Coyotes of a Conundrum - Anheroic Fantasy Headgames 2

Coyote #10: Are two heads better than one?

In terms of self-publishing, it's more a matter of how many heads are enough. No matter how good you think your book is you don't want to put your name to trash and it's unlikely you think anything you write could be trash. So you need pre-publication readers, maybe three or four them, at least a couple of whom won't charge you. Hopefully, the readers you pick are willing to do some proof-reading at the same time as they're assessing your book.

You still need a professional editor, though, and therein lies the biggest coyote of a conundrum you're likely to come across once you decide to go the self-publishing route. And, I'm reliably informed, hiring an editor is not an option. It has to be done.

Here's a crux of a coyote BLOCKQUOTE for you. It's taken from "How to Self-Publish and Make Money" by Crook & Wise, © 1997 (Distributed by Sandhill Book Marketing Ltd. in Kelowna British Columbia):

"You need someone to edit who can advise you on concepts, plot, meaning, characters, organization and style. ... A good editor will not change your style. She will support it, enhance it and make your manuscript clearer, more concise and more readable. Try not to get upset by criticism."

That's the trick, isn't it? Not getting upset by criticism. Call it a pet peeve, but just where do editors get off telling you this, that or the other thing isn't good enough when you're the one paying them? Who do they think they are anyhow, -- the writer? (Don't they just wish!) Then there's the money they want to charge you. A minimum of $30.00 an hour is hardly chump-change, not when you, as a self-publisher, are hiring them to edit a massive, potential 2-book opus like 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'.

Ask me, given such an assignment, what a proper editor should ensure above and beyond all else is consistency. Someone who has swimmer's muscles in one chapter should not have those of a body-builder in another chapter. Someone whose hair or breasts are described one way once should not be described another way later on.

Here's where I'm at with respect to handling this particular coyote of a conundrum. I'm avoiding it altogether. What I've done instead is pick a single publisher, one who handles material like mine and will actually consider something on spec. Most publishers claim they'll only look at material submitted by a literary agent so there aren't too many of them. However, they do exist.

I then took two stand-alone novels, 'The Moloch Manoeuvres' and 'The War of the Apocalyptics', revised them to my satisfaction, such that they do indeed stand alone, and sent them off a few months apart. Sometime in the Spring I'll send off another one.

I am of course trusting the publisher to either make me an offer for the PHANTACEA Mythos or at least hire an editor they regularly use in order to assess the novels properly. Picked-publisher doesn't do either, or rejects the whole Mythos, I'll pick another publisher and repeat the process. That fails, then and only then will I rethink my options and reconsider self-publishing.

One thing I will promise you: I do decide to go that route, I'm not going to be someone who does so without an outside editor. It simply wouldn't be right for anyone taking a chance on an otherwise unknown writer and ending up buying a piece of gobbledegook crap as a reward. What I'll do is look for the best editor I can afford and get on with it.

As for the Cliff Heads, there are two of them. The big one is wearing a winged helmet, has a block jaw and an open mouth. What he has instead of a nose and eye is another head, one with a nose, eye, mouth and double chin. I isolated then rotated the forehead fellow in order to make him stand-out from Wing Head. Along with the Cliff Head in Three Coyote, Forehead Head is so unmistakeable I wonder if he's been chiselled out of the cliff-side like the Incas reputedly used to do in Peru.

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