Sunday, 25 September 2022

Page 1 critique - "The Girl With All The Gifts" by M.R Carey

This continues the reprisal my series of page 1 critiques - you can read about the project HERE, and there's a list of all the critiques so far too.

I'm also posting some of these on my Youtube channel (like, subscribe yadda yadda).

I turn to another of my favorite books from the past 10 years: The Girl With All The Gifts, by M.R Carey.

I have reviewed the book.

First of all I'm going to cut and paste the disclaimers, and anyone prone to outrage really should read them:

It's very hard to separate one's tastes from a technical critique. There are page 1s from popular books with which I would find multiple faults. I didn't, for example, like page 1 of Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule (I didn't pursue the rest of the book). But that book has 150,000+ ratings on Goodreads, a great average score of 4.12 and Goodkind is a #1 NYT bestseller. His first page clearly did a great job for many people.

I'm not always right *hushed gasp*. You will likely be able to find a successful and highly respected author who will tell you the opposite to practically every bit of advice I give. Possibly not the same author in each case though.

The art of receiving criticism is to take what's useful to you and discard the rest. You need sufficient confidence in your own vision/voice such that whilst criticism may cause you to adjust course you're not about to do a U-turn for anyone. If you act on every bit of advice you'll get crit-burn, your story will be pulled in different directions by different people. It will stop being yours and turn into some Frankenstein's monster that nobody will ever want to read.

Additionally - don't get hurt or look for revenge. The person critiquing you is almost always trying to help you (it's true in some groups there will be the occasional person who is jealous/mean/misguided but that's the exception, not the rule). That person has put in effort on your behalf. If they don't like your prose it's not personal - they didn't just slap your baby.

I've flicked through some of the pages looking for one where I have something to say - something that hopefully is useful to the author and to anyone else reading the post.

I've posted the unadulterated page first then again with comments inset and at the end.

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Her name is Melanie. It means “the black girl”, from an ancient Greek word, but her skin is actually very fair so she thinks maybe it’s not such a good name for her. She likes the name Pandora a whole lot, but you don’t get to choose. Miss Justineau assigns names from a big list; new children get the top name on the boys’ list or the top name on the girls’ list, and that, Miss Justineau says, is that.

There haven’t been any new children for a long time now. Melanie doesn’t know why that is. There used to be lots; every week, or every couple of weeks, voices in the night. Muttered orders, complaints, the occasional curse. A cell door slamming. Then, after a while, usually a month or two, a new face in the classroom – a new boy or girl who hadn’t even learned to talk yet. But they got it fast.

Melanie was new herself, once, but that’s hard to remember because it was a long time ago. It was before there were any words; there were just things without names, and things without names don’t stay in your mind. They fall out, and then they’re gone.

Now she’s ten years old, and she has skin like a princess in a fairy tale; skin as white as snow. So she knows that when she grows up she’ll be beautiful, with princes falling over themselves to climb her tower and rescue her.

Assuming, of course, that she has a tower.

In the meantime, she has the cell, the corridor, the classroom and the shower room.

The cell is small and square. It has a bed, a chair and a table. On the walls, which are painted grey, there are pictures; a big one of the Amazon rainforest and a smaller one of a pussycat drinking from a saucer of milk. Sometimes Sergeant and his people move the children around, so Melanie knows that some of the cells have different pictures in them. She used to have a horse in a meadow and a mountain with snow on the top, which she liked better.

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Her name is Melanie. It means “the black girl”, from an ancient Greek word, but her skin is actually very fair so she thinks maybe it’s not such a good name for her.

Interestingly, in the movie Melanie is actually black.

This was back in 2016 before half the population seemed to have an aneurism if a black actor played a character described as white. Or perhaps it just wasn't a popular enough book/film to rile the base. It should be a more popular book/film since both were excellent, and the actor for Melanie did a great job.

Back to the thing in hand - shockingly, for me this isn't a great opening. As I've said before "great book" doesn't guarantee "great page one" or vice versa.

