Find Me

So this is sort of a little announcement, and . . . well, sort of not.

For (gulp) fifteen years, I have been a freelance book doctor, ghostwriter, editor, consultant, book packager (before that, I worked f/t in publishing) . . . If you want a decent picture of what's involved in ghostwriting, here's a great article. Sometimes, people I worked with don't mind me saying so. Sometimes I am in their acknowledgments. Sometimes . . . what I do is super secret [look, no link there!].

About eight years ago, I sold my first novel. That was 25 books ago, I think, give or take. Out of that novel, flowed six or seven Red Dress titles, three for MIRA, a couple for Silhouette, and a few for Penguin, as well as my middle-grade series now. For the most part, in the last eight years, my income was mostly novels, with freelance still there in the background. I had one HUGE client (corporate) that I wrote an annual report for each year, which was a very lucrative side gig. And I never, ever advertised. Usually, I would be tracked down through my agent for ghosting gigs, or through my website, or my cell would ring, and sometimes it would be a famous (!) person saying, "I got your name through . . . ."

ANYWAY, also in the last ten years, I became critique partners with this guy. We seemed to sometimes travel in similar freelance circles, and I KNEW what an awesome editor and writer he was because every two weeks, we were swapping pages (sounds so . . . illicit, doesn't it?). And about two months ago, we decided we would combine our freelance services for authors. In a sense, nothing changed, other than I have a partner, and THAT side of my freelance life is now easier to FIND ME. We bought a web address.

www.editingforauthors.com

And so now I am easier to track down in that regard.

And one more thing . . . if you clicked on "people I worked with" link . . . that author was publishing his own books a full decade before it was fashionable to (at least how fiction writers think of it with the Kindle). What many FICTION writers don't even think about or know with all the hullabaloo about self-pubbing, is that nonfiction business writers with a platform were on this gravy train YEARS ago, selling back of room, and using the books they published as a platform to get speaking engagements for key notes at 20K a pop. And MORE. Yeah . . . that's a lot of dough to stand in front of a room motivating people. What Jon and I have known, in all the insanity and snarkiness about self-pubbing is people have been doing it--and HIRING us--for years. I've packaged whole books in hardcover, memoirs . . . etc. That means I hired cover artists, typesetters, and fought for good print deals, as well as distribution. But what he and I also knew was that the people bringing their A-game were hiring pros to make the books as good or better than what a big publisher was doing.

So . . . now it's easier to find that other side of me. Sort of sounds like there are two me's, but . . . I've been juggling two lives for a long time now.