When browsing the plethora of media reports about the latest in ebooks, it’s not often that you come across any mention of editing – but today was a rare exception. The Australian newspaper’s IT supplement ran the above story and amongst the bigger news of Google’s ebook service and other ebook production services was a brief recognition that editing ebooks is a key to publishing success. Just after the snippet about the success of US author Joe Konrath in selling 20,300 ebooks in a month, and before the bit about how much Amazon pays in royalties was this:
“Not every budding author is going to achieve those levels, of course. There’s skill involved, not just in the writing, but also in the design, editing, proofreading and presentation required by e-publishers…”.
If that isn’t enough, further into the article, after talking about self-publishing through Smashwords, it states:
“There are no set-up fees and no cost for updating or revising your book, but you will need to do a professional job of editing, proofreading and formatting, or find someone who will do that for you.”
Someone? Hello! – how about an “editor”? Isn’t it time that media commentators recognised the players in publishing, and start to talk them up? It won’t be long before authors will become frustrated with the hype about self-service publishing and wonder why they are not selling much. The link between ebooks and editors just needs to get stronger now.
The online story is missing the paragraphs I’ve just mentioned, but you can find it at:
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