It's good we've opened with a character and that we've got some of her thoughts. It just seems a little dull - wondering about her rather ordinary name.

She likes the name Pandora a whole lot, but you don’t get to choose. Miss Justineau assigns names from a big list; new children get the top name on the boys’ list or the top name on the girls’ list, and that, Miss Justineau says, is that.

This is much more interesting. We should have opened with this, but delaying it by ~30 words is hardly disasterous. To complain about it would be churlish - so I retract the churl.

This is interesting. So many questions. Children given their names on arrival, mechanically, from a list.

More interest. Faintly ominous - why no new children? Cell doors? It's a prison. The text is making me speculate. That's good.

Then, after a while, usually a month or two, a new face in the classroom – a new boy or girl who hadn’t even learned to talk yet. But they got it fast.

Children who haven't learned to talk yet. But who learn fast? This is good. I have questions. I can imagine answers - feral children snared in a jungle - but am I right?

I asked some of my Discordians from my Patreon to read a possible page one of mine recently. The exercise highlighted the fact that many people don't distinguish between "being confused" and "having questions".

In a page 1, "being confused" is bad. "Having questions" is good.

Something that creates confusion is contradictory in a bad way. It can be read as bad writing. As a mistake.

-- John and Mary kept running down the twisting subterranean tunnel. "Slow down," Mary called. The blazing sunshine was rapidly overheating her and the distant mountains seemed no closer.

That's confusion. They're in a tunnel, so how can they be in the sunshine and see the mountains. It doesn't make sense.

-- John and Mary kept running down the twisting subterranean tunnel. "Faster!" Mary called. The grobbla was catching up.

That's a question. What's a grobbla? Why are they running from it?

Sure, this is just semantics. You can say, "I'm confused, what's a grobbla?"

You can say, "I have questions: how is the sun shining underground?"

But I hope you'll agree that the first one is confusion - direct contradiction in text. Whereas the second is questions, "what's chasing them?" And that one is bad and the other good.

So, we're getting more about the character - always good. She was one of these non-speaking children. She's been here a long time. Interesting. What's going on? [questions - not confusion]

So, we're back to her skin colour, but here it's more interesting - it echoes the language in Snow White and with the other fairytale imagery is telling us that despite arriving as non-verbal and being doled out a name, and there being cell doors, she has been educated and told stories.

We see her ambitions and they are touching / innocent / childish.

Assuming, of course, that she has a tower.

Another note of caution. She's not wholly naive.

In the meantime, she has the cell, the corridor, the classroom and the shower room.

Great, efficient, effective world building. We see how small her world is. We know for sure that it's a prison of sorts. And we see how she doesn't really see it as such.

More world building. We're touched by her interest in the minimal distractions/art that her captors afford her. We understand that this is a military operation, not some weird paedophile sect. We are intrigued.

To conclude - despite a very brief wobble in the first two lines, my opinion of the first page is that it's very good. Perhaps not quite up to the promise of the excellent story that follows, but it does a great job and I don't think anyone's putting the book down and walking away at this point.

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Sunday, 18 September 2022

Page 1 critique - "Strange The Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

This continues the reprisal my series of page 1 critiques - you can read about the project HERE, and there's a list of all the critiques so far too.

I'm also posting some of these on my Youtube channel (like, subscribe yadda yadda).

I turn to another of my favorite books from the past 10 years: Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor.

I have reviewed the book.

First of all I'm going to cut and paste the disclaimers, and anyone prone to outrage really should read them:

MYSTERIES OF WEEP

Names may be lost or forgotten. No one knew that better than Lazlo Strange. He'd had another name first, but it had died like a song with no one left to sing it. Maybe it had been an old family name, burnished by generations of use. Maybe it had been given to him by someone who loved him. He liked to think so, but he had no idea. All he had were Lazlo and Strange—Strange because that was the surname given to all foundlings in the Kingdom of Zosma, and Lazlo after a monk's tongueless uncle.

