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Editing Fees: The Agent/Book Doctor
Writers who have carefully written, edited, and rewritten their manuscripts are usually not in the market for a free-lance editor who for a fee will fix up the grammar, improve the style, comment on the plot, discuss point of view problems, and so on. An unpublished writer with a brand new manuscript is in the market for a literary agent. The writer wants to be published, not edited. This being the case, why do so many writers pay agents hundreds of thousands of dollars to have their manuscripts edited? The answer is simple: If they don't pay for the agent sponsored editing job, the agent/book doctor will not represent them in the sale of their book. It works like this: The agent, shortly after receiving the manuscript for evaluation, praises it wildly. This is the manuscript the agent has been waiting for, a work with tremendous literary and commercial potential.
To understand what literary praise means to aspiring writers, one must understand how much rejection writers have to endure, and the toll it takes on them personally. Most of the writers who are at the point of paying an agent for a book doctoring job have been rejected time and time again by commissioned-based agents who are not looking for new clients. Aspiring writers find themselves in the infamous catch-22 of publishing: unpublished writers can’t get an agent and without an agent one can't get published.
The rejection weary writer drinks in the agent's praise and becomes intoxicated, and vulnerable. This is the first time a professional literary person has recognized the value of this writer's effort. Perhaps others, family members and friends, have ridiculed this writer for thinking he or she is an author. Maybe a spouse had resented the time the book has taken the writer away from the family. With the literary agent’s praise the writer is suddenly, and finally, vindicated. But there is a hitch, a minor problem. As good as the manuscript is, it needs a thorough editing. It needs more work before it is ready to be presented to a publisher. Yes, it's costly at three to five dollars a manuscript page, but it's worth it if the writer really wants to see the work in print. The writer should think of the $2,000 editing fee as a shrewd investment. The writer should not feel bad about the fact the manuscript needs work, almost all successful writers got started this way. Some of today's most celebrated authors had their careers launched by book doctors. If the writer cannot afford to pay the entire editing fee at once, an installment plan can be worked out. With so much time and effort already in the manuscript, why would the writer stop now and give up the dream of being a published author? What’s a few thousand dollars when so much is at stake?
People who don't write can't understand the lure of this pitch. People who do write feel its pull, and many are sucked in. Writers from all walks of life take the bait. They are not hayseeds and rubes falling for the pigeon drop. The book doctor pitch works particularly well on lawyers, physicians, and other professionals who have the money, the ego, and confidence in themselves. These people have been successful in their chosen professions, why wouldn't they also find success as writers? What these aspiring authors have forgotten is how hard they have worked to gain success in their chosen fields, and how little they know about writing and the publishing business. Paying up-front fees to agent/book doctors is not how it is done in the real world of publishing. Writing is rewriting, and knowing when the manuscript is ready for submission is part of the writer's craft. Professional writers learn to edit their own material. Copy editing, on the other hand, correcting punctuation, spelling, problems with consistency, and the like, is handled by the publisher once the book has been accepted. Successful writers are mostly self-taught. No one is born published and few writers are overnight successes. Writing is a craft requiring practice, concentrated effort, and coping with rejection. There are no short cuts to success in the writing business, and no place for book doctors.
Because so many people are writing these days, flooding the market with manuscripts, the agent/book doctor business flourishes. A free-lance editor fronting as a literary agent can make a lot of money with very little overhead. Just ten new editing jobs a week averaging a modest $1,000 per manuscript will being in a half million dollars a year. And like the reading fee racket, overhead can be kept to a minimum if the agent hires six dollar an hour flunkies to perform quickie boilerplate edits.
Writers who pay for free-lance editing generally respond to what they get back from the book doctor in one of two ways: They either find the editing so atrociously inept they ignore it, or re-write their books along the lines suggested, hoping that the agent will represent the edited manuscript. Since the agent/book doctor is not really an agent in the true sense, it would be better for the writer is the agent rejects the revised manuscript. Otherwise, it's going to cost the writer more money. In the end all writers sucked into the genteel racket lose. The lucky ones smell a rat and get out before they lose a lot of money. The others eventually learn their lesson, but it's costly and takes its toll on their bank account, their spirit, and their will to write.
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