FREELANCE COMMISSIONS

Members of the professional and experienced BeWrite Books in-house team are sometimes available for freelance work.

PLEASE NOTE: This will not get your book actually published by BeWrite Books. In fact, for ethical reasons (*see footnote), collaboration with a member of BB’s staff on a freelance basis must disqualify an author from submission to BB itself, and we cannot accept freelance commissions from authors whose submissions to BeWrite Books for publication have been, for any reason, declined. What this expert freelance input will do is set you up extremely well for approaches to other publishers and agents or for self/independent publication.

Independent of BeWrite Books and in their own off-duty hours, our editors, designers and technicians can offer full and expert editorial, technical, design and art assistance, marketing advice and tailor-made promotional material. They will consider novels in all genres, short-story collections, poetry anthologies and non-fiction work. Working closely with you every step of the way, they will present you with a ready-to-go package complete with back text, new synopsis and a draft query letter (where this applies). It is not practical to work with hard copy manuscripts, so your ms must be in digital Word or RTF format.

BeWrite Books staffers will tell you straight that – even with their input – they cannot guarantee publication anywhere: They can only increase the odds in your favour and make sure that you won’t be left with egg on your face if you aim to self-publish. We will freely and impartially advise on self-publishing options and – again freely and impartially – check out agents and publishers you might consider submitting to.

Detailed quotes will be provided by the individual editor/designer/technician assigned by BB or chosen by the author after he’s seen samples of your work and assessed the level of input necessary to meet your needs. He will also provide details of professional working history and author references on request.

Be warned that these are serious professionals doing serious work. Their services are not to be found in the bargain basement. Your money will be well spent, but not necessarily recovered in eventual publication and sales. Success is down to how effectively you employ professional input. Please contact us with requests for freelance assistance and cost projection only if you understand and accept this.

And we must warn you that not all requests for editorial help on a freelance basis will be accepted. Those who offer their services on the editorial side will not even attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. They will only offer help if there’s a realistic chance of their work leading to success. On the technical side, technicians will produce services without editorial content assessment if requested.

I guess this must be the world’s worst advertising pitch. I certainly hope so. We can only work with those intelligent authors who enter into an agreement with their eyes wide open to the realities of modern publishing and we don’t encourage easy marks.

Neil Marr. Ed. BB

*FOOTNOTE: Especially since the advent of internet, the publishing industry has been rudely invaded by so-called ‘publishers’ whose sole aim is to sell authors who innocently submit their work expensive services of dubious value in return for ‘publication’ through what amounts to a vanity press business model. It is for this reason that BeWrite Books itself must stand apart from any freelance activity on the part of individual members of the permanent BeWrite Books team. It is why authors who employ the freelance services of an individual BeWrite Books staffer must be disqualified from submitting to BB itself and  why those authors whose submitted work has been declined by BB will not be considered as freelance clients. NM

TO ENQIRE ABOUT FREELANCE ASSISTANCE, PLEASE EMAIL: contact@bewrite.net