"He had it cut out on a prison galley," Brother Argos told him when he was old enough to understand. "He was an eerie silent man, and you were an eerie silent babe, so it came to me: Lazlo. I had to name so many babies that year I went with whatever popped into my head." He added, as an afterthought, "Didn't think you'd live anyway."

That was the year Zosma sank to its knees and bled great gouts of men into a war about nothing. The war, of course, did not content itself with soldiers. Fields were burned; villages, pillaged. Bands of displaced peasants roamed the razed countryside, fighting the crows for gleanings. So many died that the tumbrils used to cart thieves to the gallows were repurposed to carry orphans to the monasteries and convents. They arrived like shipments of lambs, to hear the monks tell it, and with no more knowledge of their provenance than lambs, either. Some were old enough to know their names at least, but Lazlo was just a baby, and an ill one, no less.

"Gray as rain, you were," Brother Argos said. "Thought sure you'd die, but you ate and you slept and your color came normal in time. Never cried, never once, and that was unnatural, but we liked you for it fine. None of us became monks to be nursemaids."

To which the child Lazlo replied, with fire in his soul, "And none of us became children to be orphans."

But an orphan he was, and a Strange, and though he was prone to fantasy, he never had any delusions about that. Even as a little boy, he understood that there would be no revelations. No one was coming for him, and he would never know his own true name.

Which is perhaps why the mystery of Weep captured him so completely.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's worth noting, as I did for Senlin Ascends, that just because I think this is a great book, it doesn't necessarily follow that it has a great page 1, any more than it means it has a great cover(*).

(*) My copy has this cover

... it's OK.

MYSTERIES OF WEEP

What do we think of chapter titles? Me, I'm not a big fan, but not opposed to them either. This one is fine.

Names may be lost or forgotten. No one knew that better than Lazlo Strange. He'd had another name first, but it had died like a song with no one left to sing it.

As a first line ... pretty neutral, but as a first 3 lines (all short) it's good. We immediately have a character to focus on. This isn't disembodied chat, we're not staring at the mountains or describing the weather. There's a person, and he has an interesting name. The most important thing is that we immediately know we're in the hands of an author who wields words with skill. His name had died like a song with no one left to sing it. That's non-standard use of the language - that's a line reaching toward poetry. This is a writer who understands the power of writing on the small scale and has declared her intention to do just that for us.

Maybe someone would call that purple or flowery. They'd be wrong (in as far as anyone can be in a subjective judgement) this is on point, a direct hit on my taste centre. Purple or over-flowery language certainly can be used by someone attempting this sort of impact. Often people who try this fail painfully and the result is a cringe to read - though again, tastes vary and there will be readers who eat up the purplist of purple. Anyway - onwards!

Maybe it had been an old family name, burnished by generations of use.

Immediately we're hit by another fine line. A name burnished by generations of use. It's a small thing, but applying the familiar concept of burnished by use to something intangible, like a name, rather than an object, is just a nice linguistic step. Taylor is brave enough to colour outside the lines, and skilled enough to make it look good.

Maybe it had been given to him by someone who loved him. He liked to think so, but he had no idea. All he had were Lazlo and Strange—Strange because that was the surname given to all foundlings in the Kingdom of Zosma, and Lazlo after a monk's tongueless uncle. "He had it cut out on a prison galley," Brother Argos told him when he was old enough to understand. "He was an eerie silent man, and you were an eerie silent babe, so it came to me: Lazlo. I had to name so many babies that year I went with whatever popped into my head." He added, as an afterthought, "Didn't think you'd live anyway."

A question has been posed, and we're speculating on it. We have a tiny bit of general world building (Zosma) and a nice bit of that pin-point detail that I'm always encouraging you to use. Will the fact that the monk's uncle was tongueless ever be important, or even mentioned again? (Spoiler: No & I don't think so.) But the fact that we get this interesting, useless, very specific detail makes it all seem more real, less generic, it grounds us and adds colour.

