Editing “for the experience”
As a fan of Craigslist, I browse the writing & editing gig sections often. There’s always at least one post asking talented writers & editors to do the work without pay, or for peanuts.
Those ads are often met with counter-ads that point out how rude and insulting it is to expect folks to do such work for absolutely nothing. While I’ve thought about doing that myself, I realized that it would be a waste of space (no better than the fluff ads themselves, right?). No, my blog is a better place to deal with this.
I’ll be blunt. If you’re going to ask someone to edit a two-page journal entry for you, that’s one thing. But to ask someone to edit a 100,000 word manuscript “for credit in the book” is absolutely insulting. Yes, writers & editors have an appreciation for the written word, but we are fond of money just the same. More importantly, to ask someone to perform a service without due compensation is a flat-out scam. I wouldn’t ask an upstart plumber to fix a leaky pipe in my house and expect him to want to do it “for the experience.”
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