I found that an old school chum is now...an editor. And teaching writing. And it sounded like he was doing that a lot. So I sent him my first 20 pages and a synopsis. The agreement was I'd get a marked up copy of each of them, when he was done.
I think he may have skimmed the synopsis but of the 20 pages, all he gave me was 3 word corrections to the first page...nothing else. And they were very, very minor corrections. There were a lot of questions that, that I think he would not have asked if he had read the 20 pages and the synopsis.
The work product he agreed to produce, for $40 bucks an hour, was a marked up copy of the 1st 20 pages, and a marked up copy of the synopsis. Instead, I got a phone call, and yes, there were a few good tips, but honestly? I didn't feel like he'd gone through the whole 20 pages really, at all, and that was what we agreed to for the first 2 hours. I do think he skimmed the 20 pages, but very quickly, and not to the detail we agreed upon.
Now he says he's looking forward to reading the rest of the book....that's a lot of money I'd be paying for him to do that.
That's ah, 20 pages an hour, and so, 20 hours of work. And I don't mind paying it, but I need to see a work product that really makes me feel like the work was done. And I need to feel like it was more than just skimmed quickly.
So, what I did: I asked him to email me the work product for this part of the work (synopsis and 20 pages). I'm really hoping I see something more confidence building, when I get that.
Does this sound hopeless? Does it sound like I got ripped off? I really, really like this person and always felt like he was very smart, and very interesting, and a good writer....but I'm just not sure yet, that the work is gonna come out of him.