That was the year Zosma sank to its knees and bled great gouts of men into a war about nothing.

That, right there, is an excellent line. Now you know that you're in for a verbal treat. I might have tweaked it slightly and opened with that, but here is fine too.

The war, of course, did not content itself with soldiers. Fields were burned; villages, pillaged. Bands of displaced peasants roamed the razed countryside, fighting the crows for gleanings. So many died that the tumbrils used to cart thieves to the gallows were repurposed to carry orphans to the monasteries and convents. They arrived like shipments of lambs, to hear the monks tell it, and with no more knowledge of their provenance than lambs, either. Some were old enough to know their names at least, but Lazlo was just a baby, and an ill one, no less.

Worldbuilding wrapped around great imagery. And all of it directly pertinent to the character, our focus, our question.

I say that description should illuminate the observer as well as the object. Here Lazlo is the object, and in having him described by the monk we're learning about the monk's character too. He seems to be a no-nonsense, practical man, his compassion delivered sparingly.

To which the child Lazlo replied, with fire in his soul, "And none of us became children to be orphans."

Lazlo's first words inject character into him. That's good.

Which is perhaps why the mystery of Weep captured him so completely.

And by the foot of page 1 we're returned to the chapter title, the question that has hovered over all these words. So, encouraging us to turn the page we have the super-high quality of the prose, the question of Lazlo Strange's origin and destination, both seeming uncertain, and the mystery of Weep which has captured our main character and which I immediately want to know about too. It sounds intriguing in and of itself - what kind of a name is Weep?

++++

So, how was it as a first page? Very good, I thought. It's a tour de force of great prose, it brings two characters to life with minimal space, deploying some dialogue to great effect, and it presents us with both problems and questions.

The problem is, admittedly a general situational one - an orphan in a war-torn world, but still, our guy isn't safe, it sounds dangerous and precarious. And the questions are specific: what is this mystery? what's Weep? and general: who is this strange little boy that the book is named for?

There's not much room on page 1, not much time to hook a reader, but Taylor's done it as far as I'm concerned. And the promises of quality and of intrigue that she makes here are fulfilled in spades. Both this book and the one that completes the duology are brilliant, full of imagination and emotion. Read 'em!

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Sunday, 11 September 2022

Money! How much are authors paid?

I've already done a blog post and a youtube on advances. So I won't go into what they are here, except to say that the figures presented here represent the minimum that the authors involved were paid.

It's my understanding that most (possibly the large majority of) advances are not "earned out" - which means that the advance will in fact be the author's only income from the book.

But some authors do earn out their advances - all my trilogies save for the most recent have earned out (and since financial data lags quite a way behind sales, it's possible that one has too, and I just don't know it yet), so I do get additional royalties from them based on annual sales.

The scatter plot below is from authors who have volunteered their information to me. All but one asked not to be identified, so I'll keep them all anonymous. Most of these authors I've heard of, and if you read a lot of fantasy, you will know them too.

As well as satisfying the idle curiosity of readers, I hope that the information below will prove useful to writers. It's much easier to negotiate a good deal if you know what other people are getting.

Hopefully it will also encourage other authors to add their data to the graphic (just email me at empire_of_thorns@yahoo.co.uk and let me know (i) the advance per book (ii) how many books it was for (iii) the year (iv) if you would like to be kept anonymous.

(click image to enlarge)

While you look at these numbers, consider that these authors' annual writing income is (in general) the advance you see, less 15% for their agents. If they don't manage to write a book a year then reduce the figures some more.

For comparison:

Here are some average salaries against different professions in New York (many will come with job security and medical insurance).

