Hi Yakster,

It can be tough. Not only the price, but you’ve also got a lot of charlatans out there that I’ve talked about before. People who say they’ll edit it and then do a half assed job as quickly as possible of the first chapter before asking for money… and then there’s the places that charge like $.15/Word, which doesn’t seem like much… until you do the math: $.15/word becomes thousands of dollars when we’re talking about a novel-length story (80k words on average).

Luckily you do have options. Goodreads, among others, have message boards with students who are looking to jump into the field, are quite scholarly, and will do the work for usually $100-200. They’re young, but they’re quite scholarly and I myself employed one or two in the past.

The other option, as my friend Eric alluded to in his comments is to join a writing circle. This will occasionally take you away from your own writing, but it is worth the time as you have the opportunity to experience other writing preferences, styles, and strategies, which in turn will help you improve your own.

Readers, do you have any other recommendations for getting around the hefty price tag?

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim