The Birth of the Educative Edit

I invented the educative edit in response to client needs. Most self-publishing authors have restricted budgets. Let's face it, who doesn't?

In fact, if you are a self-publishing author who is considering hiring an editor, you are in the minority. And if you do hire an editor, you can expect your book to be much better than the vast majority of self-published books. It will certainly be better than it would be if you didn't hire the editor. More about this below...

After all, every reputable publishing house hires editors to help its authors rewrite and rewrite and rewrite their books until they are good enough to print.

If the best sellers are being edited, it only makes sense for the rest of us to be edited as well. But that costs money and most self-publishers are on tight budgets. 

Yes, I already said that. But it bears repeating, because lack of money is the most common reason I've heard for skipping the editing process.

If you plan to sell your book, I suspect you would like to make money at it. 

What does it take to make money?Making sure you don't pay too much for things is one way.

Another way is to make sure you don't pay too little.

Let me explain with a little example....

You could write your book out by hand, photocopy the pages, and staple them together. It would be cheaper than paying for typesetting and professional printing. 

But that would be paying too little because you would be restricting your sales. People expect a certain quality in book production. If your book looks underfunded, people will not respect its ideas.

Another way to lose respect for your book is to print a poor standard of writing.

Good editing, which every book needs, costs money.

If I took a book and tried to fix it all at once, it would cost far more than most clients would consider paying. And frankly, I'd get a little bored and frustrated. I am a teacher not only by profession, but in the marrow of my bones and I prefer that people's skills improve. 

Although I can be paid well for fixing the same mistake over and over in a book, I would rather help the writer understand the problem and the solution. 

So I came up with a solution that works well for many of my clients. It is the educative edit. 

Clients send me relatively short pieces of writing. (We agree together on how much each person should send based on price and how complex the changes will be.) I do a thorough edit of that piece, not only saying what needs to be fixed, but why. And that why makes all the difference. 

The explanation takes much longer than a simple order to make a change. That means that at first an educative edit is more expensive per word than another edit.

But the good news both for me and for the writer is that as the process moves along, the writer stops making the mistakes. The writing is better, more pleasurable for me to read, and cheaper to edit.

I have had some writers move from one educative edit directly to a line edit. Others need several educative edits to iron out the major wrinkles. But everyone is a much stronger writer at the end.

Another advantage of an educative edit is that the cost is spread out over time. The writer pays as he goes. Most people find it easier to pay in smaller installments. 

Two of my clients who used educative edits have written about their experiences. You might like to hear from them what it was like to go through this process.

Lee's story: The Cost of Not Hiring an Editor
Lee came to me after pulling her books off store shelves when readers pointed out mistakes. She now has a book she sells with pride.

JR's story: First Book
An engineer whose job requires many written reports, JR struggled to find the right formula that would appeal to his teen readers. The educative edit gave him the information he needed to share his message effectively.

A sample educative edit on a sample of your writing is waiting for you here.

Because I invented the educative edit, I believe I am the only person offering it. Check out the home page for other editing services on this site.

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This is Jack Popjes and one of his published books. He and I worked on multiple projects. He's  met many goals.

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