DENTIST $120,809
SOFTWARE ENGINEER $93,103
NURSE $73,742
TEACHER $50,516
OFFICE MANAGER $50,142
CHEF $48,827
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT $42,714
CUSTOMER SUPPORT $40,329
RECEPTIONIST $34,635
CASHIER $25,790
WAITER $24,652

Note, this is only for rights in English (US + UK + other English speaking countries). Some books only sell in the US (& Canada) or just in the UK (and Australia and New Zealand). Some books - it tends to be more successful ones (also ones that attract a big advance for the rights in English) - also get published in countries like Germany, France (two of the biggest markets) and others. My books have come out in 25 languages. Typically these deals are much smaller than the US/UK ones, but on occasion they can (in Germany particularly) reach comparable levels.

Currently, there's insufficient data to draw conclusions. It's certainly worth noting that a lot of these advances are in the $5,000 to $10,000 range. And sure, $10,000 is a nice sum to have fall in your lap. But books often take a year to write, and you're not going to eat well on $10K a year. Which is why most authors have a day job.

One observation of immediate interest to me, and perhaps worth the effort behind the exercise all by itself, concerns the green dots.

The green dots are for audiobooks. Now, traditional publishing, certainly the big few publishers who dominate the industry, has linked arms and essentially refused to sign a contract with any author, big or small, that does not include the audio rights. So, all of those non-green dots will probably include the audio rights.

However, some authors do sell the audio rights separately. I suspect these authors can then not find a publisher for the paper and ebook versions of their novels, and end up self publishing those. HOWEVER, if you can strike a deal for ~$70K or $100K per book as we see here, and for multiple books, then it may well make sense to sell the audio to a traditional publisher (and here we're probably talking about Audible itself) and self publish the other formats.

If those audio advances are in any way representative then I could see a lot of traditionally published authors investigating that route in future.

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Saturday, 10 September 2022

Word Theft! :o

Look what Amazon is selling...

I believe I have seen those words before.

Look what you can buy on Walmart.com

One of my Patrons (Professor John Mauro) kindly brought these to my attention.

Did some unscrupulous person/people curate a list of quotes then generate a range of produce-on-demand items featuring them? Did some bot trawl the popular quotes on Goodreads and construct a vast inventory of such things? Don't know...

Am I going to do anything about it?

Of course not. I doubt many (any?) of these have ever sold, and I'm certainly not spending my money or time chasing ghosts on the internet.

But it seemed interesting. I've considered producing merch beyond my free promotional stuff before:

(I gave some of these out as competition prizes.)

(I secured permission from the artist - Jason Chan)

(These were gifts designed by the excellent Pen Astridge.)

I never got around to it though. Demand is limited, my design skills are terrible, distribution is expensive, and the effort involved always felt too great. Also, I don't own the rights to any of my cover art.

However, if I ever do become famous enough to warrant it, I'll delegate and we can have cool stuff!

Until then, it seems that the internet will provide. And if being complicit in their exploitation leaves you feeling icky - join my Patreon and it's all good 😄

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Wednesday, 7 September 2022

Shelfish Opinions: 2 - The B's!

Continuing the Youtube theme - making these videos is also giving me blog material.

Previous Shelves here: 1 (A's)

I decided that I would move on from critiquing people's writing to critiquing people's writing, but now the writing is whole books, and the critiquing is cursory opinion, and the selection is made by my (mostly) alphabetised shelves.

Since I have a great many fantasy shelves, this could be a new recurring feature that will hit dozens of episodes.

Let's see how it goes.

Imma present one shelf at a time and just talk my way through the titles there, saying if I've read the book and briefly, what I thought of it. It's worth noting that I'm not responsible for the purchase/acquisition of the majority of the books on our shelves. My wife's an avid fantasy reader, and my children have been also at various points in their lives.

First to backup my claim in the first of these blog posts / videos - here's an 'A' book that was AWOL, A Touch of Light, by Thiago Abdalla, a recently published epic fantasy that I read and reviewed this year. An enthusiastic sprawling tale with griffins, almost-zombies, magically enhanced guardian knights, outer tribes, lots of world building, and a steep learning curve.

& I also have the prequel novella A Prelude To Ashes to read, which is also not on my shelf!

