Interview with Ricardo Fayet, Co-founder of Reedsy

You started Reedsy together with 3 other co-founders in 2014 - namely Emmanuel Nataf, Vincent Durand and Matt Cobb - for our readers that aren’t familiar with Reedsy yet, can you tell us a little about the original idea behind the platform? 

Sure! The core of the idea, and that hasn't really changed since we started it, was to provide a safe place where authors could find and work with the best publishing professionals in the industry: from editors to proofreaders, cover designers, illustrators, book marketers, and more.

We launched with the most important services: editing and design, and have since opened the marketplace to many more professions, as well as added a lot of free tools and resources to help authors make the most of their publishing journey.

What were the initial startup years like, was it a struggle to make the big splash that you did, or did you find that the publishing niche was already hungering for a platform like Reedsy?

I think there was clearly a need for Reedsy, but it still took us a bit of time to establish ourselves as the #1 place authors can go to to hire the professionals they need for their books. 

While the indie publishing industry is an incredibly supportive one, there is always a lot of natural skepticism towards new players — because of the tremendous amount of predatory companies and vanity presses out there.

I think one of the keys to Reedsy's success is the work we've done over the years to keep our marketplace as curated as possible. We only accept less than 5% of freelancers, on average, who apply to be listed on Reedsy — and it only takes a brief look through our marketplace to see that most of our editors, for example, come from the Big Five publishers, or well-known literary agencies.

As with all plans, I’m sure things evolved along the way, and Reedsy has had significant growth since its inception - how does it feel to have built a community of over 1 million authors, and a bank of 2,500 freelance professionals?

It's certainly been a crazy adventure! I think one of the most rewarding aspects, for me personally, is to go to writer's conferences and not have to explain what Reedsy is, or does, anymore, because almost every author there has heard about us already. I think the company has earned a great reputation with authors, and that's one of the things I'm most proud of.

Ricardo Fayet presenting at SPS Live 2020

Your curated marketplace has also grown to include editors, designers, marketers, ghostwriters and even web designers, so what’s next for Reedsy in this area?  

We opened to literary translators during the pandemic, for the main European languages, and will be adding audiobook narrators in the near future. However, one of the things we're most excited about from a company perspective is integrating this marketplace with our free writing and formatting tool, and being able to provide an end-to-end experience.

Reedsy has a slew of free high quality resources for writers, from Reedsylearning to Reedsylive, and even Reedsybookeditor - can you tell us a little bit more about those, and why they are free? 

The Reedsy Book Editor is our free writing and formatting tool. You can write in there (it's a great, distraction-free writing interface) and program writing sprints — or you can upload an existing text document. Once you're done, you can edit and format your manuscript, and then export it to an ebook or print-ready PDF file in just one click. Our goal this year is to integrate it with our Marketplace, meaning you'll be able to hire a Reedsy editor to work on your manuscript directly within the tool (with a much better track changes experience than on Microsoft Word).

Reedsy Book Editor Interface

Reedsy Learning and Reedsy Live are two free, educational initiatives, whose aim is to help authors acquire all the knowledge they need to successfully write, publish, and market their books. We quickly realized that most first-time authors aren't really ready to use our Marketplace — for example, they might not know the difference between developmental, copy and line editing. So we try to provide as many educational resources as possible, for free, in order for authors to be able to make the most of our paid services.

Reedsy Learning offers access to 50+ free email courses on writing, publishing, and marketing, and Reedsy Live is a series of bi-weekly webinars with one of the publishing professionals on our Marketplace.

Reedsy Marketplace

You've generously donated a full developmental edit for the winner of the SWF22 First Five Pages Prize, as well as credits towards Reedsy services of $100 USD each for of our specific genre category winners, not to mention sponsoring Reedsy faculty for our Festival. Firstly, we’d like to say thank you very much for those very valuable contributions and generous support - we’re incredibly grateful for that - but just to clarify for our readers that haven’t gone through the professional editing process yet, can you explain the importance of a full developmental edit and how that differs from perhaps the layman's view of what editing is?

This is something you should ask Catherine! Editor’s Note: Catherine Pettersson, SWF Founder and President. She was kind enough to provide us with the story of how she got a publishing deal after working with a developmental editor on Reedsy. 

Catherine Pettersson utilized Reedsy for a Developmental Edit

Obviously, that's not the only reason — she had a great manuscript in the first place — but working with a developmental editor is beneficial on many levels. As opposed to copy editors, or proofreaders, who focus on the mechanics of writing (grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.), a developmental editor places their focus on the big picture: the story structure, the narrative arc, the characterisation, the pacing, the point(s) of view, the dialogue, etc.

These are the elements you really need to nail in order to attract the attention of an agent, or publisher. While they generally tend to be pretty forgiving when it comes to typos, a big plot hole or a slow start of the story will be motive enough for them to instantly reject your submission. 

Not only will a developmental edit make your manuscript a lot stronger, it will also provide you with a crash course on writing, and with advice that you can then apply to all your future manuscripts. So you can see it as an investment in your craft, rather than on just one book.

So for the modern writer just discovering Reedsy, what’s your best advice or top tips on using the platform to help them on their path to published, whether it be self-publishing, or the traditional publishing house model?

My main advice would be to research your publication path as much as possible while you're writing the book. You'll find tons of resources on pretty much any publication-related topic on the Reedsy Blog, or on Reedsy Learning. The more you familiarize yourself with distribution options, ISBNs, copyright, Amazon visibility, advertising options, etc. before you publish, the more likely you are to launch your book successfully.

A great way to both build your knowledge and network with fellow authors (who can help you when you launch your book), is to attend a writer's conference like the Stockholm Writers Festival! You'll also leave more inspired than ever to take the next step in your writing career.

Thank you Ricardo, we’re looking forward to having you and the Reedsy editors at the festival in August, and we really appreciate the support!

Note: Ricardo Fayet will be on hand at the Stockholm Writers Festival taking place on August 12 through August 14th, 2022.