how to save money on editing when your budget is tight

I think a lot about the cost of editing and other forms of writer support. I don’t typically work with wealthy clients (although, hello wealthy person reading this, do feel free to book me), in large part because my professional interests, deepest skill sets, and social circles all revolve around queer, neurodivergent, and otherwise marginalized people/stories as well as parents, teachers, and other people who are doing care work. We’re not, on the whole, the sort of people for whom money is no object.

And also, this is my business; I’m a highly skilled and educated professional making a living.

This post is my way of collecting the strategies I offer clients, potential clients, and friends when they’re trying to work out what they can afford and how best to use their limited funds. I hope it's helpful for you too!

Consider early intervention.

Most people think of paid writing support as something that happens after there’s a completed manuscript. That’s the norm, for sure, but investing in certain kinds of help way earlier in the process can (in some situations) actually save lots of money—as well as time, frustration, angst—later on.

Here are just a few possibilities along these lines:

• Taking a good-fit class (on writing process, your particular genre, plotting techniques, character development, etc.) early in your process can be a huge boost. Your community may have local writing classes, or there are loads online through organizations like the Loft (where I teach), Clarion West (focused on speculative fiction), Blue Stoop, Gotham Writers, and on and on. Depending on the class, you can get super useful information and strategies, structured opportunities to do planning or drafting work, instructor feedback, and/or feedback from classmates through workshopping. For example, when I teach Plan and Start Your Romance Novel, I offer feedback on planning documents, which can help students notice and solve major plot, character, and structure problems before they’re baked into a draft.
  
• Some editors offer services like the one I call Idea Development—variations on professional assessment, informational support, and ideas for next steps at the idea development and early drafting stages. These can be quite affordable because we’re not working with tons of text yet.
• For certain projects, early consultation with an authenticity reader (also called sensitivity readers) can be a big time-, money-, and stress-saver. Many writers don’t realize this is even possible, but you do not have to write a whole draft you’re worried about before you can ask for help.
  
• A bit of coaching early in the process can also help get you pointed in the right direction and make sure you have all the needed skills and resources lined up before you embark on drafting, or on particularly tricky parts of your process or project.

Think about what you can accomplish for free.

Many writers are also great readers and researchers. If you want to produce excellent results on a small budget, I encourage you to apply those research and reading skills to learning about:

• Your genre and its conventions (reader expectations)—by reading widely in the genre, by finding blog posts by and interviews with authors in it, and by reading books (aimed at writers but also at readers and scholars) and journal articles about it. Use that beautiful public library! Visit your local university and chat with a reference librarian! Heck yeah libraries!
• Writing craft, practice, and process.
• Revision and editing techniques. There are lots of whole books about each of these, in addition to loads of podcast episodes, articles, and videos online. Even if you feel like you’re great at them, there are more techniques, tools, and perspectives to learn.

Getting as far as you can with a good revision plan will save you money, because editors are fundamentally charging for our time and energy—it costs less to have a better draft edited, basically. And you may need fewer levels or rounds of editing to get it where you want it to end up, too. But how?

• After doing the research I was just describing, and once you have a full draft, I advise getting distance from it. Take time—weeks, maybe months—without looking at it at all. Then try reading the draft on your ereader, so it looks like somebody else’s manuscript and also so you can’t change the text or write on it as you go: Just read.
• After that, start at the big-picture level of plot, theme, character arc, only working your way slowly down to sentence-level issues in later revision rounds. Try using tools like summarizing the project to a friend, reverse outlining, or writing down each major character's story goal, motivation, conflict, and stakes to help you understand and focus on the big picture.
• Be real about your own skills and what you cannot do well, or which parts you hate doing. This varies from person to person (and even from project to project) and should guide where you invest what money you do have: how to make the most of your budget.
• Build genuine writer community and then make the most of the help you can all offer each other. If you have trusted writer friends, you can draw on the group’s skills and strengths, not just your own. Get good at asking for feedback, being very straightforward about what kind of comments you’re looking for and not looking for every time. Ask what kind of feedback others will find helpful on their own projects. Thank people! This is a long path but a good one to follow.
  

Ask (respectfully) about money-saving options.

Editors generally don’t like it when potential clients ask (or tell) us simply to charge less; we think really hard about our pricing structures and have set these rates for a reason, and we also have to buy groceries and stuff. That’s not what I’m suggesting. (p.s.: If you’re wondering why on earth editing is so expensive, this blog post from editor Sophie Playle may provide useful context.)

Instead, many editors and coaches are willing to have a conversation about what you and your project really need, and then get creative about whether a lower-cost (and lower-labor/hours) service or package might work well for you both.

For example, some editors offer first-chapter reviews; I offer what I call a Partial Line Edit (a fixed-rate service that gives writers line editing on a 2,500-word passage plus a report on patterns and possible next steps); these are all intended to help guide and deepen self-editing on the rest of the manuscript. If you have a coaching relationship, you might save money by taking a few months off for independent work on the manuscript, with a plan to circle back for more support and guidance at a certain future date. Some professionals can also offer payment plans or other tweaks in their typical processes to help writers with tight budgets. It's always worth asking to see what flexibility and possibilities exist!

Happy budgeting!