Has anybody hired an editor to review your book before submitting? How'd that work for you? If you want to go that route, how do you find a good editor?
Anybody hire an independent editor?
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Don't do it! It's a complete waste of money, time, and energy. You must be able to do this work for yourself. If you can't, what happens when you receive a contract, but have to do rewrites, revisions, and editing before the pubishing house says yes?
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It's not that bad either. Sometimes people just need help. Also, the freelance editor wouldn't be doing the work for the OP, they'd be suggesting changes and correcting grammar etc. so it's not like the OP would be incompetent when there's a contract.Besides, the OP is asking about paying an editor to say if they think the ms. is good enough. Depending on the cost, I can see it potentially saving someone with an ms. that needs a lot of work, a lot of money in printing and postage costs.
It's not much different than getting a beta-reader except it'll be someone who knows publishing much better and has a better grasp of plot etc than regular readers even if they are authors themselves. That is, provided it's not a scammer.
It can provide the last touch in getting a book into a publishing editor's hands. After there is a contract, the editor will handle helping the author and the author doesn't have to pay anyone else.
The important thing is to find someone who edits from a publishing perspective rather than say, academic or commercial, and who will give an honest opinion rather than flatter because they know where the money comes from.
An editor will do that for the cost of postage. And if it is good enough, he'll buy it.
Schema:
If: Send manuscript to editor. Editor rejects it.
Then: Manuscript wasn't good enough(1), or wasn't right for market(2).
Goto: The author really has to know how to evaluate these things for himself (1, 2). It's part of the job. If not, he'll end up writing bad stories and wondering why they're not getting published, or he'll end up sending good stories to the wrong markets and wondering why they're not getting published.
If one looks at paying an editor as an educational expense, I suppose then it might be worthwhile, but you'd better seriously, seriously consider that editor's resume. If he doesn't have a record of sales in your genre (either his own or that of others whom he's helped, or both) as opposed to mere billable hours, why would you take his advice? I'm an editor. I can charge for that kind of work. But I can't guarantee that my ideas are the same ones that a purchasing editor would agree with. No one can do that except the purchasing editor. Which sort of brings us back to the original answer.
Now, having said that, consider this...
http://www.stevealten.com/bio.htm
...in which best-selling author Steve Alten mentions having hired an editor for his first book. What I recall having read before, and what I don't see, now, in that link, is that he spent six thousand dollars on that editor, who happened to have been a former editor in the publishing world, who still maintained contacts in the biz, and who then acted as his agent, at least for that first novel.
He even wrote somewhere that it was an insane amount of money at the time, and that he couldn't say if it would be worth it to anyone else. But it was for him, so he was glad that he did it (two-book deal, seven figures glad).
I suspect Steve Alten remains an exception.
http://www.stevealten.com/bio.htm
...in which best-selling author Steve Alten mentions having hired an editor for his first book. What I recall having read before, and what I don't see, now, in that link, is that he spent six thousand dollars on that editor, who happened to have been a former editor in the publishing world, who still maintained contacts in the biz, and who then acted as his agent, at least for that first novel.
He even wrote somewhere that it was an insane amount of money at the time, and that he couldn't say if it would be worth it to anyone else. But it was for him, so he was glad that he did it (two-book deal, seven figures glad).
I suspect Steve Alten remains an exception.
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I will say now that the economic situation is the way it is -- my agent is suggesting hiring an editor before submitting...just sayin'
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I've been hired by people to edit their manuscripts (and by agents on behalf of their clients).
If you want to make a career in writing, you should learn to edit yourself. Full stop.
If writing isn't your main career focus (if, say, you're a cook who wants to write a cookbook, or someone who wants to write only one book {for instance, a memoir of an extraordinary experience}, or someone who generally writes for a technical/professional audience but who wants to write one book for the general reader {for instance, an oncologist who wants to write a general-interest book about cancer}), it could be a good choice.
Only you know if writing is your career focus.
A good way to find an experienced professional editor in the US is through a job posting on the Editorial Freelancers' Association website.
