Professional Editors

sunaynaprasad said:

Basically, how do professional editors edit books? Is it a lot or a little?

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That depends entirely on the editor and on what the editor is editing for. An editor working for a specific publishing house may have guidelines to follow. An editor working for a newspaper will probably cut out any flowery language. But an editor working with you to get your book in shape for submission will probably not want to remove things that make it your book. After all, you don't have to accept the editor's changes (though it makes sense to give them consideration).

But your book sounds kind of short. Is it a kids' book?

I hope you saved a copy of your original for yourself. When you get your edited copy back go over it - every word. Not every professional editor is the one you want.

A freelance professional editor isn't a gatekeeper for a publisher. They can't promise you'll get published. You do not have to agree with their SUGGESTIONS. Right, they make suggestions, they do not deliver THE TRUTH. If the editor works for your publisher, you might want to listen to them.

Sorry, what I should have said is enjoy your stay here and read many threads. You might start in Bewares and Background check where you'll find information on agents, publishers and editors.

There are different kinds of editing that get done on a book by the pubishers:

1. The editor who wants to buy your book may make suggestions for changes. Note that these are suggestions, not demands - although if the two of you can't agree, they may turn the book down.

For example, I have a publisher interested in my work but they want more magic in the story. I was happy with that, but I didn't like their suggestions on the specifics so I offered some ideas of my own and they agreed.

2. Copyediting. Someone goes through your manuscript and looks for factual errors: a character's eye-colour changing from blue to green, or you getting the date of the Moon landings wrong. These get marked up on your manuscript, then you get to check them and confirm if they are in fact mistakes that need fixing or a misunderstanding by the copyeditor (e.g. in this alternate history, the moon landings really did happen in a different year).

3. Proofreading. Someone checks the manuscript for typos, spelling errors ("there" instead of "their") and so on. Again, you get to check and confirm, but hopefully the proofreader will have fixed them correctly.

A paid-for editor might do any combination of the above - but it's your choice as to whether to go with the changes. If he or she is any good, you'll learn a lot about the current quality of your writing and whether it's good enough to send out to publishers yet. But really, you have to learn all this for yourself. Read the threads here, join in the discussions and post your work - it's much better value-for-money than paying an editor!

I know you are new, to both AW and the publishing world, so I hope you understand that the following is meant to be helpful advice. We've all been green at this, trust me, my ignorance about the publishing world when I got started was kind of embarrassing. It's a steep learning curve, and ever since I became more educated on the subject, I've tried to do the same with others. So please take all my advice in the spirit it was given . . . uh . . . which would be "helpful". I hope .

sunaynaprasad said:

My book is currently 38,468 words.

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What genre is your book? Unless this is a book for kids (and I do mean kids, 8 - 12 yearolds, not Young Adult. Young Adult - you know, like TWILIGHT, is longer usually 50K - 70K (though TWILIGHT is around 115K) ) - this word count is too short for any full length novel. There are always exceptions to the rule, but truly, this is a very short word count and will get you automatically rejected by publishers. HOWEVER, if your work IS for kids, or even Young Adult, you might have a bit more leeway with a short word count. In this case, it will depend more on the publisher's requirements.

sunaynaprasad said:

Before I start submitting it to publishing houses, my mom has sent it to a professional editor.

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In the UK it is common for authors to use book editing services, it isn't as common in North America. Typically it is considered best for authors to be able to edit their own work. However sometimes an author lacks anyone else to read their work for them, and going with an editing service can make sense. You might want to see if anyone here would be willing to read your work and give you their thoughts, though. There are some excellent fellow authors here who are very good at helping each other, and they do it for free.

sunaynaprasad said:

I'm nervous that they're going to take out a lot of the text since I use a lot of imagery (but I've read books with a lot of imagery). Hopefully, that won't happen, but how do professional editors normally edit books?

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This really isn't how a book gets edited. Good editors might make grammar and spelling corrections automatically, but when it comes to style and content, they ought to make notes in the margin, offer their advice, and then ask you to solve the problem. So if an editor doesn't like a descriptive passage she'll write something like, "I don't think all this description works right here, is there any way to cut it down?" and then you as an author decide if you want to. Sometimes you agree with the editor, a kind of hand smacking the forehead, "D'oh why didn't I think of that" moment. Sometimes you don't agree, though, and then you keep it as is.

sunaynaprasad said:

I am pretty sure the ones in the big houses (i.e. Random House) change a lot of the story.

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You are wrong. Editors at the big houses want books that are a polished as possible. It's a really nasty myth that editors at big houses buy an author's work and then change everything. Editors are book lovers and buy what they love. Why would they then want to change what they love?

sunaynaprasad said:

Also, if the editor takes over too much, no one will really know what is my true style of writing.

