I am currently working on my first novel, but I don’t plan to make money on my writing. I hope to, but I do not plan to. Because to make money on my creative writing, I would need to completely rearrange my relationship to it and I simply… don’t want to.
Right now, I write entirely for myself. I want to publish, but with certain parameters. I would rather put my manuscript in a drawer never to see the light of day again than make certain compromises, and the only reason I can maintain that purity of artistic vision is because I don’t need said artistic vision to pay my bills.
So I do it for free, because I love it, and doing it for free allows me to do it on my terms.
I love editing too; I love editing more than writing, in fact. Give me a blank page, and I can and will fill it, but it will be a mess and I will need a rest afterwards.
Give me your mess (no offense, but it’s why you’re considering hiring me, after all) and it energizes me. I love reading your manuscript and watching your vision come into focus. I love asking questions that might lead you to a juicier plot point, making suggestions for ways to clarify a scene, or explaining how a certain choice might impact your reader in a way you didn’t realize. I can’t put it down.
But editing for free actually doesn’t allow me to do it in the way I want. Work with critique partners and beta reading are essential to serious writers’ development, but is episodic and done as trades. These people are your peers, and while the relationship is collegial, it is also informal, governed by social norms rather than contracts and money exchanged for services rendered.
While the editor/writer relationship should be collegial, respectful, and warm, the professional parameters around it (i.e. a contract) provide structure and clarity. A free beta reader may ghost you; a professional editor will not because that’s what the money is for (and if your editor does ghost you, that’s what the contract is for).
To give editing the time, attention, and structure I want, I need to professionalize it. Does it feel like I’m getting away with something, to make money doing something I love so much I’ll do it for free? A little bit, yes. But in order for me to do justice to this work I love, it needs to be a business. A formal deal that lays out the timeline and the scope of the work frees us both to do our best work.
And I promise that I’ll make it worth your money.