When (if ever) should you pay someone to help you with your book? 💰
How to set your priorities, assess your skills, and figure out a plan that's best for you on an individual level.
Dear Pen Pals,
When (if ever) do I know if it’s the right time to pay someone to help me with my book? Editing, marketing, design, self-publishing, etc.
Sincerely,
Broke Writer
Dear Broke Writer,
I like to tell the authors I work with that there’s no one right way to write and publish a book, only the way that’s right for you. So we’re gonna spend this newsletter figuring out your own personal “right” way.
Let’s get into it.
Know Your Goal
Close your eyes and imagine you’ve reached your goal for the book you’re working on (or want to be working on). Really take a second and embody what it feels like to cross that finish line and be the version of yourself who is achieving your dream. What are you doing? Are you holding a copy of your book with tears of joy in your eyes, knowing you’ve accomplished your goal? Handing it to a loved one and watching them read the first page? Are you signing copies at your local bookstore while a line of fans weaves through the shelves waiting to meet you? Accepting an award? Walking the red carpet as the movie adaptation of your book hits the big screen?
Ask yourself what it would take to make you feel fulfilled as an author. Remember, this exercise only works if you’re really honest with yourself, but don’t worry—literally no one has to know about this except for you.
Once you have your goal in mind, walk yourself back. What will it take to get you there?
Many writers have author goals that don’t require spending any money at all. If you’re writing your memoir to leave a legacy for your grandkids, or your ultimate goal is to finish the novel you’ve been working on for 30 years, then the great news is that you don’t necessarily need to hire editors and designers or start marketing on TikTok to achieve your dream. I work with writers like this all the time, and believe me, I understand deeply the level of personal fulfillment that comes from reaching these goals.
But if your author goal involves selling tons of copies, having an adoring fanbase, seeing your book sold in bookstores, or building a full-time career out of being an author, you’re definitely going to want to keep reading.
Geometry for Writers
If you’ve ever worked in business or project management, you might be familiar with a concept called The Iron Triangle, which lays out the constraints of any project. You can do it fast, do it well, or do it cheap, and often you can pick two, but at least one of the three is always going to have to take a little bit of a backseat.
Welp, the same concept often applies to writing.
Imagine your project, and picture that goal again. Now look at the triangle, and imagine you can only pick one option. Which do you choose to get you to that goal you imagined? Fast, well, or cheap?
Congratulations, you’ve just set your highest priority.
Now imagine you can choose two. Which will you select, and what does that mean you might be sacrificing? If you choose to do it well and do it fast, there’s a good chance your project is going to get expensive, and if you choose to do it cheap and fast, you might be sacrificing some professional-grade quality.
The Iron Triangle isn’t a perfect system—doing something slowly is in no way going to guarantee better quality, and throwing money at a problem isn’t going to automatically get you on a bestseller list or get your book published by next week. The points on that triangle also aren’t “all or nothing”—you can absolutely make compromises on your timeline, budget, and quality standards to find a happy medium. But the triangle is a good starting point, because it showcases just how much give and take there has to be when it comes to writing a book, and once again, I’m going to remind you that there is no right way to choose from the triangle, there is only the way that is right for you and that goal you envisioned.
Assessing Your Skills
So how does any of this help you determine when to pay someone to work on your book for you? Well, you’ve just done a lot of work evaluating your goals and priorities, so now let’s look at your skills. I’m a huge proponent of DIY when possible, but I also do a lot of self-analysis about my own capabilities. When there’s a gap in my skill set, I can either invest time into learning how to do it, or I can find a professional to bridge the gap for me.
Same goes for hiring a publishing professional. Below is a very basic (and I mean veeeeery basic) checklist for what needs to be done to publish a book. We’ll get into the nitty gritty of what goes into each of these steps in future newsletters, but for now, take a glance and rate yourself on a scale of one to five about how ready you feel to take on that step yourself, without help. Once again, be brutally honest with yourself. If you have no idea what one of the steps entails, then that’s probably a sign that you’re gonna rate that category very low.
Now take a look at your scores. The categories where you scored yourself a four or five might be areas you can DIY, but if you put yourself at a three or lower, then it might be time to seek some help.
The good news is that you’ve got options when it comes to filling in those blank bubbles in your knowledge. The exercise you just completed is a great way to figure out where you might want to start allocating your budget for hiring a professional editor, coach, designer, or marketer, for example. Buuuut I’m guessing based on your name, Broke Writer, that you’d like to try other avenues first. And that’s great, because each and every one of you possesses the ability to learn the skills necessary to publish your own book.
It just might take some time and effort to level up your knowledge base, depending on where you’re starting from.
Writing a book is ALWAYS going to be an investment. There’s no fast-pass to success here. It’s just up to you whether you’re investing more of your time (and energy), or your money. Got a lot of cash but you’re short on time and writing ability? Hire a ghostwriter, which can cost anywhere in the vicinity of $10,000 to over $100,000.
But does balancing your finances each month require all your energy, but you’ve got a few hours each day to devote to your book? Then prepare to spend a lot of your time not just writing, but learning—start reading books on writing and improving your craft, researching the best kinds of software for formatting your book’s interior, building your platform organically through social media and networking, and discovering exactly what makes a book read well, look professional, and sell.
It’s a great idea to look to your community for support here—start building friendships with other writers, either online or in person (or both!), who can become your beta readers or trusted critique partners. This route requires investing your time and energy into their work, but they’ll be doing the same for you! Plus, every friendship between writers is an opportunity to expand your learning, and seriously, having writer friends is a total lifeline in this industry. Misery loves company and all…
I know a lot of authors who start with a DIY approach and then seek help when it becomes clear that something is outside of their capabilities. When it comes to something with a huge learning curve, like graphic design for example, it might be best to know your limits from the getgo, but when writers come to me seeking help with editing, I often tell them, “The further along the road you can get yourself, the further I’ll be able to take you.”
If you can solve some of your basic plot problems on your own (or with beta readers) before paying for an editor, chances are you’ll save yourself some money because you’ll require fewer rounds of editing (and less intensive edits in general), and by solving some of the more obvious problems in your manuscript, you’ll have freed up the editor’s energy to help tackle some of the underlying issues you that have slipped your notice. On the flipside, I also work with clients who come to me for coaching before or during their initial outlining or writing process, because it’s better for them to learn the right way from the start and then continue those practices on their own once they’ve established a good routine. I also know plenty of writers who compromise on their spending and their needs by enrolling in a writing class to learn more and build their community rather than invest in one-on-one help. It’s all about finding what works for you
Okay, But Seriously, How Do I Know It’s Time to Pay for a Professional?
All of this is a very long-winded way of saying, “It depends!” and I get that can be frustrating, so here’s a step by step process for you to answer your own question:
And look, is it a good idea to get other eyes on your work? To use the skill set and knowledge of a professional who understands all the details you might not even know to think about? Abso-frickin-lutely, and in a perfect world I’d tell you all to hire professionals for every step of the process. If you’re interested in talking more about getting started with an editor, coach, writer, designer, marketer—whatever—reply to this email and we’ll chat. But not everyone is there, and not everyone ever will be. This isn’t a perfect world, and as a lover of books and writing, I respect that you’ve gotta find your own process.
So go on, get out there and find it.
PS: If you’re looking to uplevel your craft as a writer, here are a few good book recs to get your started:
Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody
Story Genius by Lisa Cron
The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass
Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer