I am hiring a ghostwriter for a Kindle fiction book. As part of the hiring process, I paid her to write a sample, which was excellent. I also gave her a full breakdown of what I wanted in the story, including key plot points and character profiles. I didn’t want to box in her creativity, so I didn’t go too deep on these elements (which was probably a mistake). However, I did get her to provide an outline of how she felt the story would play out before she started writing.
Her portfolio had a couple of errors in her work. This should have been a red flag. But instead, I got her to sign an agreement, where I made it very clear that the work must be proof read and error free.
The project was broken into milestones. The first 2 were excellent. However, the third one was a mess and veered so greatly from the breakdown I provided that it was a different story. (I know hadn't gone too deep, but her draft had nothing to do with what I had asked). She promised to resubmit the story in a set amount of time, but it came back very late and full of typos. There were over 20 mistakes, including misspelt character names!
When I asked her about this, she’s claiming it’s because she didn’t send it to her copy editor. She hasn't really addressed the issue of submitting work late.
What would you do? I’m thinking I should probably just cut my losses and find someone else. I’ve learnt lots from the experience and so would probably do a much better job of hiring next time around. For the first milestones, the payments were minimal, but if I continue, it will be quite costly to quit later.
Then again, most of the writer portfolios I’ve seen aren't without problems. They tend to either have mistakes (but not as many as her portfolio) or have no samples in the first place. So I’m not entirely confident a new writer will be that much better.
I want to be fair and give her a third chance (especially as she has tried to fix the problems), but my realistic side is saying "two chances is too many"...
Her portfolio had a couple of errors in her work. This should have been a red flag. But instead, I got her to sign an agreement, where I made it very clear that the work must be proof read and error free.
The project was broken into milestones. The first 2 were excellent. However, the third one was a mess and veered so greatly from the breakdown I provided that it was a different story. (I know hadn't gone too deep, but her draft had nothing to do with what I had asked). She promised to resubmit the story in a set amount of time, but it came back very late and full of typos. There were over 20 mistakes, including misspelt character names!
When I asked her about this, she’s claiming it’s because she didn’t send it to her copy editor. She hasn't really addressed the issue of submitting work late.
What would you do? I’m thinking I should probably just cut my losses and find someone else. I’ve learnt lots from the experience and so would probably do a much better job of hiring next time around. For the first milestones, the payments were minimal, but if I continue, it will be quite costly to quit later.
Then again, most of the writer portfolios I’ve seen aren't without problems. They tend to either have mistakes (but not as many as her portfolio) or have no samples in the first place. So I’m not entirely confident a new writer will be that much better.
I want to be fair and give her a third chance (especially as she has tried to fix the problems), but my realistic side is saying "two chances is too many"...
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