Authors Electric

Tomfoolishness and poverty prevented me for too long from having anyone edit my work. After all, I reasoned, what could one do that I couldn't? I went through every page no less than fifty times, then ran the last through Premium ProWriting Aid. I had beta readers too. And I had won a Stoker Award, along with some glowing reviews. But I'd entered the Zone of the Big-Time Boohoo, readier by the day to rant until the cows came home against agents and trad publishing. Or, worse, to  beg hourly on Facebook for more reviews and sales. My work, I believed, had been good enough--but good enough no longer cuts it. Last year I reviewed my quandary in a colder light. I'd been around for decades: first as a horror writer, then as the author of mysteries too quirky and short for the  gatekeepers' taste. And, as an older writer, I may have grown set in my ways--likely more than a few of them bad. I had to reinvent myself, to do something dramatically different. It had to be bigger a...

I’m watching a discussion in one of the many writers’ groups on facebook at the moment. The statement being debated is along the lines of if you don’t have your book professionally edited, it will be rubbish . But nobody has yet defined professional and rubbish , or even edited, and until the goalposts are set firmly on the pitch, it’s all rather meaningless in my opinion. In this particular discussion, professional appears to mean "paying somebody", or indeed "paying anybody". I’ve noticed in my alternative online life (aka facebook…) that there are a lot of people who set themselves up as publishers and editors. Just recently I saw an advert for a "new" publisher – the website says As a principal [sic], and to help new authors … Now what self-respecting author is going to sign up with a publisher who doesn’t understand homophones? Answer: the ones who still think that any "publisher" is better than no publisher. Editors too. They e...