjustments and free promotions, it's the Free that makes the most money, while .99 is the throw-away.
How can "free" make money? Free for five days in a row, which is how WiDo did it, can be quite profitable. Once the free promo ends, the exposure brings downloads well beyond the book's previous sales levels.
For instance, my book Farm Girl, which wasn't selling well on Kindle, had 18,588 downloads during its five free days. It got ten new reader reviews, all positive (yay!) and then continued on to 500 sales in the two weeks following the promotion.
It may continue selling well, it may not; but at least the little farm girl got some exposure and sales that she wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Since she was lucky to get five downloads a week before, we're talking 100 times the traffic. For an e- book that's not doing much, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing a give-away. Print sales of Farm Girl also increased, as did ebook sales of Uncut Diamonds.
WiDo found similar numbers with its other free promotions, although not as extreme. Sales and rankings increased with the end of every free cycle. While some continued to climb, others returned to their pre-promotional ranking numbers. Price didn't seem to matter. Two books that were given the .99 price tag didn't sell any more after the promotion than those priced at $3.99.
Should you or shouldn't you take advantage of KDP Select's five day free option? I would say "Most definitely." Because Free can make money for a book that isn't making any, and it can make even more money for one that is.
Has anyone else taken advantage of Free on Kindle? I'd love to hear your experiences.
Recently WiDo Publishing did free promotions on their titles that are in the KDP Select program, which allows a book to be offered free for five days during its 90-day cycle on the program. In WiDo's experimentation with price adjustments and free promotions, it's the Free that makes the most money, while .99 is the throw-away.
How can "free" make money? Free for five days in a row, which is how WiDo did it, can be quite profitable. Once the free promo ends, the exposure brings downloads well beyond the book's previous sales levels.
For instance, my book Farm Girl, which wasn't selling well on Kindle, had 18,588 downloads during its five free days. It got ten new reader reviews, all positive (yay!) and then continued on to 500 sales in the two weeks following the promotion.
It may continue selling well, it may not; but at least the little farm girl got some exposure and sales that she wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Since she was lucky to get five downloads a week before, we're talking 100 times the traffic. For an e- book that's not doing much, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing a give-away. Print sales of Farm Girl also increased, as did ebook sales of Uncut Diamonds.
WiDo found similar numbers with its other free promotions, although not as extreme. Sales and rankings increased with the end of every free cycle. While some continued to climb, others returned to their pre-promotional ranking numbers. Price didn't seem to matter. Two books that were given the .99 price tag didn't sell any more after the promotion than those priced at $3.99.
Should you or shouldn't you take advantage of KDP Select's five day free option? I would say "Most definitely." Because Free can make money for a book that isn't making any, and it can make even more money for one that is.
Has anyone else taken advantage of Free on Kindle? I'd love to hear your experiences.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Pricing Ebooks
WiDo Publishing began in 2007 as a print publisher, later releasing titles as ebooks as well. They price new releases at $3.99, and $2.99 for older titles to stimulate interest and attract new buyers. Recently they experimented to find that magic number for bringing in the greatest number of ebook sales
As I mentioned in my previous post, $2.99 is the lowest Kindle price to get the 70% royalty rate from Amazon. WiDo tried .99 for two books: Ghost Waves by W. Everett Prusso and my novel Uncut Diamonds, both released 2009 in print, 2010 as ebooks. Results were interesting.
The drop in price made very little difference in sales. Both authors had only one book on Kindle. Neither of the books had significant sales, although mine were higher probably because I had developed an online presence and the other author had not.
My sales went up a bit with the .99 change but then held steady. They weren't enough to make a difference in profit so WiDo put it back to 2.99 and sales continued at the pre-.99 rate. It may go back to .99 for a time with the release of House of Diamonds, as a promotional price.
The cut didn't affect Ghost Waves sales. Although the hardcover print book did alright for $19.95, it hasn't done well as an ebook regardless of price.
WiDo's top selling ebook is In the Mirror: A Memoir of Shattered Secrets by Ann Carbine Best. It came out in May and there are no plans to drop the price to $2.99 as it continues to sell steadily at $3.99. Not by huge numbers, but consistently, and more every month.
Another new release is Cloak by James Gough, a YA fantasy to be released in hardcover November 15 as a special gift edition for $25.95. It is currently available as an ebook for $4.99, the highest WiDo has priced a new ebook release. The somewhat higher price hasn't seemed to affect ebook sales for Cloak, at least not its first month. People who wanted it bought it.