I've been hired to edit some stuff on a freelance basis and as a subcontracter. While I've been satisfied with the pay, I have to agree with what others said. It's better if you learn how to edit yourself.
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The way I see it, four eyes are better than two and six is better than four. Just because you use an editor doesn't mean that you're lacking in anything; it just means that you need an extra pair of eyes to catch the mistakes that you and your tight knit group may have missed.
I will say this as a person that has used editors for my books and will continue to do so, don't get an editor until you have revised, revised, and revised some more. Once you get you final draft from your editor that should be your final copy. Otherwise, you really are just wasting money.
Oh, and please understand that getting an editor does not guarantee you anything, you still have to make your story mind blowing on your own.
I will say this as a person that has used editors for my books and will continue to do so, don't get an editor until you have revised, revised, and revised some more. Once you get you final draft from your editor that should be your final copy. Otherwise, you really are just wasting money.
Oh, and please understand that getting an editor does not guarantee you anything, you still have to make your story mind blowing on your own.
One thing I find interesting and I was wondering if this would come out. I've been to a couple of writer trainings (both for my "hobby writing" and professional writing) and have heard two general trends similar to what I've heard here.
1) You shouldn't hire an editor because it's a lot of money and the story is still a long-shot.
2) You can't effectively edit your own work because you're too close to it. You know what you want it to say, but you may not be explaining it to others in a way that they see your vision.
Basically, the implication is that you need an outside editor, but you're best bet is somebody who knows what they're doing and how to edit for marketability. It's not difficult to find someone to read a story for you, but unless they've got publishing credentials, it still comes down to opinion.
1) You shouldn't hire an editor because it's a lot of money and the story is still a long-shot.
2) You can't effectively edit your own work because you're too close to it. You know what you want it to say, but you may not be explaining it to others in a way that they see your vision.
Basically, the implication is that you need an outside editor, but you're best bet is somebody who knows what they're doing and how to edit for marketability. It's not difficult to find someone to read a story for you, but unless they've got publishing credentials, it still comes down to opinion.
I work for an editing service that does book-length manuscripts. Our instructions are to make it so the publisher (or agent, etc.) is not distracted by grammar and other errors. We do provide critiques, and our instructions there are to look for areas of inconsistency, realistic dialogue and other things. We are given guidelines about what the publishing industry tends to look for, and many of us are published writers (either novelists or scholarly - I have over 50 journal articles published). In my critiques, I provide some of these comments, but encourage the client to do his or her homework in selecting an agent or publisher. I have recommended that they come here and Preditors and Editors to educate themselves.
Obviously I'm biased because landing a book editing job can be nice boost to the bank account, but I think professional editing is a worthwhile service to writers. Our job is not to do the author's job, but to help the author stand out from the slush.
Obviously I'm biased because landing a book editing job can be nice boost to the bank account, but I think professional editing is a worthwhile service to writers. Our job is not to do the author's job, but to help the author stand out from the slush.
I suck at grammar. This is no big surprise to anyone who has ever read my (unedited) work. I am also broke. My solution? I hire the local English teacher to proof my stuff before I send it out. She charges about $1 a page to go over my work, and I consider it money well spent. She is impartial, professional and pretty good at finding plot errors that I overlook. She does not rewrite or revise my work, I do all of that....but I do trust her opinion when she tells me that the pacing is slow, or that I over use a phrase or two. I feel confident with every submission, now, and no longer wake up in a cold sweat worried that my stuff gets tossed aside because I made a simple grammatical mistake in the first line.
Works for me. *shrugs
Works for me. *shrugs
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This is much less than professional proofreaders (let alone copyeditors, let alone developmental editors) charge; it's possible that you are taking advantage of her good nature by underpaying her drastically for her work. (It's also possible that she doesn't mind working for a pittance, because she's happy to do you a favor and thinks of the compensation as an honorarium.)
Just wanted to point out to folks that actual professional proofreaders don't charge $1 a page.
If you suck at grammar, you REALLY don't want to hire anyone to work on your book, or even have a friend go through and correct the grammar. Fixing bad grammar does not fix bad writing, and you cannot write fiction well at all without decent grammar skills.
