> I felt confident I didn't need a professional editor.
FWIW, I think this almost always bad advice. Being your own editor is a bit like being your own lawyer - even if you have the right skills you don't have the right perspective.
It's obvious when something is desperately in need of editing. What's less obvious is how much better something "ok" could be with a good editor.
Well from a purely monetary standpoint, if you make 4x more money when publishing yourself you can afford to sell 4 times fewer books to make the same amount, so the real question is: can the editor impact my book so much that it will increase sales 4 times?
Not saying that you are wrong, more that there are legitimate reasons why an editor might not be the right way forward.
> more that there are legitimate reasons why and editor might not be the right way forward.
I think this is true, and certainly didn't mean to suggest otherwise. It's just that "a (good) editor wouldn't improve my output" is approximately never true.
Whether that improvement is worth whatever it costs you to get it is a separable question.
Also what is the cost of hiring an editor if you are self publishing? That’s another route and I bet you could find a good one at a more reasonable cost.
For fiction editing (developmental and copy) I've spent around 550-700 USD for 80k words. Not sure how that converts for a programming book but the editing was well done and really improved the manuscript which resulted in a big increase in sales for follow up books.
I hired a freelance editor to help me with my blog, and it was the best money I ever spent for improving my professional writing.[0] You can get a good editor and still self-publish.
If money's tight, there's still substantial value in just having an editor review a portion of your book and telling you about anti-patterns in your writing.
Is it though, or is it merely a century of the professional publishing industry justifying its necessity?
Neither Plato, nor Nietzsche had an editor. Now those are just two historical examples two and a half millenia apart, but this group also includes any author in between these two.
FWIW, I think this almost always bad advice. Being your own editor is a bit like being your own lawyer - even if you have the right skills you don't have the right perspective.
It's obvious when something is desperately in need of editing. What's less obvious is how much better something "ok" could be with a good editor.