I'm using WiDo's examples because as a publisher, they're dealing with a variety of authors, titles and genres. So price variations can show interesting trends. And what it has shown in WiDo's case is that if people want a book, the price of a few dollars isn't going to matter. And if they don't want it, the .99 tag won't convince them to buy it. Maybe a few, but not in high enough numbers to overcome that price's weak profit margins.
It comes down to that age-old question forever baffling writers and publishers. What does the public want to read? What inspires people to pay for a book? Simple answer: If it's what they want, they'll make the effort. They'll look for it in a library or bookstore or on their ereader. Book sales come from writing and publishing what people want to read. Give customers what they want and sales will come, whether the book goes for .99 or 9.99.
Are there any ebooks that should be priced at .99? Books that would sell significantly better at the rock bottom price? Consider this. When paperback novels first came out they were cheap, they were exciting and their enticing covers and fast plots appealed to pulp fiction readers. The .99 ebook is like the new old-time paperback pulp fiction novel.
There's a large population of ebook buyers looking for the .99 fast read. It has to have an enticing cover and a fast-moving, action-oriented plot, preferably with a healthy dose of sex. Very much like the hugely popular paperback novels of the 1940s. If this is what you write, and you can do it well, and you churn them out pretty fast, then you could sell a lot of .99 ebooks. Because you will be giving this audience exactly what they want at the price they're looking for.
As I mentioned in my previous post, $2.99 is the lowest Kindle price to get the 70% royalty rate from Amazon. WiDo tried .99 for two books: Ghost Waves by W. Everett Prusso and my novel Uncut Diamonds, both released 2009 in print, 2010 as ebooks. Results were interesting.
The drop in price made very little difference in sales. Both authors had only one book on Kindle. Neither of the books had significant sales, although mine were higher probably because I had developed an online presence and the other author had not.
My sales went up a bit with the .99 change but then held steady. They weren't enough to make a difference in profit so WiDo put it back to 2.99 and sales continued at the pre-.99 rate. It may go back to .99 for a time with the release of House of Diamonds, as a promotional price.
The cut didn't affect Ghost Waves sales. Although the hardcover print book did alright for $19.95, it hasn't done well as an ebook regardless of price.
WiDo's top selling ebook is In the Mirror: A Memoir of Shattered Secrets by Ann Carbine Best. It came out in May and there are no plans to drop the price to $2.99 as it continues to sell steadily at $3.99. Not by huge numbers, but consistently, and more every month.
Another new release is Cloak by James Gough, a YA fantasy to be released in hardcover November 15 as a special gift edition for $25.95. It is currently available as an ebook for $4.99, the highest WiDo has priced a new ebook release. The somewhat higher price hasn't seemed to affect ebook sales for Cloak, at least not its first month. People who wanted it bought it.
I'm using WiDo's examples because as a publisher, they're dealing with a variety of authors, titles and genres. So price variations can show interesting trends. And what it has shown in WiDo's case is that if people want a book, the price of a few dollars isn't going to matter. And if they don't want it, the .99 tag won't convince them to buy it. Maybe a few, but not in high enough numbers to overcome that price's weak profit margins.
It comes down to that age-old question forever baffling writers and publishers. What does the public want to read? What inspires people to pay for a book? Simple answer: If it's what they want, they'll make the effort. They'll look for it in a library or bookstore or on their ereader. Book sales come from writing and publishing what people want to read. Give customers what they want and sales will come, whether the book goes for .99 or 9.99.
Are there any ebooks that should be priced at .99? Books that would sell significantly better at the rock bottom price? Consider this. When paperback novels first came out they were cheap, they were exciting and their enticing covers and fast plots appealed to pulp fiction readers. The .99 ebook is like the new old-time paperback pulp fiction novel.
There's a large population of ebook buyers looking for the .99 fast read. It has to have an enticing cover and a fast-moving, action-oriented plot, preferably with a healthy dose of sex. Very much like the hugely popular paperback novels of the 1940s. If this is what you write, and you can do it well, and you churn them out pretty fast, then you could sell a lot of .99 ebooks. Because you will be giving this audience exactly what they want at the price they're looking for.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Why I'm Not a Fan of the .99 eBook
How to price an ebook? I've read many posts on this topic and considered the variety of opinions. After all the research, it finally hit me why I disagree with pricing ebooks at .99. It occurred to me one day while gazing lovingly at my cookies.
