Should Authors Do Free Rewrites for Possible Publishers?

I could just as easily ask the question: Should editors give free re-edits after the author has completed the revisions?  But that's another story, though the answer is the same.

This article is about what happens to authors after they've been to professional editors like me and have submitted the ms to a publisher for further editing.

Read what Brent Hartinger, published author (finally!), has to say about doing free rewrites.  (Keep reading past the initial blurb to get to the story.)

Hartinger did rewrite after rewrite for several publishers, and though all the editors gave him lots of praise, they turned him down flat.  Then he complained to a successful screenwriter friend and found out what he'd been doing wrong.

http://www.underdown.org/no_freerewrites.htm

Jenny