Your book edited by Evil Editor?

Evil Editor has offered his editing services numerous times in charity auctions aiding various causes, including juvenile diabetes, Hurricane Sandy relief, Hope for Vision, and Farm Sanctuary. Combined, these services have raised over $25,000.

Author Brenda Novak, whose auction to raise money for diabetes research you may be familiar with, has learned that Revlon is donating a million extra dollars to the chosen charity of whichever group (from among 48) raises the most money during a specified time period. She has joined the challenge. Here's her page.

I've agreed to participate, but Revlon's terms don't allow an auction, so I have to set a price for my "donation(s)".  Then I guess it goes to whomever first pays that price. As if people are shopping at a store.

When I've offered to edit an entire book, I've raised anywhere from $1000 to $3900 at auction. That's a big difference, because auction items go higher when there's more than one person who wants them, and when more than one of them has the (tax-deductible) money to spend. As this won't be an auction, I have to guess at what my services will bring in. Factors I'm considering:

1. If I price myself too high, no one will buy me. This doesn't help the cause. On the other hand, it gets me out of doing any work.

2. Pricing myself too low means the charity gets less than they might have, and that could be the difference between winning and losing the extra million dollars from Revlon.

3. There'll be plenty of other editors and agents available, so I don't want to go overboard.

4. On the other hand, I suspect most of the others will be offering to evaluate just a few chapters rather than edit an entire book. And none of the others can claim to be  the world's most famous editor.

5. Ms. Novak if giving a trip to Hawaii to the person who raises the most among her donors, so the higher my price, the better my chances of winning that prize. Unless I would have won the prize if I hadn't priced myself so high.


Factors you might consider:

1. Your book will be improved, which will be nice when you end up self-publishing it.

2. Your chances of getting the book published will be improved, but if those chances are currently one in a thousand, improving them by 50% makes them one in five hundred.

3. Even if your book gets published, it's possible you'll earn less than you spent having it edited.

4. You could absorb knowledge that will stay with you so that future projects won't be in such dire need of editing.

5. You will force me to read your entire book when you know I'd rather be binge-watching Mister Robot.



So the purpose of this post is to get an idea how much demand there is to have Evil Editor edit your book. Or to have Evil Editor do anything else, like show up at your writing convention or buy you lunch. Especially if you're someone who normally makes hefty annual charitable contributions, and would like, for once, to get something in return beyond the warm fuzzy feeling of having aided humanity.

Respond in the comments or at evledtr@gmail.com.