Convenience stores buy my cookies for $1 apiece to resell at $1.59 or $1.79. I make 24 dozen each week, using extra ovens for baking and other techniques to speed up the process without sacrificing quality.
Imagine that each of these cookies represents one book selling on the Kindle for .99. Compare production time of cookies to that of creating a book good enough for people to pay even .99. Scary thought, isn't it?
Don't forget that Amazon gets 65% of each cookie--er--book, netting you 35 cents per sale. If you went through a publisher they take their cut. Is the solution to self-publish so you get the entire 35 cents? That's what many are saying, but it's still just a pittance for an awful lot of effort and expense.
I wouldn't sell my cookies for .35. If that's all I got, I wouldn't bother. Remember, I sell to the stores for $1 and they add the extra .59 or .79. I, who created the recipe and made the cookies, get the larger cut of the product. I'd be a fool to give the stores over half my profit.
When an ebook is priced for .99, Amazon gets the largest cut because royalty is only 35%. Priced at 2.99 or higher, royalty rate goes to 70%. A Kindle ebook priced for 3.99 earns $2.76 on royalties. Big difference between getting $2.76 for each book sold compared to 35 cents.
Now if I could write 24 dozen quality books a week hahahahahahahaha, I might consider pricing them for .99. But probably not even then, because that's not really .99 it's .35, which is split 50/50 with my publisher.
* So for each .99 book sale on the Kindle, Amazon gets 65 cents, my publisher gets 17 cents and I get 17 cents.
* For each 3.99 book sale on the Kindle, Amazon gets $1.19, my publisher gets $1.40 and I get $1.40.
* $2.99 is the lowest price available to get 70% royalty rate. At that price, Amazon gets 89 cents, my publisher gets $1.05 and I get $1.05.
* I'd have to sell six .99 books to get the same amount of money I get from one sale at $2.99. I'd have to sell eight .99 books to get the same money I'd get from a $3.99 sale.
A .99 promotional price has merit but as a permanent price on one's books? No. I would not do this for 17 cents, not even for 35 cents. At that price, I'm better off making cookies.
On Friday, I'll post about one publisher's experience with pricing ebooks and how price has affected sales.
Convenience stores buy my cookies for $1 apiece to resell at $1.59 or $1.79. I make 24 dozen each week, using extra ovens for baking and other techniques to speed up the process without sacrificing quality.Imagine that each of these cookies represents one book selling on the Kindle for .99. Compare production time of cookies to that of creating a book good enough for people to pay even .99. Scary thought, isn't it?
Don't forget that Amazon gets 65% of each cookie--er--book, netting you 35 cents per sale. If you went through a publisher they take their cut. Is the solution to self-publish so you get the entire 35 cents? That's what many are saying, but it's still just a pittance for an awful lot of effort and expense.
I wouldn't sell my cookies for .35. If that's all I got, I wouldn't bother. Remember, I sell to the stores for $1 and they add the extra .59 or .79. I, who created the recipe and made the cookies, get the larger cut of the product. I'd be a fool to give the stores over half my profit.
When an ebook is priced for .99, Amazon gets the largest cut because royalty is only 35%. Priced at 2.99 or higher, royalty rate goes to 70%. A Kindle ebook priced for 3.99 earns $2.76 on royalties. Big difference between getting $2.76 for each book sold compared to 35 cents.
Now if I could write 24 dozen quality books a week hahahahahahahaha, I might consider pricing them for .99. But probably not even then, because that's not really .99 it's .35, which is split 50/50 with my publisher.
* So for each .99 book sale on the Kindle, Amazon gets 65 cents, my publisher gets 17 cents and I get 17 cents.
* For each 3.99 book sale on the Kindle, Amazon gets $1.19, my publisher gets $1.40 and I get $1.40.
* $2.99 is the lowest price available to get 70% royalty rate. At that price, Amazon gets 89 cents, my publisher gets $1.05 and I get $1.05.
* I'd have to sell six .99 books to get the same amount of money I get from one sale at $2.99. I'd have to sell eight .99 books to get the same money I'd get from a $3.99 sale.
A .99 promotional price has merit but as a permanent price on one's books? No. I would not do this for 17 cents, not even for 35 cents. At that price, I'm better off making cookies.
On Friday, I'll post about one publisher's experience with pricing ebooks and how price has affected sales.
Friday, September 30, 2011
The Future is Bright for Writers
Look to Amazon if you want to know the future for books and writers. See the new Kindles they're coming out with in time for Christmas. See how their ad shows it in a teen-age girl's back pocket. See how they make it affordable as stocking gifts for your kids. See how they realize the Kindle has a whole new market of readers to find-- children and teenagers.
