Your Editor is Your Partner

An editor is someone who makes your work more readable, more salable – better. An editor doesn’t change the voice or direction or meaning of your words.

Your editor is your partner. Everyone needs an editor. Doesn’t matter whether you’re going the self-publishing route or signing with a regional or small publisher. At some point, an editor will need to look at your manuscript. Even if you sign with an agent who liked it enough to add you to her stable, she will probably suggested changes or edits. Then when one of the major publishers takes you on, they will have an editor go through it. Getting to that point, though, is a long road. Hiring your own editor BEFORE you send it to an agent or publisher will up your chances of getting your book in the queue with both.

If you’re self-publishing, either in print or e-form or both, you’ll need that independent editor even more because that will be your one chance to get it right. People may be reading more and more e-books, but they haven’t changed their standards. They still want a well-written book and while they may skip over two or three mistakes, they won’t buy your next book if your first has too many mistakes.

Yes, editors cost money, but they pay off, too. In the short term, you have a much better book that reads smoothly. In the long term, you learn from seeing what the editor did to improve your manuscript. I’ve known authors who have said that hiring an editor was like taking a one-on-one class in writing.

What are your experiences working with an editor?

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Disclaimer: I don’t often post about editing. Mostly because, as a lot of you know, I’m a freelance editor and I didn’t want my blog posts to sound like I’m trolling for clients. Now, however, I feel I can write a post about editing every now and then since I’m no longer taking on new editing clients. Since taking over as the Coordinator for Story Circle Network’s Editorial Services, I’m only working with existing and returning clients.

Book Editing

For a couple of days now, I’ve been doing a line edit for an author who gave me a call when her agent recommended she get an edit done before the book went out to editors. I’ve done a first read-through and am now going back through it again.

Whenever I read, I take breaks. Partly because I have to do other things, but mostly because I need to rest my eyes. This time, though, I’m breaking because I kept thinking of things I ought to say in this blog about editing.

First off, you should have a book editor or book consultant read through your manuscript before you send it to an agent. The author I’m working with now is a multi-published author who works closely with her agent, so there was no need to have a professional look at it until this point. But if you’re new, have someone edit for you before you approach an agent. You need a new, untainted eye to read your work. You will be surprised what you miss, no matter how many times you read your own work.

If you decide to have someone edit, you’ll have to consider what you want done. A basic line edit is usually the cheapest. The editor looks for grammar, punctuation and spelling primarily. The cost goes higher if you have someone focus on areas like continuity, POV switches, characterization, pacing, etc. With the second level, you’re looking for a book consultant to work with.

Another thing to remember when you decide to approach an editor or consultant is that the editor might want a hard copy of the manuscript, although some can work strictly with an electronic copy, and some want both. If you assume they’ll want an electronic copy, then you can be prepared to send that. That means one file. If you write each chapter as a separate file, when you decide to work with an editor, you’ll have to create a master copy, so you might as well do that from the beginning. It’ll make your life easier as you write. On a master copy, when you make your own edits, the page numbers automatically adjust. When you want to search for something, you can do a search and find on the one document, rather than on twenty separate chapter documents. So by creating a master document from the very beginning, you’re ahead of the game if you decide to get outside editing done.

Before you have a professional look at your book, have a friend or two look at it. Hopefully, they’ll catch spellings and punctuation mistakes you missed. This will save your editor time and you money.

There’s a lot you, your friends, and your critique group can do to perfect your manuscript before you submit it. So exhaust all of those avenues before (or if) you decide to hire an editor.