Philly5834 said:
Hi All:
Just to let you know that I've had the Editorial Dept. as my editors for a good twelve years now and can heartily recommend them. All writers need editors and the truth is that both agents and publishers expect manuscripts submitted to them to be in almost perfect shape when they receive them.
No, we don't. And "all writers need editors" is one of the standard come-on lines for book doctors.
This is particularly true for first time novelists. Thus, there is a need for absolute attention to every word and sentence of your manuscript--the need for "le mot juste."
That's not a description of "first-time novelist." It's a description of "writer."
And line editing by the Editorial Department resulted in my finding a prestigious agent for my first novel and publication by one of the top three publishers in the country.
Did they indeed? What was the title? Who published it? And if you've been published by a major house, why do you say at the beginning that you've had The Editorial Department as your editors for twelve years now? You must have had an editor who worked in-house for your publisher.
(If The Editorial Department has been editing your for twelve years, how come they still haven't taught you to put in paragraph breaks?)
You only have one crack at these editors and agents and they are looking for any reason to turn you down--thus the need for near perfection in what you submit to them.
That statement is inaccurate; but I'm bothered less by its inaccuracy than by its resemblance (again) to standard book-doctor come-ons.
The Editorial Department will definitely not encourage you to go on and engage their services if they do not think that your work--with proper editorial help--will not be acceptable to a good agent. Their services are not cheap, but you definitely get a good bang for the buck! They are honest, not out to rip you off, but to give you the best chance you'll get of finding an agent.
The best chance you have of finding an agent, and of getting published, is to write a good book in the first place. Writing not-very-good books and paying people to fix them is as fruitless as self-publishing not-very-good books and then running all over creation trying to promote them. Neither strategy will make you a successful author.
And indeed, if your work merits it, they will connect you with a prestigious agent, since the agents themselves respect the company's recommendations.
I know of no reason that they shouldn't do so. This nevertheless makes me uneasy, because agents who recommend book doctors are so frequently corrupt.
I've just finished having my second novel line-edited by them, and it is presently in the hands of a first line agent.
I won't ask why you've changed agents. There are a lot of legitimate reasons that can happen. I have a different objection.
Real professional editing is quite expensive. In normal publishing, this doesn't matter, because the editing is provided and paid for by the publisher. If you're one of those gifted but horribly erratic authors like Thomas Wolfe or Harold Robbins or Hunter S. Thompson, it might make sense to hire a professional freelance editor for your first book. They can help you put it into order so that agents and editors can see what's wonderful and/or saleable about your writing. Then, after your first book's sold a heap of copies and/or gotten a bunch of great reviews, it's in your publisher's interest to have an in-house editor do the necessary editing on subsequent works.
(Note: this really only works if you've had a major bestseller, or your editor loves your books and is personally committed to them.)
(Alternately, you could look at what the freelance editors did to your book, say "Aha! Now I see how it's done!", and never make those mistakes again. But we're talking about a scenario in which the author has more than one book thus edited, so that option doesn't apply.)
Thomas Wolfe wrote great evocative prose. Harold Robbins was pure popcorn. Hunter S. Thompson had a bizarre, brilliant style, and unique journalistic content. Here's the point: if you fix up their writing, there's something there worth having.
But suppose instead that you're a writer who needs that kind of professional help to produce a book that's publishable at all. You pay a substantial sum to have your first book edited. The result is ... okay. You're offered a contract. Your book is moderately successful, or at least not notably unsuccessful. Your editor likes it well enough. But if you send in the unedited manuscript of your second book, they're not going to knock themselves out doing a comprehensive structural and line edit -- not if all they'll get for it will be a book that's just okay, merely publishable, tepidly likeable. They'll just decline to represent or buy it.
So suppose you have professional freelance editors clean up your second book, too. If your books are only modestly successful -- which a lot of books are, though none of their authors thought they'd be -- those editing fees will amount to a substantial chunk of your advances. How long does this go on? What's the point?
I'm hoping for the best, and appreciate the fact that The Editorial Department helped me to put my best foot forward in this effort to find a publisher.
Philly, I'm looking at your prose here, and it's just not very inspiring. I honestly think you'd be better advised to work on your writing rather than pay people to fix it up for you.