In my capacity as a book reviewer, I have worked with many authors.  Most of them have been absolutely amazing, kind, considerate people.  But it’s the other (small) part, the one that moans, nitpicks, gets ‘smart’ and thinks the world owes them something that makes my job quite unpleasant at times.  That is why I have compiled this list for future references.

Authors, if this information seems blatantly obvious to you, great!  Thank you for realizing book reviewers are human beings.  If this information is completely new to you, then don’t waste my time by submitting your book for reviewing.

1.  I am not your editor.

If there are mistakes in books, I will make notes of them as I read and include a few examples in my review.  In my emails to authors I will often mention them and include some page numbers as examples.  If there are only a few mistakes, I will list all of them.  But sometimes this information brings up the question if I could go back and re-read a novel to find all of the mistakes, which brings me to the title of this point: I am not your editor.

If you are traditionally published and there are mistakes, it is not my problem that your editor did not do their job.  They are obviously lazy or incompetent or both and should be fired.  If you are self-published and hired a freelance editor but there are still mistakes, it is also not my problem.  You got duped; it’s sad, but still not my problem.  And, finally, if you are self-published but did not hire an editor, it is most definitely not my problem that you cannot match the quality of a real editor.

In short, bad editing is not my problem and I am under absolutely no obligation to tell you where all of the mistakes are.  If you ask nicely I might, depending on how busy I am at the time and how much effort you are asking me to put in.  If you want me to catch every little mistake and do content editing…well that’s a whole different ballgame.  Hint: the answer is ‘no’, unless you’re willing to pay the proper hourly fee according to the EFA plus a little more since editing is above and beyond the call of a book reviewer.  Basic copy-editing will cost you $50 an hour and my rates only go up from there.  Hint: You can find cheaper rates out there. Continue reading →