For a few months now I’ve been mulling how to help authors with their drafts. I’ve had a lot of different ideas. Some I may be able to enact in the future with my own books.
In the end, I’ve come up with a fancy pants new service called “Oh Shit, My Draft!”.
I quite like the name 🙂
It has a simple website of it’s own – mostly FAQs on what the hell this actually is! It will all run under this business name, normalness.
Oh, you want to know what it is?
It’s for authors who are stuck in their drafts to get a weird little mix of an edit (cross between a manuscript evaluation and a developmental edit).
Why are you doing this?
Because I thought about where I get stuck in writing and what would fit the gap. This fits that gap.
Why isn’t it free or cheap?
Because there’s this thing called a roof that I like having over my head.
HOWEVER.
I am doing one immediate thing for both you and me. Usually the cost of this edit would be $0.025.
For March and April 2025, to help validate and refine the service, I’m offering it at $0.02 per word.
Indie author life is expensive and in the future I do have ideas on how this could be made a bit more accessible – in a safe community, maybe Patreon or similar, working on things together. I like the idea of that for financial accessibility reasons but what really pisses me off about people who espouse low cost products or services as some kind of virtuous thing is that they don’t say you need VOLUME to make it work. And I’ve never been someone who wants to have a billion and one followers. A high volume low cost business has never been a goal of mine.
Low cost rant over, but for now I’m focusing on 1:1 offerings and if I can find a way to make low cost work while keeping a roof over my head, then it will be done in the future.
I think I had more things to say before my low cost rant distracted me. Anyway. I’m setting up social media for it on Instagram and Bluesky and Threads. To be honest I doubt I’ll use those accounts much because I’m a tired human who would rather do the work than market the work.