Shelf 1:

(the whole thing is too much to read the titles easily, so I've broken it up below)

Bit 1:

We start off with a couple of A's - Thieves' World book 2 & book 7, by Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey. Yellowed pages, heavily foxed, printed in 1980, so from the year of publication. Owned for 42 years. Not read either of them!

Next, Fae: The Wild Hunt, by Graham Austin-King. Which I think he gave me at a Bristolcon, and I've not read. Then The Lore of Prometheus, by Graham Austin-King, which I think he gave me at a later Bristolcon ... after it was a semi-finalist in the SPFBO. I have read this one and it was very good. A modern day tale, mostly set in an underground laboratory in Iraq. A program to torture superpowers out of individuals who showed flashes of them under duress. A veteran and a medic are the the two point of view characters here. It's an intriguing tale with plenty of frustration followed by pay off, solid writing, exciting story.

The first B is Bancroft, and his Books of Babel quadrilogy. Senlin Ascends, The Arm of the Sphinx, The Hod King, & The Fall of Babel. Why do I have book 2 twice in hardback? Dunno. These are excellent. Senlin Ascends was an SPFBO semi-finalist and its failure to make the finals prompted a whole new rule! I've praised Senlin Ascends at length. And the rest of the series lives up to the promise of book 1. Calling this steam-punk puts it in an inappropriate box, but the mechanics are steam-punk. The books are literary, with world class prose. The eponymous Senlin is an unlikely hero, the straight-laced headmaster of a tiny school, a fish out of water, lost in the vast, bizarre, and frightening embrace of the tower. Extra point of view character join the cast as the series progresses. Expect a fantastic journey, with an air of whimsy, but also grounded by the humanity and wonderful portrayal of its characters, along with the strong undercurrents of darkness.

The Way of Wyrd, by Brian Bates is a 1983 fantasy - I've not read it.

Bit 2:

Even more books I've read! I picked up The Darkness That Comes Before from a 'free books' rack at the hospital on a stay with my daughter. I certainly acknowledge its cleverness, interesting writing, and breadth of vision. I did enjoy it. I didn't LOVE it. The reason was that my taste is for books that strongly engage my emotions, not just my intellect. This one didn't. But there's much to recommend.

Nod, by Adrian Barnes, I bought in Waterstones, nipping out from a different hospital stay. One of the staff sold it to me with a personal recommendation. It's a literary book with a low average Goodreads rating (rather like The Magicians) but a lot to offer. The prose, ideas, and atmosphere are excellent. The plot stumbles at the end. The central conceit is that everyone except the main character suddenly stop being able to sleep. Society crumbles and we have the sleepless as a kind of zombie analogue.

I've not read Greg Bear's Legacy. It's actually book 3 in a trilogy. Where are the other two? Who knows! I've also not read Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses (seems very successful), or Oliver Bowden's The Secret Crusade (he's sold a ton of books under the Assassin's Creed IP).

Lythande (hard to see) is by Marion Zimmer Bradley, a Thieves' World book from 1986. I've not read any of hers.

Bit 3:

Next we're into Peter Brett's Demon Cycle: Where's The Warded Man? Who knows! The Skull Throne, The Desert Spear, The Daylight War, and an ARC of The Core, with the novella The Great Bazaar slipped in there. I thought The Warded Man was a great read. The books felt progressively weaker but still good as we went on. The Core perhaps had too much going on for me to really feel grounded in it.

Next are four Hopeless, Maine graphic novels by the excellent Browns, Tom (art) and Nimue (words). Victims, Sinners, New England Gothic, and The Oddatsea. These are a mysterious, darkly drawn and darkly plotted tale of surreal realities on a misty isle where many things are possible, and most of them have tentacles.

Finally we dip our two into the C's. Rotherweird by is a fairly recent book by Andrew Caldecott. I've not read it.

