If you’re wondering if your chapter sucks, it probably does. That’s ok. Keep writing. The first goal is to just get it down on paper and then you bring in book editors to help.

We like to tell our clients the first order of business is creating a bad first draft. Once you’ve got a bad first draft, there’s something to work with to make it good, and then great. That’s where the most important members of your team come into the picture:

The book editors!

But, here’s where way too many well intentioned authors go so wrong!

Don’t Waste Your Money on the Wrong Book Editor

Too many authors send me their edited manuscripts telling me they are ready to publish … and they have hired professional editors, but the book still is not good. What’s gone wrong?

First, let me be clear … 100% of authors need editors. Professional writers need an editor. There is no level of experienced writer that just no longer needs an editor.

You CANNOT edit your work. Your brain plays tricks on you and you will only see how something is supposed to be written not how it’s written. Also, stuff that makes sense to you quite likely doesn’t make sense to other people.

While some experienced writers can skip a developmental edit, those situations are rare. Most non-fiction books will be improved from a two or three-star book to a four-star book with a good developmental or content edit. Then the copy edit takes it from four stars to five stars.

Even when you understand this and you realize that you have to hire professionals for this not just your aunt who edited your papers for university, you might still go wrong when you hire editors and here are the four most common places I see it go all wrong for well intentioned authors.

3 Ways Authors Mess Up When Hiring a Book Editor

1. You hire an editor, but your book needs someone who will help you develop the idea further.

Editors are not the same as writing coaches. In fact, editors often are more analytical than a writing coach. The best line or copy editors are detail oriented and process driven. A good writing coach is going to be driven to influence and communicate in a way that is engaging. They are typically creatives.

Your book might need someone who is more creative first … someone to develop the concept further and make sure you’ve made something that is compelling and interesting above all else. Editing improves the writing but it’s not usually going to develop the core message and idea enough to make the book really great. Even content editing,  which does focus on the structure and content of the book, is sometimes premature if the book doesn’t have a well enough developed hook. Don’t know what makes a great hook? Watch this video:

If you’re not really sure where your book is at ask a few colleagues or friends to read your book (commonly called beta readers) and ask them to answer a few questions like:

> what do you think this book is about?
> what’s the main benefit you get from this book?
> what would you change?

If your beta readers are coming back with positive and consistent answers to the above then you’re probably ready for editing.

2. You hired an editor but weren’t clear on what you expected the result of the edits to be.

“I hired an editor but she didn’t make my book better she just made it grammatically correct.” More than one client has brought me their manuscript with this complaint.

If you hire a copy editor – you’re going to get a copy edit.

Some great copy editors will flag areas of your book that need improvement, but their job is to follow a list of rules and make sure your book follows those rules.

If you want an editor that is going to make your book better, you may need a story expert (See point 1 …). Or you need to hire a developmental editor and make it clear that you’re looking for someone to dig in and help you figure out how to make this book better. Spell out what that looks like – do you want them to actually write out how to make a paragraph read better or just, flag it with questions for you to do the work? The more you can lay out the expectations of your editor in advance the more you set yourself up for success.

3. You hired an editor without checking their experience.

Someone may have a great eye for mistakes, but that is not the same as being an experienced and professional editor. Your Uncle may be handy around the house, but it’s not the same as hiring a licensed carpenter or electrician.

If an editor hasn’t edited a bunch of other books in my genre (non-fiction, ideally business books or memoirs) and doesn’t edit for a living, I move on and unless you’re on a tight budget, you probably should too.

Editors are the most expensive part of your book publishing process (unless you’re working with ghostwriter … then the writer should be the highest paid person on your team). Make sure your investment is going to making your book better. And, often this means you need different people to do different roles. It also means you need to hire true professionals.

At Book Launchers we have a story expert or writing coach help with the concept before a different person does the content edit, then a different person does two rounds of copy editing before another person does a proofread. My margin on our book projects would be much higher without involving all these experts, but then the books we produce wouldn’t be half as good. Every professional is worth it but make sure you’re getting the right people at the right time in your book publishing journey.

You also might like this video:

While you waste two years pursuing a book deal with a traditional publisher your competition has already published their book and begun to profit. Traditional book deals aren’t dead … there are some sensible reasons to pursue a traditional book deal, but self-publishing is quite possibly the best solution for you.

Even if I was offered a traditional book deal right now, I wouldn’t take it. Here’s why:

Reason One for Not Taking a Traditional Book Deal: Money

I make way more money self-publishing. To self-publish my first book, I invested a total of $12,800 when you include hiring a PR company. That’s with me doing all the legwork to research the steps, hire everyone, set up accounts, upload all my files, and project managing the entire process. It was a giant pain, and it took more than a few hundred hours to do. Forget about just the writing. I also made some huge mistakes, including one that cost me bookstore distribution in the province of Alberta, you can see a video about that one right here, and another error that cost me $1,200 in returned book charges. You can see about that mistake here.

