Re Big NY houses and editing

All the big 6 and their imprints have on staff editors as well as free lance editors they work with. Each house has its own style of editing and these editors know what the publisher is looking for based on what their readers are purchasing...

As far as you own work, you agent will have a say on if you are ready to submit to a big 6, or even a smaller publisher. All you can do it make it the best you can, clean, very few grammar, punctuation or formatting mistakes.

Good luck,

Never assume that shiny in your opinion is the same as shiny to a pro. Even the best manuscripts often need editing for content, either to explain something the writer assumes is obvious, but isn't, or for continuity reasons.

Shine it, but expect some serious editing, anyway. All commercial publishers have editors. The good ones will show you what shiny really is.

Commas aren't the big problem. Is the theme as shiny as the prose? Plot threads that are left dangling, characters that aren't fully rounded, climaxes that are being shorted, those are the sorts of things that you'll want editors to help you with.

Pegster said:

Do the large NY houses keep editors, not copy editors but the next step, I imagine, who check the manuscript for final polish? I've got a mss that is so shiny it's scintillant, but I'm wondering if I should keep buffing away. I can usually find a stray comma or two when I go back through the document. Anyone know what I mean/what I'm asking?

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Here's what my latest went through: Editor and editorial assistant- 3 times back and forth between me and them (I don't know how many times they read it each of those three)
Copy editor
Production editor
back to editor
Final reader who had never seen it before
And then right before it was ready to be finalized, editor called me on a Saturday to talk about one sentence she thought wasn't clear enough and she wanted to make a suggestion to change

Amarie said:

Here's what my latest went through: Editor and editorial assistant- 3 times back and forth between me and them (I don't know how many times they read it each of those three)
Copy editor
Production editor
back to editor
Final reader who had never seen it before
And then right before it was ready to be finalized, editor called me on a Saturday to talk about one sentence she thought wasn't clear enough and she wanted to make a suggestion to change

Click to expand...

Sounds like a very nice group to work with.

Bartholomew said:

Sounds like a very nice group to work with.

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Yes, they are awesome. I had no idea it would be such an involved process nor that so many people would take such care before it gets out in the world.