March 14, 2016 
Jane 
People often ask me why the need for a collaborator and my answer is very simple—to make the work they are creating better and more saleable. (Here, by the way, I am mainly talking about non-fiction.)
Collaborators—especially those with experience—help the author, especially at the proposal stage, focus their idea and on exactly how they want to organize the message they want their book to deliver.
Collaborators can also bring out aspects of the book that the author hadn’t even considered including.
Collaborators, because they are paid a flat fee or have a percentage of the project, are dedicated to the work of producing both a proposal and a manuscript in an efficient and timely manner. This is often something the author (especially first time authors) working alone is unable to do.
Finally, the author, if he or she wants to and is interested in writing subsequent books, can learn a great deal from the collaboration and then go on to write their own books down the line.
I would love to know your thoughts on the benefits of using a collaborator, so bring them on.
I absolutely believe in the benefits of collaboration and, at this moment, have Alice Rosengard, who has 30 years of experience with publishers, editing my manuscript, The Shark’s Wife, before I send it to agents.
I have a relative who has a collaborator in the form of a co-author. (They write romances under a single pseudonym.)
She tells me it’s the only way she really enjoys working, because while she is strong on plots and characters, her partner is better at constructing sentences and polishing. They met at a convention and were telling each other their troubles when they realized that their strengths and weaknesses meshed.
I occasionally wish I had a co-writer. I think best when I have someone I can bounce ideas off. I wrote a long letter to my CP last night and ended up writing more after than than I had all month!
I too have a collaborator in a Author who has published over twenty books. She has helped me through three drafts of two current WIP and because of her unending encouragement this year I began the querying process. If it weren’t for her I’d have stayed a closeted writer.