Then comes Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. A sci-fi gem from the 80's, prescient in its prediction of the internet - though wildly optimistic about its use and effect. Oddly, given the controversy about its author, it was also ahead of most of its competitors in giving women and minorities significant roles. Essentially a fight-school story. I loved the book, was surprised by the surprise, and also enjoyed the film.

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Thursday, 1 September 2022

Publishing Mechanics

This isn't a 'how to' guide for self-publishing - it's more like one of those info-documentaries where they show you inside the sawmill or how sausages are made. I.e there's enough information here to entertain and enlighten, but not to show you how to assemble your IKEA furniture ... rather like those instructions included with your IKEA furniture flatpack.

You can watch me talk to this blog post on Youtube.

Step 1: WRITE YOUR BOOK

Here's me writing fiction. I have been at this a while and had very definitely put in my 10,000 hours before getting a book deal. The boy (the younger boy) in the photo is now 29.

I wasn't writing a book there, but I was writing fiction - I ran (full-time for a year and then for 10+ years in my spare time) part of a fantasy play-by-mail game, creating interactive stories for hundreds of players across a shared world.

So, step 1 - write a manuscript.

There are many ways to do this, a great range of quite different approaches have been shown to work. Don't sweat it.

You may find it helpful to have beta readers, either during or after the process. I wrote my first book all by myself (it was rubbish), my second (Blood of the Red) and third (Prince of Thorns) I wrote to an online critique group, chapter by chapter. These two had feedback from a dozen or more people all trying to do write their own stuff too. The great majority of my books have been beta read as they were written, by a single beta reader to who(*) I am very much indebted.

(* I refuse to use 'whom', ever. Join me in this quest to eradicate a word!)

When you feel you're done, be it after 1 draft or 20, it's time for editing.

A traditionally published author gets their editing "for free", i.e. the publisher hopes that the book will sell well enough such that their (large) cut of the sales money will cover the expense.

Self-published authors, have to pay for editing directly, and as such can feel tempted to do it themselves. Editing yourself is REALLY hard. Editing requires different skills from writing, Editing yourself requires those skills, plus the incredibly rare ability to detach yourself from the writing, and the author's knowledge about the world/characters. If you can't detach yourself from the text (and I'm not sure anyone could) then you will be blind to the failings on the page - you will unconsciously paper over holes in the story with the author's intention/understanding that you possess.

Beta-readers will help catch some of these issues, but they generally lack the expertise of an editor.

Literary agents can be another layer of the process. Some agents double as "shadow editors" and work on the manuscript with their author. Mine doesn't. Only authors intent on traditional publishing will have agents (if they're lucky).

Step 2 - Developmental Edit

Step 3 - Copy edit

Step 4 - Proofread

These next steps, which I will address individually are not set in stone. They don't have hard and fast borders, but they're the structure adopted across the industry in some form or other.

Looking at the sites of freelance editors that I've heard of, I see that Sarah Chorn (who seems to be in great demand) charges $1,000 for a developmental edit on a typical 100,000 word book, and the same amount for a copy edit. Proofreading is $800. These prices will scale by word-count,

My beta-reader, published under the name Mitriel Faywood, recently employed the services of UK editor Vicky Brewster for a copy edit. It looked like a good job was done. Vicky's charges (at time of writing - inflation being an big ouch right now) are $535 - $835 for developmental and copy edits on a book of 100,000 words.

Both these editors (and most others) will want to see some of the book first. Vicky has a price range dependent on how much work she thinks she will need to do.

Both these editors will turn away a manuscript that needs too much work done to it.

No amount of editing will produce a commercial book if the writer is not yet good enough at writing. Sometimes the answer is to go away, work on your craft, and then write a new book or return to the old one to re-write it.

Step 2 - Developmental Edit

This is a high level edit. The editor is looking at how the story hangs together as a whole. How the pacing works, or doesn't. Whether this character or that character feels like a real person, whether their actions are properly motivated. Whether the whole thing makes sense, is clearly explained, and ... works.

