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I'm a Book Editor. Here's Everything Writers WASTE Money On.

Alyssa Matesic

41,211 views

Some aspiring writers spend hundreds — even thousands — of dollars chasing a book deal, but it often goes to the wrong things. From my 10+ years in the industry, here's an honest breakdown of what's actually worth your money as a writer, what you can skip entirely, and what sounds like a smart investment but rarely pays off.

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MORE WRITING AND PUBLISHING ADVICE:
The Truth About Publishing a Book in 2026 (From Macmillan’s CEO): The Truth About Publishing a Book in 2026 ...
My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring Authors: My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring Authors

SHOULD WRITERS SPEND MONEY ON...
00:00 Intro
00:37 Workshops and conferences?
03:11 Writing contests?
04:20 Software?
05:37 Publishing databases?
06:48 Beta reading?
08:25 Developmental editing?
11:01 An MFA?
12:33 Craft books?

CORRECTION:
06:31 The one-day pass is now $15

ABOUT ME:
My name is Alyssa Matesic, and I’m a professional book editor with over a decade of book publishing and editorial experience. Throughout my career, I’ve held editorial roles across both sides of the publishing industry: Big Five publishing houses and literary agencies. The goal of this channel is to help writers throughout the book writing journey—whether you're working on your manuscript or you're looking for publishing advice.

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20 Comments

@AlyssaMatesic Creator 3 months ago Pinned

Correction: The one-day Publishers Marketplace pass is now $15.
Preorder my querying guide ➡ https://modernguidetoquerying.com/
Work with my expert editors ✍ https://www.alyssamatesic.com/inquire#inquire-2

@ScotWithOnet 3 months ago

Getting honest feedback is probably the most difficult thing

@HGL7154 3 months ago

My favorite advice by far is, "READ!!!!" Read inside your genre, read outside your genre, read old books, read new books, read poetry, read prose. The world of literary wonder is far less segmented than the modern systems make it out to be. Thanks, Alyssa!

@VibeVortex-n7w 3 months ago

I have a big family, and all of them are pretty honest. I send chapters of my book to them, and they reply truthfully. I don't have to worry about them giving fake reports, nor do I have to worry that somebody'll upload my writing.

Thanks for this video, Alyssa; it was incredible.

@jacklabloom635 3 months ago

Hiring a professional developmental editor for my first novel was some of the best money I spent. That was back in the days when you sent off a hard copy in the mail. It took him two weeks to read and mark up the manuscript in red ink. He found a plot fault too. I learned more from that edit than I did from the dozens of books I had read on fiction writing.

You give excellent advice.

Here is my advice to new writers. If you love writing, stay with it.

@angryretailbanker5103 3 months ago

To the last point about reading other books, I’ll add something I discovered myself before I found out that Alan Moore gave this exact same advice years before I started writing: Read terrible books.

You can read terrible books and see what went wrong with them, and how you can avoid those mistakes in your own writing. In my opinion, it’s a great way to avoid a lot of common pitfalls by identifying what you would have done differently, and I feel it’s easier to explain what you disliked about a story than why you liked it.

@angryretailbanker5103 3 months ago

12:34 “Now let me share with you the one purchase I will always support you making.”

Ad for 2026 Nissan Altima starts playing.

@fortindavid33 3 months ago

I went to LinkedIn and posted about my book, then asked for volunteer beta readers. I quickly had 20+ volunteers. Definitely don’t pay someone without at least trying social media, Reddit communities, etc first.

@charlielesoine6256 3 months ago

I've done three critique swaps with other writers where we provide feedback on each others manuscripts. The feedback I received was priceless and the process of critiquing someone else's work has helped me improve my own writing as well.

@kay12 3 months ago

Hiring you to read my first chapter was one of the BEST decisions I made. :)

@culmo80 3 months ago

I went to a writer's workshop where you could pitch to an agent. I felt so good that my agent requested a full ... until I saw that most other people in attendance were also getting requests. And of course, I got a form rejection. I'm pretty convinced that agents will just request a full out of an obligation ... or worse, they do it to keep the pitch sessions going so authors spend more money. Or maybe I'm just cynical...

@PlasticGoBaby 3 months ago (edited)

"I will end on the one purchase I will always support you making..."

My YouTube then jump cut to an ad of a guy playing skeeball.

@patrickderrickson1207 3 months ago

Developmental Editing is like $4,000 (on the cheap) and then you might never get published!

@TheEccentricRaven 3 months ago (edited)

I'm sad when there's authors who believe they need to spend a fortune to be an author. I've studied the biographies of many authors both living and dead. None of them spent a fortune. Instead they read lots of books, studied the craft, and found author friends for alpha/beta reading. For the latter, some would just have a trusted friend/spouse who provided constructive feedback. The MFA is mainly for if you want to teach creative writing in a college someday.

@TheBirdThatWhistles 3 months ago

I read this as 'Save Your A$$" on the thumbnail.

@wellurban 3 months ago

I haven’t tried a full developmental edit, but I did pay for a professional manuscript assessment, and had mixed feelings about it. They made enough positive comments to suggest that I had something worth persevering with, and confirmed many of the weaknesses with structure, pacing and character that I’d been worried about, which was very helpful. However, I also got the feeling that they didn’t quite get my intention, since they seemed to be judging it against the norms of commercial genre fiction, whereas I’d always been intending something a bit weirder. I was most disappointed that they recommended I read Save the Cat, since I’m quite familiar with it and it’s absolutely not the sort of structure I was aiming for. At least that led me to seek out a wider range of craft books about structure, and when I found Jane Alison’s “Meander, Spiral, Explode” that gave me the tools and confidence I needed to find my own structure to guide my very necessary rewrite.

@austinhowell3652 3 months ago

Thank you for another fantastic video. You are a road map to the publishing industry and how all this works. For us new authors, you are a breath of fresh air. Thank you so much!!

@aurthurpendragon1015 3 months ago

"No writer can see the flaws in their own work."

I can't see the good in my own work.

@DrReverendJ 3 months ago

While it was #2 on the list, I still like submitting to writer's contest because 1) It forces me to think hard about my writing 2) It makes me put myself out there and receive criticism and 3) It put deadlines out there for me to reach. The only problem is I have to stick with the ones with fees because I'd assume the free ones will be absolutely flooded by AI generated scripts these days.

@eruvandi.676 3 months ago

A while back, I'd done the online option for a writer's conference, and one author who was teaching a session there had, just before the session started, said to the people attending in person, "It's wild to me that people are watching this online. Why don't they want to be here with us?" I was just thinking, "Dude, I'd LOVE to be there and spend time with fellow writers. I CAN'T get there." It was exactly like you said: The online experience cost me about $250, while going there in person would have cost over $400 for everything they provide with attendance, and then add in the cost of gas to drive across the country (I've never flown), and then the cost of a hotel, and food, etc., etc., and you start getting into $$$$ territory that I just don't have, along with other personal limitations. I'm glad attending a conference in person isn't a necessity to getting published because that kind of travel really can be a privilege that not everyone has. Idk why the speaker didn't seem to know that, but oh well. He still taught his class well. Despite not being there in person, I was so grateful for the online option so that I could still get the learning without wiping out my bank account. Maybe someday I'll be able to attend one in person, but it's not this day.