I’m not sure if I laid this out before, but I’m too lazy to go back through my posts.
The book I’m working on is getting near finished and it’s crunch time. I have to put some serious effort in to put this out in January. Since I knew there was no way I could do it myself I reached out to you. And you responded in droves. I couldn’t believe it.
Over thirty people (I lost count) reached out to help. Since I couldn’t pick favorites (I had none because I only consider myself a “favorite”) I figured out a way to use everybody. I’ll talk more about that around book launch, but suffice it to say that I have a lot of people to thank on the acknowledgements page.
Need to research what the hell an acknowledgements page is.
The bottom line is that I had twenty five people who agreed to do some solid work on this book. Like they do on email marketing lists, I made each person double opt in. After they emailed interest I had them watch a short video where I explained exactly what I was doing and the help I needed. Then they had to write back explaining that they were again, in. I wasn’t trying to be a dick, but I knew I needed the double yes to get a commitment. Amazingly, only one person didn’t double-opt in.
I even provided a deadline to help set some structure. While I had all these helpers working for free I did allow them artistic license. Quite a bit of latitude actually. This way they could make their work their own. As I’ve gone back through the assignments I’ve found that many of the editors did some unique and creative things. That’s fine and the ones that just corrected my awful punctuation, grammar, and overindulgence into adverbs are well appreciated, too.
When the deadline came only one person out of twenty-five didn’t make it. That’s twenty-four pieces of work, out of twenty-five, that came in on time and under budget. I assumed half would flake. It’s the holiday season, they’re working for free, I don’t know any of them personally, plus I gave them a bunch of dirty work while I sat back and drank margaritas on Marco Island.
Just kidding. I don’t go down to Florida whenever possible. Well – it’s Florida, that’s why. Ugh.
I was so humbled and appreciative that twenty five people agreed to help. I have five people on backup that were waiting for one to bail. I only had to use one of the five. That is amazing. To say that I am overjoyed is an understatement. You just saved me dozens of hours of work. I still have a few dozen hours left, but I’m not going gray with stress anytime soon because of your efforts. And, if I do, I’m totally breaking out the Sun-In.
Also, I would like to say that my podcast Bloggers are Weird was featured today in iTunes under the New and Noteable section for Comedy. If you haven’t yet checked it out click on the menu at the top of the page or the button on the right. Enjoy!
photo credit: brainware3000 via photopin cc
Kate Hall says:
Creative license? Well, crap. I just picked my favorites and fixed your typos. Now I feel like an uncreative loser. I’m curious to see the creative liberties people took that I was too chicken to consider. Cool that you got so many people to help.
D.J. Paris says:
Nobody really changed anything. I was being “creative” myself with exaggeration. But I really can’t thank you enough, KH! Your work was awesome. Trust me.
Amber Cates says:
Ah, I had fun with it. It made me feel important. I got bragging rights now. When people asked me what I was doing, I said, “Just editing some posts for a blogger friend of mine, for his book” and they were totally impressed.
D.J. Paris says:
Wow! Use it to impress others – I never thought of that! Hilarious.
Barbara L.W. Myers says:
Definitely in it for the practice and the bragging rights…this time 🙂
D.J. Paris says:
I really do appreciate your input!!! I’m going through everything this weekend!
Melinda says:
Hey! You met me at noncon. *sigh* how soon they forget 🙂
D.J. Paris says:
And I nearly forgot to reply to this post one year later! But I remembered!