Does anybody know where I can get a good editor under 1000 dollars?

What genre is it? What qualifications do you believe a good editor needs to have? What sort of editing do you want done for that price? Lots of people, including me, do freelance editing, but you need to describe more specifically what you are looking for.

Editor

jomo said:

My novel is historical. Many agencies juts tell me that it needs a lot of editing. They don't tell me what but from the few that have said commented, said that it had bad grammer so maybe that is my main needs fro now. I really don't know for sure since i'm not all that familiar about editors.

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It would be much cheaper, probably far quicker, and certainly far more beneficial over the long run to foget the editor and learn grammar. Get a couple of good grammar books, and then devote two or three solid months to learning what they have to say.

Grammar is one of the main tools any good writer needs. Take some time to learn how to use it, and you'll be miles ahead.

True - grammar is one of the most basic and important parts of one's writing ability, not something that should be left for an editor to clean up.

jomo said:

I have a dilema. Many agencies have said that my novel has potential and that it just needs editing bad. I have been trying to find one that I can afford. Does anyone know where or how I can do this.

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Jomo, may I suggest that you hop over to the Bewares and Background Check board here on AW, and to the Preditors and Editors and Writer Beware websites, and check out the agencies that told you that? "Your novel has potential and just needs some editing" is a very common scam, often used by agencies that have financial relationships with editing services and book doctors. (If your novel is publishable, a publisher will buy it and the in-house editor assigned to it will help you improve it at no cost to you.) It's rare for a reputable agency to recommend outside editing.

Best of luck with your book.

Aconite's advice is very good. Do research on the 'agencies' to find out if they are setting you up for a fall PRIOR to paying for editing. AND, just a word to the wise...NEVER PAY AN AGENT TO HANDLE YOUR BOOK. THEY SHOULD NOT ASK FOR MONEY UNTIL THEY SELL YOUR MANUSCRIPT. (And so the joke goes, THEN THEY TAKE EVERYTHING.)

We've had this same discussion on a number of other threads, jomo, and most authors agree that it does little good to hire an editor for basic grammar, spelling and composition. If changes are made and a publisher accepts it, the editor for the publisher isn't going to make changes for you in the text. You'll be expected to make them at their direction. Paying a freelance editor a second time (and a third if there's a second round of edits) to fix your grammar could easily eat away any profit you might make from the book. Here's a couple of books that can help you bring your grammar up to speed.


Chicago Manual of Style (pretty much the bible for the publishing industry)
Strunk & White - Elements of Style
Grammatically Correct by Anne Stilman

The Chicago Manual is a bit expensive, but definitely worth the investment in your writing career. You can probably find any of them in used versions on Ebay, too.

I also agree with everyone here who has said to make sure that the agents who have corresponded with you are above-board. There are a bunch of them that operate like "feeder" organizations. They haul you in and then refer you out to a related company who will charge you an arm and a leg and do little to improve the book.

Take your time, learn your craft, and make the effort to get to know how the industry works. Good luck!

An Editor

Jomo,

It won't help you to find an editor until you know what kind of editing you need. Make sure that the story is OK. If that's the case, you may need a copyeditor -- who checks for grammar and punctuation only, not style or content.

I know of a good one (I've never used her) I've met through and organization. She has client testimonials on her website. She specializes in mysteries but may take on your book. You'll have to ask. She's Dawn Dowdle and her website is http://www.sleuthedit.com.

Good luck.

Cathy C said:

If changes are made and a publisher accepts it, the editor for the publisher isn't going to make changes for you in the text. You'll be expected to make them at their direction.

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Wait a minute. When I've edited for publishers, I made many changes in the text. That was my job. Are we talking about the same procedure?

sharynbg said:

...you may need a copyeditor -- who checks for grammar and punctuation only, not style or content.

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Evidently, definitions of "copy editor" differ. (Orthography differs, too.) A copy editor who lets clunky sentences pass isn't being thorough; clunkiness is a stylistic fault unless the writer did it for a reason. Copy editors also do fact-checking and query the content for factual errors, anachronisms, and such.

What copy editors are supposed to do has come up on these forums before. Apparently, some people define copy editing as little more than typemarking.

True, but the changes (at least the ones I've encountered) are made on paper, either on the printed manuscript or in an "edit letter." It's still up to the author to approve/disapprove those changes and physically make them in the manuscript. That's what I meant. Have you actually changed the manuscript on your computer and provided a clean copy back to the author?


If the author's grammar isn't up to snuff, that will be difficult to do, and a copy editor will quickly get frustrated if there are major changes to every line of even a very good plot.

Yeah, under any amount of money. Yourself. School, a few books, and an agent that's willing to help, and that's all you need.

reph said:

Wait a minute. When I've edited for publishers, I made many changes in the text. That was my job. Are we talking about the same procedure?