This is my biggest single complaint against hiring an editor. Yes, you can hire one to fix your grammar, and he will. What your left with is a bad book with good grammar, and it shows.
A writer must have decent, not perfect, but decent, grammar skills in order to write publishable fiction. This is simply a must. These skills matter before you write, not after. After is too late. You need these skills on teh first pass because this is where your actually putting down all the things you want and need to say, and it simply isn't possible to say them without decent grammar and punctuation skills.
Id even go so far as to say hiring grammar and punctuation done will very often harm a story more than it helps. Ever wonder how some very famous tales are written by backwoods mountain folk who have no clue about grammar? It's because they are, at least, writing in the accent and dialect of everyone around them, and their voice comes through as authentic. If you want to read a really bad story, hire someone to fix all the grammar and punctuation in one of these stories.
Not being a backwoods tale teller, however, knowing grammar and punctuation is an absolute must.
We all preach BIC, but BIC applies to learning grammar and punctuation every bit as much as it applies to writing a given number of words.
Fortunately, grammar is not rocket science, and and anyone who wants to can learn enough very quickly. For those who really suck at grammar and punctuation, I always suggest a seventh grade English book. Or teh first real grammar book your local school uses. It contains everything the average fiction writer will ever need, bkreaks it all up into bite by bite lessons that little kids can, and do, learn easily, if they try.
A writer hiring someone to corerct his grammar and punctuation makes no more sense than an electrician hiring someone to replace a light bulb.
This is my biggest single complaint against hiring an editor. Yes, you can hire one to fix your grammar, and he will. What your left with is a bad book with good grammar, and it shows.
A writer must have decent, not perfect, but decent, grammar skills in order to write publishable fiction. This is simply a must. These skills matter before you write, not after. After is too late. You need these skills on teh first pass because this is where your actually putting down all the things you want and need to say, and it simply isn't possible to say them without decent grammar and punctuation skills.
Id even go so far as to say hiring grammar and punctuation done will very often harm a story more than it helps. Ever wonder how some very famous tales are written by backwoods mountain folk who have no clue about grammar? It's because they are, at least, writing in the accent and dialect of everyone around them, and their voice comes through as authentic. If you want to read a really bad story, hire someone to fix all the grammar and punctuation in one of these stories.
Not being a backwoods tale teller, however, knowing grammar and punctuation is an absolute must.
We all preach BIC, but BIC applies to learning grammar and punctuation every bit as much as it applies to writing a given number of words.
Fortunately, grammar is not rocket science, and and anyone who wants to can learn enough very quickly. For those who really suck at grammar and punctuation, I always suggest a seventh grade English book. Or teh first real grammar book your local school uses. It contains everything the average fiction writer will ever need, bkreaks it all up into bite by bite lessons that little kids can, and do, learn easily, if they try.
A writer hiring someone to corerct his grammar and punctuation makes no more sense than an electrician hiring someone to replace a light bulb.
I hired an editor to work on my M.S.
Basically I used them for the minute details about grammar. I understand the subject verb agreement and using the proper tense but for example I didn't know this was wrong:
"This isn't correct." JackinElgin said.
But now with the help of an editor:
"My dialogue is correctly formatted," JackinElgin said.
I also specifically told the editor that I was paying him/her (I used scribendi.com) that I wanted to know if they hated my M.S. I wanted a vicious, brutal critique. I made it very clear that I was paying for that “hard” truth.
You’re right; Grammar or no grammar if a story sucks then it sucks. I felt like I needed a perfect stranger to hit me in the face with a hammer of truth. Turns out they didn’t hate my story but Identified a few holes in the plot that would have killed the M.S. I re-read the story and turns out they were right- the holes were there. Two weeks of re-writes and I feel like it’s a stronger work. Does it rock? Of course, I wrote it! No seriously, I feel like it’s the strongest, best story I turn out right now.
I would HATE for my M.S. to be sitting with an editor/agent with another M.S. and he choose the other guys because I didn’t properly indent a paragraph.