This isn't the same as a review. It doesn't matter if the editor likes the story or even the genre. It's an emotion-free technical look at the mechanics of storytelling.

The end result will be a set of remarks about what's not working, along with suggestions for improving these area.

It can be a more friendly process than suggested - but the technical stuff is what you're paying for,

My editor - cognisant of author egos - uses the praise sandwich to feed criticisms to me (and all her authors ... I hope). She remarks on a good line / paragraph, tells me something else isn't working, then lauds another line / paragraph. A little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down, as they say.

The amount of work at this stage is hugely variable, though obviously freelance editors will control the time they spend on it, and editors at publishing houses will determine their input based on their faith that the author/book will eventually repay their efforts with sales.

I recall hearing (though don't swear it's true) that Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind was worked on by Rothfuss and the editor together for an extended period with a great many changes. The editor's efforts were ultimately compensated many times over, but it's a gamble.

The majority of my books have gone through the editing process with very few non-grammar changes. Something that I'm grateful for. I don't like changing my stories, and change for change's sake is not appreciated. That may be one difference between an inhouse editor and freelance editors. The inhouse editor is happy not to have to do a lot of work. The freelance editor has been paid a flat fee, and if (this isn't going to happen) your manuscript is perfect and requires no changes at all ... do they give you your money back? Take your money and say "I changed/corrected nothing!", or shift the furniture around to make you feel you're not being robbed?

The Prince of Thorns on the shelf is 95%+ the one in the file I handed in. With a zillion grammar corrections.

My latest book, The Book That Wouldn't Burn, is, by far, my most heavily edited book to date (not a sign of it being bad - see The Name of the Wind!). I rewrote several parts of it prompted by my own sentiment and by feedback from both my beta-reader and agent. And I never re-write!

Then, during the developmental edit I deleted 15,000+ words ... and I never delete!

I also reworked several areas, added or underlined explanations etc. A whole bunch of effort. I'd say that the finished product is 75% what was in my first draft.

Which shows the system working - a light touch when a light touch is needed, more digging around in the guts when that's what's called for.

I think it's going to be one of my very best books, and certainly my publishers are really excited about it.

My developmental editor also catches typos, suggests rewording various lines, fixes grammar etc in these edits. Not comprehensively, but as she sees it. And being an editor, she sees a lot. This is one stage bleeding into another.

tl:dr = top level issues addressed, author sent away to fix them

Step 3 - Copy Edit

Now it gets dull. We descend into the land of the comma. We add semi-colons. We fix dialogue grammar. We query spoken grammar errors. We suggest reordering awkwardly worded sentences. There's a style sheet stipulating the conventions being employed on spellings where multiple choices exist. We choose between toward and towards.

There is also a focus on consistency across the book. If on page 10 a hall was entered through doors, and on page 206 it was left by the door ... the copy editor wants to know, "Does it have double doors or just one?" If a character changes eye color, stands up then stands up again ... the copy editor will be there demanding you sort your shit out.

Invaluable, but dull. Consistency errors can take a reader out of the story. You don't want that. You're creating an illusion. Errors whisper to the reader "wake up - this is all a lie".

Step 4 - Proofread

And now we plunge into the pit of despair. Or maybe if you're the jigsaw kind of person it's heaven. In any event, this is all about spotting the genuine typos. Nothing that's not clear cut happens here. If there's an awkward word, or over-repetition of a word, or a badly phrased thought ... doesn't matter ... too late.

If you have "too" instead of "to" or "there" instead of "their" or "zds--O" instead of "lunch" then the proofreader strikes!

And that's it. Done. All over bar the printing.

I feel I could do a developmental edit for someone else.

I couldn't do a copy edit. My grammar is good enough to fix most errors, but not all of them. I also lack the required meticulous nature to spot in a manuscript all errors I would recognise in a short piece.

I would not make a good proofreader. Again, I can spot typos, but I lack the focus and eagle eyes needed to find 'all' of them in a whole book.

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