Giving It Away for Free, Part II

 

I'll take that with a side of crazy.

Pardon me, dearly beloved, while I rant. I had a weird week that saw me driving to and returning from a long wedding weekend when I shoulda coulda been at Bouchercon. Adding to my exasperation were a couple of weird emails from complete strangers who, on a strength of very slim connections, nevertheless felt compelled to write asking for help with their writing.

Fans of the Joe Show will recall that I have written about the dangers of offering your writing/editing expertise for free to writers who don’t do the requisite work. Since I wrote that post on the topic, I have attempted to change the error of my ways. When a close college friend asked me to read and comment on her nonfiction book proposal, I declined, saying that I didn’t feel comfortable working with friends that way. I referred her to the website reedsy.com, a wonderful organization, which, among other things, allows editorial freelancers to hang out their shingles offering services to authors, most of whom are intending to self publish. My friend did find an editor who had expertise editing titles on the geopolitical subject of her book that I was unqualified to judge. So, in that case, my brush-off was a win-win-win—for my friend, the hired editor, and me.

Years ago, as part of a class my wife and I taught on nonfiction book proposals, I offered to read any resulting proposals the students generated. Only two or three followed through on writing their proposals, and availed themselves of our offer. Which we sorta, kinda predicted. Oddly, the student with the best idea did not contact me until this past spring, a full seven years after the class ended. He offered to pay me to read, since he’d clearly blown through the window of opportunity. But I did not feel good accepting payment since I’d read the work of his classmates at no cost. Before I made a decision, I asked him to send me the first three pages of his proposal.

Holy cow, what a beautiful writer. He had absorbed all the lessons of the class, and applied it to his 19th century true story, and I knew my time would not be wasted. He’s close to submitting to agents, and I’m genuinely looking forward to reading the final draft.

But for every win, there are people like this fellow, who wrote last week. All you need to know before you read his email is that back in 2009 my wife and I traditionally published a book about the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, which has since sold more than 100,000 copies.

Subject: Creating the index for my book

Message: Hello, I am writing a book about the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. Naturally, your book has been a valuable reference. I’m to the point of creating the index and I am flummoxed amount [sic] how to do this. So far I have 380 entries in the index. The book has not been paginated yet, but, thinking ahead, is there an easy way to make the page assignments? BTW, I have a PhD from [REDACTED]. I would greatly appreciate any advice you could give me on this. Thanks.

Excuse me while I pick up the pieces of my skull off the floor, and bind my wounds. I don’t know where to start with this. Now, I’d be the first to admit that our big ol’ book of 56 biographies of the Signers is not a terribly original idea. Indeed, the first books of this type were published in the 1820s, when some of the Signers were still living. But still—who writes the author of a competing work with a manuscript formatting issue, and expects a helpful response?

Imagine writing the following email:

Dear Mr. McCullough:
I greatly enjoyed your book 1776, about Washington’s leadership of the Continental Army during the pivotal year of Independence. In fact, it inspired me to write a similar book on the exact same topic, which is also called 1776! The only trouble is, I am having trouble the setting the margins in my MS Word document, so I cannot transmit the book to my editor. Misery me, lack-a-day-dee! If you can help with this, or make time for a Zoom call to discuss, I’m free on the following days…

Holy freaking bananas.

Then, recently, there was the guy who attended one of my wife’s book events, complimented her on her boots, and thus felt entitled to write asking if we could recommend a) an editor who could read his pandemic year memoir and offer advice, or b) a literary agent who could do the same thing. The kicker: He wasn’t sure the book was ready for submission, but he felt if these fine contacts of ours read the book in its entirety, they would know exactly what do with his manuscript.

As it happens, I knew exactly what he should do with his manuscript, but I was too much of gentleman to spell it out in an email.

I know by now that I should not Engage With Crazy but how else could I come up with columns for you lovely SleuthSayers people?

So, yes, I wrote both of these guys back, politely suggesting they consider hiring editors and indexers via the site I mentioned before. (Reedsy, I’m sorry. I love you, but you’ve become my go-to brush-off suggestion.)

To my Declaration of Independence doppelgänger, I wrote saying he could hire tons of freelancers to work on his projects, including—haha—someone who could run a plagiarism check on the doc before it went out the door. Haven’t heard back, so I don’t know if he appreciated my wit.

As for the Covid memoirist, he wrote back saying he liked the online database I recommended but he was a little annoyed because he could not tell if the freelance editors on offer had decent connections to agents. What good was hiring a freelance editor, he asked, if they can’t refer you to an agent?

Did not respond. I can only afford one brain hemorrhage a week.

* * *

See you in three weeks!

Joe

josephdagnese.com