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This is true. And a bad editor is one that changes your work at all, let alone beyond recognition. The good news is that you don't have to accept any of the changes. If an editor ruins your work, get a refund and keep your book as you originally wrote it. You aren't obligated to an editor, even one you pay.

sunaynaprasad said:

Basically, how do professional editors edit books? Is it a lot or a little?

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It depends. But the thing that is most important is that no good editor will change something an author doesn't want changed. And no good author will take what an editor says with blind faith.


Good luck with everything, and welcome to AW!

As Toothpaste and Stlight said, it's your book. If a change doesn't seem right, don't do it. That's the most important thing to remember.

And the second most important thing is, Don't be so attached to your words that you can't see an needed change. If the editor says, "This confused me; I needed a little more explanation," you may be inclined to say, "What? It's perfectly clear!" every single time. But it isn't perfectly clear to this one person, and that probably means it won't be perfectly clear to others.

I might also note that what you are paying a freelance editor for might get changed again when you submit it to a publisher and work with their editors.

Still, as a learning experience, this could be very valuable if you can understand why the editor suggested certain changes. Expensive, but valuable...

Toothpaste said:

In the UK it is common for authors to use book editing services, it isn't as common in North America.

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Is it? I don't know anyone here who uses a paid editor, and I know a number of authors personally, from those published by big houses like HarperCollins down to small presses.

(in SF&F - can't speak for the rest of the publishing world).

Toothpaste said:

Typically it is considered best for authors to be able to edit their own work.

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This.

I was an in-house editor for years and would sometimes get submissions claiming to have been "professional edited." They would almost always be unsolicited and unagented. It became one of those warning signs (at least to me) in a cover letter that what I was about to read was unpromising. If someone else cleaned it up, how much work did they do and what can I expect from you on your next book? And yes, of course, even if it had been edited before I received it, if I bought it I would edit it again. That was my job.

A good editor doesn't just change the story or take out text. They ask questions, they tell you what is confusing, they identify contradictions and problematic areas. They help YOU reshape the story YOU want to tell.

Sidenote: I always wanted to reply that since they had a "professional" editor they didn't need me. And that personally I maintained amateur status so I could edit in the Olympics.

Toothpaste said:

In the UK it is common for authors to use book editing services, it isn't as common in North America.

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To clarify, it isn't common in the UK, it's just not as frowned upon as it is in the US, if a writer goes with one of the few reputable editors/agencies.

I, like Anne, don't personally know any published authors here in the UK who use freelance editors, but there are a few UK AW members who have gone that way with good results.

But 'common'? No.

lol, okay, I now regret using the word "common", I apologise. I meant what Terie said, it isn't frowned upon, nor do brits automatically consider an editing service a scam (which is what North Americans tend to). I know this from personal experience (I was living in the UK when I was first starting in the publishing world) and also from threads here at AW where a North American will ask about editing services, and their fellow NAs will strongly suggest otherwise to the point of suggesting that all such services are scams and then Brits will finally chime in saying something like, "Well it's done on occasion here and not all of them are scams, some are quite legit and helpful."

That's all I meant.

No worries - I'm sure we all post stuff in a hurry then realise we meant something rather different. I do it all the time

There are certainly respectable pro editors in the UK (e.g. John Jarrold, who runs this service as a completely separate business from his agenting, and doesn't represent his editing clients) - but it's still not recommended for your average fiction writer who wants to break into commercial publishing. You have to learn by doing, or you'll never get anywhere.

For someone who wants to self-publish and is basically contracting out some of the work that a publisher would do (cover art and so on), it might be a sensible thing. It's notoriously tough to proofread your own work.

Anne Lyle said:

No worries - I'm sure we all post stuff in a hurry then realise we meant something rather different. I do it all the time

There are certainly respectable pro editors in the UK (e.g. John Jarrold, who runs this service as a completely separate business from his agenting, and doesn't represent his editing clients) - but it's still not recommended for your average fiction writer who wants to break into commercial publishing. You have to learn by doing, or you'll never get anywhere.

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I'm not sure it’s true to say it’s not recommended, at least in the UK.

A lot of UK agents are quite happy to take on writers referred to them by the more reputable UK literary consultancies. Such agents obviously don’t have a problem with writers who have worked with professional editors to get their work up to scratch. In fact, a lot of writers have achieved publication via this route--it's not uncommon.

I think the important point is whether a writer can learn from the process and then go on to apply what they've learned to later work. If they can, I'd say it's money well spent.

Prog said:

I was an in-house editor for years and would sometimes get submissions claiming to have been "professional edited." They would almost always be unsolicited and unagented. It became one of those warning signs (at least to me) in a cover letter that what I was about to read was unpromising. If someone else cleaned it up, how much work did they do and what can I expect from you on your next book? And yes, of course, even if it had been edited before I received it, if I bought it I would edit it again. That was my job.