As e-readers get cheaper and more diverse, people will have several. I have a Kindle, but I'd like an iPad too. Why not a Nook? And kids will have them.
More people than ever will be looking for books to read on their new readers. So, writers, get busy writing their books!
I've been kicking myself to write more. Soon I'll go from one book to three that are available as ebooks. I have another novel in the works that I hope can be ready for March release. I think I can get another one done and into editing for next October release.
My goal is to have five books with my name on them available by next Christmas. Right now I have one. Pathetic, I know, but I have goals.
It's time to buckle down and get writing. We determine our own futures. If we don't write the books, then life goes on without our names on the titles.
Monday, February 28, 2011
More on Reader Reviews and the Kindle Top 100
So this weekend I was busy doing "research" on my new Kindle, still trying to crack that code on big ebook sales.
There's a lot of well-known books and authors on the Top 100 (James Patterson, Tom Clancy, Water for Elephants, The Book Thief) selling for what I think is too much for an ebook. Why am I going to pay $14.99 and not even get a "real book"? But then I'm still kind of old-fashioned that way. And frugal. After paying so much for an e-reader, I don't want to pay $10 for each book I download.
So this led me to the Top 100 that are $.99. Checking summaries and reviews, many of these looked like they might be good reads, at least some value for the money. And there's self-published author Amanda Hocking, with at least 6 titles on the Top 100. That means she's good, right?
So I downloaded a few of these titles and started reading. I did enjoy Hocking's Blood Flavor-- the first one was .99 and I liked it. I liked her voice, her style of writing and didn't find too many editing errors. Overall, a pretty fun read, so I downloaded the first one in her next series (also $.99) about the trolls.
Then I read the reviews and had to laugh. They were either 5 star "I LOVED this book!" or 1 and 2 star "What are you people thinking???!! This book is CRAP." I'll still read it, but I won't order any of the others in either series because I didn't like it that much, and the rest are $2 and $3.
I'm still downloading a few .99 authors who seem popular but I'm finding that reading these books is like reading a manuscript that needs editing. There's potential, but definitely in need of an editor's touch.
So what have the rest of you found as you've been searching the Top 100 on your e-readers? Any great $.99 values? Or have you found a lot of rough stuff that somehow (not sure quite how) found an audience?
There's a lot of well-known books and authors on the Top 100 (James Patterson, Tom Clancy, Water for Elephants, The Book Thief) selling for what I think is too much for an ebook. Why am I going to pay $14.99 and not even get a "real book"? But then I'm still kind of old-fashioned that way. And frugal. After paying so much for an e-reader, I don't want to pay $10 for each book I download.
So this led me to the Top 100 that are $.99. Checking summaries and reviews, many of these looked like they might be good reads, at least some value for the money. And there's self-published author Amanda Hocking, with at least 6 titles on the Top 100. That means she's good, right?
So I downloaded a few of these titles and started reading. I did enjoy Hocking's Blood Flavor-- the first one was .99 and I liked it. I liked her voice, her style of writing and didn't find too many editing errors. Overall, a pretty fun read, so I downloaded the first one in her next series (also $.99) about the trolls.
Then I read the reviews and had to laugh. They were either 5 star "I LOVED this book!" or 1 and 2 star "What are you people thinking???!! This book is CRAP." I'll still read it, but I won't order any of the others in either series because I didn't like it that much, and the rest are $2 and $3.
I'm still downloading a few .99 authors who seem popular but I'm finding that reading these books is like reading a manuscript that needs editing. There's potential, but definitely in need of an editor's touch.
So what have the rest of you found as you've been searching the Top 100 on your e-readers? Any great $.99 values? Or have you found a lot of rough stuff that somehow (not sure quite how) found an audience?
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The Problem with Self-Publishing
It used to be distribution. A self-pubbed book couldn't get into bookstores. Now? Does that even matter at all? No, not really.
The self-publisher can go electronic, promote like crazy using social media and a link on the blog, and sell amazing amounts. Karen McQuestion did just that with her ebook, A Scattered Life, and now it's being published by Amazon (when did they become a big press???) and made into a movie.
A book not making it to the bookstore shelf is mattering less and less as we speak. A recent NY Times article chronicles the problems bookstores, including the massive Barnes & Noble, are facing due to the ebook explosion. And booksellers thought they had it bad back when Amazon took hold. Man, that was nothing compared to what's happening now!
