No free editing from me

Bottom of the Sigillum Dei Aemeth.

Sometimes I am surprised at the stuff that I have to state that I thought was perfectly obvivous. Such as the following statement:

I do not provide free editing services.

The reason that I find myself having to say this is the fact that someone last month decided to cloud-source the error finding portion of an edit job (for their second edition--yes, I am talking about that one), and is now saying that their book cannot be that problematic because no one provided them with a long list of errors.

In my case, I mentioned an error I found a couple nights before...I was looking though the book to see what the author said about something (I am researching a book of my own) and spotted the error, so it was fresh in my mind. But that was not good enourgh for this person.

I am guessing that the author thinks that I should have spent a couple of days locating all the errors for him.

I am sure that those people who are paying me to edit stuff would have been thrilled to have me help this person for free.

If I am editing something, I am getting something out of the job--an hourly rate, a job fee, an exchange of labor, a percentage of the gross, an expensive book, or maybe a couple of plants or chickens. I do not edit for free.

The same goes for my writing, photography, and artwork. I have bills to pay, therefore I must charge for my time and energy. (And yes, I also charge for spellwork and divination.)

Now, some people will note that I still do first-reads and book reviews. Plus they will note that I do some volunteer writing.

In the case of first-reads, I am a first reader because I like the author and are friends with them (and like their books)...there is also a darn good chance that they are also one of my first-readers.

In the case of book reviews, a copy of the reviews end up on a blog with ads in the sidebar--therefore they are not completely free of monetary income. Futhermore, I recieve the books for free. (I used to pay for books that I reviewed; but now that I am established reviewer, I don't have to do that as anyone who looks at my coffee table can see--I have a couple dozen free books on it waiting for review.)

And in the case of my volunteer work, yes, I am donating work. But it is also advertising for myself, and I earn on the backend (such as Bad Monkey--the collected 2011 Hearthstone articles by Morgan Drake Eckstein). Plus if I had cash to spare--which I don't (thanks student loan debt)--I would be donating folding green energy to these organizations. (Yes, that includes the Legal Defense Fund.)

Of course, we all know that charging for my time and energy makes me a villian. But then again, everyone who flips burgers for a living is also a villian. At least, I enjoy what I am doing for a living.