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I started to take it as a warning sign that the author might be difficult to work with. Not because the book had been previously edited, but because the author was usually saying, "This book won't require much editing because I've already had it edited." When they learned otherwise, they were frequently unhappy, stubborn, and overall difficult.

I have conducted copy editing on a contract basis. I do not change anything except spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. I do not do rewrites and it would be inappropriate for me to change the content. I will, however, point out inconsistencies (didn't this guy die in Chapter 4?) and explain many of the common mistakes the author makes. To do more would be to impose my taste on the author.

ETA: I no longer accept fiction editing jobs, as I had moral qualms taking more money for the editing job than the author will likely make from the book. I do ESL scholarly articles exclusively now.

HJW said:

I'm not sure it’s true to say it’s not recommended, at least in the UK.

A lot of UK agents are quite happy to take on writers referred to them by the more reputable UK literary consultancies.

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Fair enough - I just don't have any experience of same, nor do the writers I polled. OTOH my background is in non-fiction publishing, so I don't feel the need for a paid editor.

I think it has been implied in some of the posts above, but I wanted to state it outright:

What an editor does depends on what he was hired to do. If you hired someone to copyedit, that person will edit for grammar, spelling, punctuation. If you hired a content editor to do substantive edits, that person will focus on the STORY and the craft of writing fiction.

The former is considerably less expensive than the latter (and still isn't cheap). The latter can be EXTREMELY expensive -- particularly if what you find out is that your story needs major work.

Write.
Rewrite.
Run through critique groups/partners.
Rewrite and polish.
Run through betas.
Edit and polish as necessary.

Oh -- edited to add -- the advice about word count above was spot on. Here's a blog post with solid guidelines for various genres:

http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2008/03/on-word-counts-and-novel-length.html

Of Mice and Men was published in a different era unfortunately. Novellas really are a tough sell in today's market.

But, if you're saying yours is Middle Grade, then the word count is fine, so you don't need to really worry about it.

sunaynaprasad said:

My book is a middle grade book. Also, how bad are novellas? Of Mice and Men is a novella and it's considered a classic. But thankd for the advice everybody.

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Never judge the publishable length of your manuscript by anything that's more than a decade old. The world moves on, and at a rapid pace.

That said, there's probably a better market now for novellas than there was 10-20 years ago, at least with e-presses, because they're so not constrained by buyer reaction to a slim volume. The main problem is lower profit margins because fixed costs like cover art, ISBN, etc take up a larger percentage of the cost of a very short book.

I've seen a few "novella anthologies" online, so there are ways around the problem. Standard-length works are still a much easier sell, though.

Very helpful thread. Can someone recommend some good professional editors in US, I mean who charge for editing? Thanks!
I feel that I need the help.

luckytranslation said:

Very helpful thread. Can someone recommend some good professional editors in US, I mean who charge for editing? Thanks!
I feel that I need the help.

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If you're writing fiction, a good writer's group or some good betas would probably be more helpful (and free! Except critiquing others' stuff in turn...which is actually wonderful for improving writing skills, imho...so still better than paying someone else). I've found that having, say, five people in a writer's group comment on a story is much better than one -- more eyes catch different things, and it's easier to filter out individual preferences for what's really needing tweaking, or scrapping, or whatever it may be. What are you working on?

Miriel said:

If you're writing fiction, a good writer's group or some good betas would probably be more helpful (and free! Except critiquing others' stuff in turn...which is actually wonderful for improving writing skills, imho...so still better than paying someone else). I've found that having, say, five people in a writer's group comment on a story is much better than one -- more eyes catch different things, and it's easier to filter out individual preferences for what's really needing tweaking, or scrapping, or whatever it may be. What are you working on?

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Thank you Miriel!
I agree beta or writing groups are very helpful, especially in developing stories and learn from each other. I am looking for editing because English is not my first language. I need a bit of extra help on language habits and flow. It is easy to sound awkward with ESL.
I am working on a short fiction in mystery and another novel.

Terie said:

To clarify, it isn't common in the UK, it's just not as frowned upon as it is in the US, if a writer goes with one of the few reputable editors/agencies.

I, like Anne, don't personally know any published authors here in the UK who use freelance editors, but there are a few UK AW members who have gone that way with good results.

But 'common'? No.

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Well, you "know" me! I would not have been published were it not for professional help with my first novel. Hilary not only made some excellent suggestions; she sent my ms to a major agent, who took me on immediately!
You may have heard of Katie Fforde, Christina Jones, Linda Taylor, Mary Sheepshanks, all UK bestselling authors, all of whom used the same editing service. And Toothpaste is right: she didn't make a single change for me, she simply made suggestions as to how to improve the novel, and it was left up to me whether to do so or not.