Writers must remember that every time they publish their work, they put their professionalism on the line. That means that when they publish a blog post, an information product, an e-zine article, or a book, they must be sure they are putting their best work out into the world.
This week a writer approached me for an estimate on editing her short book project. I offered her one of my best editors and provided a competitive quote. She opted to use a much cheaper editor. I had to wonder about the quality of the editing job she would receive, especially since my editor had already picked up several problems in her manuscript that went beyond simple grammatical and punctuation problems.
If this author puts her work out into the world in this form, her level of professionalism will be questioned by the very people she wants to impress — her readers.
She told me she was less concerned with selling books than with “reaching” people. I explained that reaching people meant selling books. And selling books required putting out a quality product.
I say all this to stress the same point made by Sue Collier in her guest post earlier this week: All writers need professional editors if they are to come across as professionals.
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