I want my M.S. to be rejected because it sucks, not because of commas and apostrophes.
I checked into hiring an independent editor. I researched the subject to death and knew enough to find one that specializes in my genre. Most will offer a sample edit, send five pages or first chapter, or what ever. I sent mine out to five editors I eventually settled on...
All five picked up the simple typo's, grammar, punctuation and spelling errors. But all five had a different style in their editing and when I looked at them, not a one was close to what I was trying to get across to the reader. Only one explained to me that the sample edit was just that, a sample because they would need the full manuscript to edit the work properly as I wanted an indepth edit and critique.
All quoted ranges of 3-5 cents a word, (five years ago when the economy was booming), and all wanted the money up front. For a 100,000 word manuscrpt, this would have come to over 5,000 dollars with no gaurantee that the book would sell to a publisher any better than if I did not use them.
I decided to learn editing on my own, and have read everything I can find. I am lucky that in my group of beta readers I have two editors for magazines who point in the right direction on grammar choices, punctuation, and structure. While, I point them in the right direction on plotting and pacing. It works out very well and everyone is happy.
All five picked up the simple typo's, grammar, punctuation and spelling errors. But all five had a different style in their editing and when I looked at them, not a one was close to what I was trying to get across to the reader. Only one explained to me that the sample edit was just that, a sample because they would need the full manuscript to edit the work properly as I wanted an indepth edit and critique.
All quoted ranges of 3-5 cents a word, (five years ago when the economy was booming), and all wanted the money up front. For a 100,000 word manuscrpt, this would have come to over 5,000 dollars with no gaurantee that the book would sell to a publisher any better than if I did not use them.
I decided to learn editing on my own, and have read everything I can find. I am lucky that in my group of beta readers I have two editors for magazines who point in the right direction on grammar choices, punctuation, and structure. While, I point them in the right direction on plotting and pacing. It works out very well and everyone is happy.
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Not sure if the OP meant an editor to check on story elements, or a copy-editor to check spelling, grammar etc. Both can be useful. As a beginning writer, I hired an editor after I'd finished a first draft and she was of enormous help, even hooking me up with an agent; my full story is elsewhere on AW.
As for a copy-editor: this can be useful too. I remember a friend of mine, who has very sharp eyes, proof-reading one of my mss I thought I had gone through with a fine-tooth comb. I was amazed at the amout of typos she STILL picked up! I am very prone to typos. as most of you must have noticed (comes from my wrting running aweay with me: thinking faster than I cah type, a disabled forefinger on my left hand which I can't use for typing, and sheer laziness: I usually proof-read AFTER I have posted!!)
As for a copy-editor: this can be useful too. I remember a friend of mine, who has very sharp eyes, proof-reading one of my mss I thought I had gone through with a fine-tooth comb. I was amazed at the amout of typos she STILL picked up! I am very prone to typos. as most of you must have noticed (comes from my wrting running aweay with me: thinking faster than I cah type, a disabled forefinger on my left hand which I can't use for typing, and sheer laziness: I usually proof-read AFTER I have posted!!)
I looked for a long time and couldn't find anyone who had much in the way of credentials or experience that I thought I could afford. Finally bit the bullet and hired an expensive, well known editor that was highly recommended. I really didn't get much out of it. Nice gentleman but he was extremely forgetful and would recommend something then forget what he'd recommended and say it was a horrible idea. In short, it was a waste of time and money. What works for me is getting feed-back from friends and family who are avid readers. That took time too as some family members will say everything you wrote was just perfect. Look for those that will give you their honest opinion, not everyone will.
As I have said elsewhere on AW, I hired an editor for my first novel and was very satisfied with the outcome. The novel at that point had passed through a good crit group, several other well-qualified readers (some of whom post here) and was on a requested rewrite from a major publisher.
The editor I hired was a hugely distinguished former editorial director in my genre. He was very thorough and picked up on several things that my previous critiquers had missed, but mainly his perspective was so valuable because he knew what he was talking about in respect of what was publishable, whereas my previous critiquers had been offering their best guesses.
