When I was finishing up my last novel, Stone’s Ghost, I realized I needed some help. My main character lived in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and owned a Sea-Doo rental shop on the lakeshore near the London Bridge. Part of the story concerned his dealings with a difficult customer who manhandled one of the rented Sea-Doos. As I was writing, I took a wild guess at ways a customer could foul up a Sea-Doo, but I really had no idea. When I got to the editing stage, I knew I needed to check the facts to make sure I was telling a credible story.
I did the usual searching online but after several days and scores of sites, the specific information I needed was not coming up and I realized I had to do a much more targeted approach. I found JustAnswer and decided to give it a try.
On their website, they describe their 4-step service like this:
1. Ask a question
Enter your question, and create a user account.
2. Name your price
Place a refundable good faith deposit.
3. An Expert answers, often within minutes, usually within a few hours
JustAnswer will send an e-mail notifying you of any answer or request for information from an Expert.
4. Rate the answer
A positive rating pays the Expert and tells us you’re happy. If you got great service, consider adding a bonus. That’s all. We guarantee your satisfaction.
They boast of having over 100 categories and they run the gamut from legal to medical to electrical and plumbing to relationships and clock repair (separately, not together). Since I wasn’t having much luck elsewhere, I decided to give it a try and typed in my question about small watercraft.
The “name your price” aspect is based primarily on urgency; the quicker you need an answer, the pricier it will be. Mine wasn’t all that urgent — I still had plenty of editing to go — so I chose a less expedient degree and my price was $19.
I got a response back the very same day from a marine mechanic. JustAnswer provides the expert’s credentials and experience, and my guy had 39 years of experience and was a Certified Master Technician. Seemed like just the guy I needed.
My initial question had not been very detailed, so my expert asked me to clarify exactly what I was after, and we went back and forth a couple times before I was able to really zero in on what I needed. (If I knew what I was talking about, it would have been easier, but then I wouldn’t have needed the help, would I?) In any event, we got to the crux of the issue in just a couple of exchanges and by the end of the day, I had my answer. Perfect! I paid, rated my expert and went on to clean up that portion of my book. I was a happy camper.
Will I use JustAnswer again? Definitely! This will be my go-to place for those picky little things that I need to be authentic for my books but things for which I don’t need to do an online course to learn the entire discipline. As far as I’m concerned, this is a gonga deal.
Thank you for this interesting research tool.
You’re entirely welcome; great resource when you need it.
It’s always great to acquire an interesting, no nonsense, and fairly inexpensive aid to writing.
Thank you so much Melissa.
You’re absolutely right; when you need a short, quick answer without taking a course or reading a book, this is it.
I appreciate the research option but did you not try to get the answer from friends first? I have a ton of contacts on FB, LinkedIn, and the like. I would think at least a few of them know about small water craft. Yeah, I’m broke and need any extra money I can get for editing. LOL!
Nicole, I did try friends first; I have a friend who’s had several Sea-Doos, but even he couldn’t come up with the exact scenario I was looking for. I really did think I could bug this out on my own, but finally realized that was not going to be the case, so I’m glad I found them.
Interesting post, Melissa. I think I’ve stumbled into that site when I’ve been searching the web for something. It looks like it could be a little money maker for those with expertise in the areas they have experts in, too.
Thanks, Al. From the extensive list of experts, it looks like plenty of folks are willing to answer questions for a bit of side money. I don’t know what kind of volume they do, of course, but it could be substantial.
Thanks, Melissa! Sounds like a great resource for situations when your friends don’t know everything.
Yes, even when we’ve got friends all around the globe, we can still run into “dead zones” where we need help.
Interesting. It seems that wherever there is a hole, or a need, someone will find a way to fill it. This looks like a good one.
I agree; and from the look of the list of experts and the topics covered, it’s obvious there has been a need. Glad they were there to fill it.
Interesting. I bookmarked it just in case I really do get stumped.
Good idea; you never know when you might need it.
Thanks for the tip, Melissa. A small price to pay for authenticity.
My thoughts exactly. And we all know what a drag it is to read a book and find some glaring bit of info that is patently incorrect. Makes the whole book suspect.
Great post and reminder, Melissa. My husband used them to get help when he was working on my truck. Though he is a mechanic and usually can fix and figure out anything, this one had him stumped and they got back to him the next day. I didn’t think about using them for questions we might have when writing our books. Great idea.
Great story; thanks for sharing!