With the rise of self-publishing has come a corresponding increase in services that try to help authors find professional freelance assistance—while taking a cut of the action. Two of the best-known services are Reedsy and Bibliocrunch, which work on slightly different business models:
- Bibliocrunch offers a monthly or annual subscription plan to both authors and freelancers, as well as a free entry plan. Freelancers pay a percentage of their fee back to Bibliocrunch: either 13 percent if they’re on the free plan, or 3 percent on the paid plan.
- Reedsy is free for authors and freelancers to use, then charges each party a 10 percent cut on services rendered. (See our Feb. 10 piece on the latest developments at Reedsy.)
Now comes BookGarage, a startup launched last fall, which offers a similar model with a few twists:
- It’s free to use; BookGarage collects from authors 10 percent of the cost of services. Freelancers pay nothing; they receive their full fee.
- BookGarage collects the full service fee from the author before work begins. Once work is complete and approved by the author, the fee is released to the freelancer.
BookGarage has been conceived as something that goes beyond a one-time transaction freelance marketplace: it’s focused on becoming a dynamic community of authors and publishing professionals who interact and support each other on an ongoing basis—an assisted-publishing environment—with readers involved as well.
Bottom line: One of the most frequent questions we hear from authors is: How can I find the right freelance help? Authors new to the industry especially are looking to reduce the anxiety and doubt involved in paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to a largely unknown freelancer. Inexperienced authors—or those simply lacking funds—may use bottom-end freelance sites like Upwork or Fiverr, then inevitably be disappointed when the quality of work is poor or questionable. Publishing-focused matchmaking services fill a specific need in the midrange of the freelance market. The most experienced and high-quality freelancers may cost more than authors want to pay and rarely need matchmaking services, as they work largely by referral.
Editor’s note: BookGarage has since folded.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