The point is - don't dismiss hiring an editor, but make sure you've done everything you possibly can to exhaust all the other (cheaper) options first. And also make sure that you are at a stage of your writing career where you can make the best use of their advice.
The editor I hired was a hugely distinguished former editorial director in my genre. He was very thorough and picked up on several things that my previous critiquers had missed, but mainly his perspective was so valuable because he knew what he was talking about in respect of what was publishable, whereas my previous critiquers had been offering their best guesses.
The point is - don't dismiss hiring an editor, but make sure you've done everything you possibly can to exhaust all the other (cheaper) options first. And also make sure that you are at a stage of your writing career where you can make the best use of their advice.
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I think it's wrong to make this a black and white issue. But start at the beginning. Beta readers are there to give us free feedback. If they're not reading the book that's feedback. Their loving the book is feedback.
Sometimes agents give feedback that writers can't interpret. If agents suggest a book is nearly good enough, but not good enough, then do whatever it takes to bring it to the next level.
It can be just as foolish to write another book and keep making the same mistakes. I disagree that an editor is just going to keep fixing bad writing. They can make invaluable recommendations that change writers.
An editor can say, "Describe his coat", "What do the flowers look like", or something more profound- this is a great story, but there's no strong female protagonist...."
They can say what is strong, what is weak, and what needs to change, not only in the book, but in the writing style.
There are good editors that can make a difference in how a writer writes, simply by great suggestions, and in effect, make someone's career. But with that said, be careful. Some will just take your money and be off with it, and offer no valuable insight. I think an editor needs to be a person who cares if you succeed on some level, enough to say, "Use mouthwash" in the proverbial sense.
But a good editor can't make a bad writer good. They can help a good writer get better, and sometimes good enough.
Sometimes agents give feedback that writers can't interpret. If agents suggest a book is nearly good enough, but not good enough, then do whatever it takes to bring it to the next level.
It can be just as foolish to write another book and keep making the same mistakes. I disagree that an editor is just going to keep fixing bad writing. They can make invaluable recommendations that change writers.
An editor can say, "Describe his coat", "What do the flowers look like", or something more profound- this is a great story, but there's no strong female protagonist...."
They can say what is strong, what is weak, and what needs to change, not only in the book, but in the writing style.
There are good editors that can make a difference in how a writer writes, simply by great suggestions, and in effect, make someone's career. But with that said, be careful. Some will just take your money and be off with it, and offer no valuable insight. I think an editor needs to be a person who cares if you succeed on some level, enough to say, "Use mouthwash" in the proverbial sense.
But a good editor can't make a bad writer good. They can help a good writer get better, and sometimes good enough.
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Is it absolutely necessary to hire an editor before sending out a manuscript, period? I ask because I'm at a convention this weekend and was talking publishing with some of the authors there. They said it was an absolute necessity that I find an editor to go through my manuscript before I even think about querying it anywhere. I personally have gone through many many revisions on my own, I've put it through a fiction workshop--twice--and made revisions based on the feedback I got there (which includes feedback from a man who is, in fact, a professional editor), and I'm combing through it one more time now. So, what I'm wondering is whether or not I really need to hire a professional editor to go over it, especially considering I don't exactly have money to burn right now?
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No, you don't. Editing is a skill a published author needs to have. Were these authors you mentioned actually published by commercial publishers? Or were the either self-pubbed or pubbed by micropresses? The expectation among legitimate agents and commercial publishers is that writers can get their manuscripts into satisfactory condition themselves.
What Terie said.
I would only consider using a paid editor after all the free options had been exhausted and you have clear evidence (that you find convincing) that the book needs something more, such as rejections on full manuscript that mention pacing or characterisation problems.
I would only consider using a paid editor after all the free options had been exhausted and you have clear evidence (that you find convincing) that the book needs something more, such as rejections on full manuscript that mention pacing or characterisation problems.
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They were both small press. Okay, I think that's what I needed to know. I was always under the impression that once I hooked an agent and/or publisher--which I think my existing manuscript is good enough to do (still planning on beta-ing)--that an editor would be assigned to work with me before the thing goes to print.