It was worth it, but if a company like Book Launchers had been around in 2013, I would’ve happily paid them that money and more to do it all for me.

There are plenty of reasons besides money to write a book. I covered that right here:

But, there is a lot of money to be made in book sales and beyond if you do it right.  In the last four years, I’ve made more than $63,000 from the sale of More Than Cashflow, and that’s just from Amazon and bookstores. I’ve also made thousands of dollars selling books at the back of the room where I’ve spoken or had a booth.

Because I owned my book, I was also able to use it as currency. I traded copies of my book for more than $30,000 worth of magazine advertising space.

If I had landed a traditional book deal, I would’ve made less than $10,000 from the same quantity of book sales. I also couldn’t have easily used my books as currency to trade for advertising because I would’ve had to pay retail price to the publisher to buy copies of my book to do the deal. It cost me $4 and something to buy each book from the print-on-demand publisher. It would’ve cost me closer to $15 to buy it from the publisher. What I could do with the content for creating courses, talks, and other off-shoots would have been subject to the publisher’s approval as well.

Reason Two for Not Taking a Traditional Book Deal: Creative Freedom

Now, some of these financial benefits of publishing a book would’ve come about with a traditional publisher, but not all of them. With a traditional publishing deal, I would’ve had to compromise on the subject matter of the book. It would have made the book much less impactful. The traditional publishers I spoke with actually rejected my book idea, saying there was already too many generic real estate investing books on the market. The idea the publisher gave me to write about was kinda lame (real estate investing for couples). I’m glad I didn’t get a deal to write that book. I knew my market.

That’s part of the reason my book became an Amazon Overall #1 Bestseller and stayed into the Top 100 for 45 days. It was unique, but the publisher didn’t know my market as I did and wanted me to go into a boring niche. I’m so glad I didn’t get that book deal.

Reason One for Not Taking a Traditional Book Deal: Rights and Control

I’ve watched a lot of my friends get book deals and ultimately be very unhappy about it. It usually comes down to the rights and control. Most traditional publishing deals require you sign over the audiobook rights, but often the publisher may not create one for you. You don’t have the rights to produce one for yourself. So you’re stuck. But, it’s more than that.

Who owns the content in your book? Not you when you take a traditional publishing deal. One friend of mine even had their book republished, word for word, under another person’s name. The intro and title changed, but it’s 95% his book, now being sold under someone else’s name. The publisher can do that because they own the content. Another friend bought his book rights back from the publisher because he was tired of them limiting what he could do with the brand.  Jim Kukral of the Sell More Books Show was recently pleading with his listeners to buy his last 70 copies of his book to free him from his oppressors, his publisher. Traditional publishing is a broken model, and it doesn’t offer the advantages people think it does.

Maybe a book deal with a traditional publisher is right for you

Maybe traditional publishing is right for you, but quite likely, it’s not. Fewer traditional deals are done now. The deals all take a long time. You usually need to find an agent. That takes time. Then, you write a book proposal and sit gets shopped around. That takes time. Then, if anybody bites, there are contract negotiations. If you start now, two years from now, you might have your book out.

With self-publishing, you could have a book out in the next six to 12 months. A lot could happen in that year … and in the meantime, while your book isn’t out, you’re almost guaranteed to be leaving money on the table. Other people with books are landing the paid speaking gigs, the consulting clients, or selling more products.

But there are reasons to pursue a book deal.

The significant benefit of pursuing a traditional publishing deal is ease of distribution. If you traditionally publish your book, it’s more likely to be carried in bookstores. You’re also more likely to be eligible for the huge best-seller list like New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and the traditional publisher does take a risk on your book, footing the bill for the team that will take your book from concept to print.

But, don’t expect that they are going to do much to sell your book!

You, the author, are still 99% responsible for marketing. Let me repeat that part because it’s so important. Even with a traditional publishing deal, the author is responsible for marketing the book. In other words, you do all the sales work and you write the book, and they take 85% of the revenue. Sound fair?

Finally, and this is another really important thing to know. The only person who REALLY cares if you got a book deal is you. Readers don’t care. If the book is done professionally and gives them massive value, they are happy.

Some authors are happy with their book deals.  It can be a great solution for the right people. Just don’t go into it thinking this big company takes care of everything but the writing. That just isn’t true.

If that was why you were pursuing the book deal, check out what we do at Book Launchers. We do EVERYTHING a publisher would do AND we help you market your book to achieve your goal. The best part is that you keep all the rights and royalties.

To learn more, let’s chat.