So here's the question. Why bother with a publisher at all? Why bother with finding an agent, getting rejected, looking for a publisher, getting rejected, writing queries, getting rejected, submitting partials, getting rejected? Why not just save time, forgo the misery, and go straight to Smashwords? Or CreateSpace and Amazon?
If distribution doesn't matter, and marketing dollars are scarce (authors are having to promote like crazy anyway), then why not just do it all yourself and end up with a bigger piece of the pie?
A post yesterday on Melissa Cunningham's blog, A Writer's Reality, answers these questions, from the perspective of a debut author. EDITING. Did you hear that? I'm sure you did since I was shouting. EDITING. One more time. EDITING.
Sure you can have your work critiqued, even pay thousands of dollars for an editing service-- but all those people are so easy to ignore when they tell you something hard to hear, like:
These 3 chapters drag and don't add anything to the story--No way! That's my favorite part and is the essence of my book!
150,000 words is a bit much for a YA novel. Better cut by half-- I can't take out that much. Look at the 4th Harry Potter. It sold fine.
Your main character is annoying and will alienate readers-- What? The main character is based on my cousin, and this is true to her personality. I can't change it.
The boy and girl are both named Corey, very confusing-- So what? I like the name Corey.
There's an awful lot of telling in the first six chapters-- But that's because the reader needs to know the background to understand what comes next.
An editing service will be nice, make suggestions, and end up letting you do what you want because you're the boss. You are paying them. Not so with an editor at a publishing house. Whowill be a complete jerk may not be nice, who will make unreasonable demands, incredibly annoying requests, give strongly worded direction for the changes that must be made to your manuscript before it can go any farther.
Now if you're an amazing writer with the ability to self-edit with great skill, and the ability to take critique and run with it, polishing your work until it shines-- then you may be an excellent candidate for self-publishing.
I have nothing against self-publishing. Each writer needs to go the route that makes the most sense for him or her. But the editing.... that can be the real stumbling block. So if you're considering self-publishing, just be aware of the editing. Have a plan for that.
The self-publisher can go electronic, promote like crazy using social media and a link on the blog, and sell amazing amounts. Karen McQuestion did just that with her ebook, A Scattered Life, and now it's being published by Amazon (when did they become a big press???) and made into a movie.
A book not making it to the bookstore shelf is mattering less and less as we speak. A recent NY Times article chronicles the problems bookstores, including the massive Barnes & Noble, are facing due to the ebook explosion. And booksellers thought they had it bad back when Amazon took hold. Man, that was nothing compared to what's happening now!
So here's the question. Why bother with a publisher at all? Why bother with finding an agent, getting rejected, looking for a publisher, getting rejected, writing queries, getting rejected, submitting partials, getting rejected? Why not just save time, forgo the misery, and go straight to Smashwords? Or CreateSpace and Amazon?
If distribution doesn't matter, and marketing dollars are scarce (authors are having to promote like crazy anyway), then why not just do it all yourself and end up with a bigger piece of the pie?
A post yesterday on Melissa Cunningham's blog, A Writer's Reality, answers these questions, from the perspective of a debut author. EDITING. Did you hear that? I'm sure you did since I was shouting. EDITING. One more time. EDITING.
Sure you can have your work critiqued, even pay thousands of dollars for an editing service-- but all those people are so easy to ignore when they tell you something hard to hear, like:
These 3 chapters drag and don't add anything to the story--No way! That's my favorite part and is the essence of my book!
150,000 words is a bit much for a YA novel. Better cut by half-- I can't take out that much. Look at the 4th Harry Potter. It sold fine.
Your main character is annoying and will alienate readers-- What? The main character is based on my cousin, and this is true to her personality. I can't change it.
The boy and girl are both named Corey, very confusing-- So what? I like the name Corey.
There's an awful lot of telling in the first six chapters-- But that's because the reader needs to know the background to understand what comes next.
An editing service will be nice, make suggestions, and end up letting you do what you want because you're the boss. You are paying them. Not so with an editor at a publishing house. Who
Now if you're an amazing writer with the ability to self-edit with great skill, and the ability to take critique and run with it, polishing your work until it shines-- then you may be an excellent candidate for self-publishing.
I have nothing against self-publishing. Each writer needs to go the route that makes the most sense for him or her. But the editing.... that can be the real stumbling block. So if you're considering self-publishing, just be aware of the editing. Have a plan for that.
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