Evidently, definitions of "copy editor" differ. (Orthography differs, too.) A copy editor who lets clunky sentences pass isn't being thorough; clunkiness is a stylistic fault unless the writer did it for a reason. Copy editors also do fact-checking and query the content for factual errors, anachronisms, and such.

What copy editors are supposed to do has come up on these forums before. Apparently, some people define copy editing as little more than typemarking.

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A copyeditor who meses with the style of my sentences is in big trouble. I decide whether or not a sentence is clunky, not a copyeditor. Fact checking and the like does fall to a copyeditor, and so does catching minor mistakes, but God help the copyeditor who decides one of my sentences is clunky and changes it. That isn't the job of the copyeditor.

Clunky sentences are something I handle, and something my main editor takes a look at, but definitely not a copyeditor. No copyeditor at any publisher I've worked with has anything to do with clunky sentences.

And no good editor of any stripe or type ever messes with a writer's style.

Cathy C said:

Have you actually changed the manuscript on your computer and provided a clean copy back to the author?

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Oh, boy, how the assumptions have changed! On "my computer": no. When I edited books, manuscripts were paper. I wrote in pencil. The manuscript went back to the author to review suggested changes, argue with them if desired, and provide missing information. When I edited journal articles, those manuscripts were also paper. I wrote in ink because the publisher wanted it so. Article mss. didn't go back to authors. I'd query authors, adjust the text in accordance with what they said, and return the articles for one issue of a journal to the publisher.

In my experience, authors don't get to overrule changes that bring the text into conformity with house style, nor do they usually care about those. They usually appreciate help with other aspects of writing.

If the author's grammar isn't up to snuff, that will be difficult to do, and a copy editor will quickly get frustrated if there are major changes to every line of even a very good plot.

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In academic publishing, almost every author's grammar needs more than minimal changes. Grammar that needs a lot of help will frustrate a nonfiction editor, too.

Jamesaritchie said:

A copyeditor who meses with the style of my sentences is in big trouble.

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Gee whiz, I feel as if you'd pointed a loaded gun at me.

And no good editor of any stripe or type ever messes with a writer's style.

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No? How about the time I found a textbook author using the same phrase a hundred times in one book? It got annoying. Somebody had to tell him. I was the logical person to do it.

I obviously made a mistake when I went into nonfiction editing. According to the writers here, novelists do everything right and don't need any editing. I should have edited fiction instead. The work would have been much easier.

reph said:

The manuscript went back to the author to review suggested changes, argue with them if desired, and provide missing information.

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Sounds like you and Cathy are talking about the same thing. You're not making changes; you're suggesting the author make the changes you recommend (with the exception you noted about changes bringing the MS into compliance with house style).

Gee whiz, I feel as if you'd pointed a loaded gun at me.

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Hear hear. That was a rough statement, James, and it reduces the copyeditor's job to something a half step below "Do you want fries with that?" Do you really disrespect copyeditors so much?

I obviously made a mistake when I went into nonfiction editing. According to the writers here, novelists do everything right and don't need any editing.

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Easy, now. One person is not all the writers here.

reph said:

Oh, boy, how the assumptions have changed! On "my computer": no. When I edited books, manuscripts were paper. I wrote in pencil. The manuscript went back to the author to review suggested changes, argue with them if desired, and provide missing information. When I edited journal articles, those manuscripts were also paper. I wrote in ink because the publisher wanted it so. Article mss. didn't go back to authors. I'd query authors, adjust the text in accordance with what they said, and return the articles for one issue of a journal to the publisher.

In my experience, authors don't get to overrule changes that bring the text into conformity with house style, nor do they usually care about those. They usually appreciate help with other aspects of writing.


In academic publishing, almost every author's grammar needs more than minimal changes. Grammar that needs a lot of help will frustrate a nonfiction editor, too.


Gee whiz, I feel as if you'd pointed a loaded gun at me.


No? How about the time I found a textbook author using the same phrase a hundred times in one book? It got annoying. Somebody had to tell him. I was the logical person to do it.

I obviously made a mistake when I went into nonfiction editing. According to the writers here, novelists do everything right and don't need any editing. I should have edited fiction instead. The work would have been much easier.

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I don;t know much about textbook writers, but I do know most of the textbooks I've read were boring as watching paint dry, no matter how many editors worked on them.

Anyway, no, novelists don't do everything right, and we all need help with editing. We simply need help in areas that nonfiction writers seldom deal with, and that very few copyeditors know anything about. There are major differences between fiction writers and nonfiction writers, between fiction and nonfiction, and one of these differences is style. A fiction writer's style makes him who and what he is. Style is what makes him unique, and in the fiction world, an editor who messes with style is a bad, nasty, editor.

When sentences are clunky, they should be handled, changed, rewritten, long before a copyeditor sees them, and it should be the writer, not an editor, who does most of the changing. Clunky sentences and overused phrases are something that, in the fiction world, should always be handled by the primary editor, working in conjunction with the writer.

The copyeditor comes down the line in the world of fiction. By the time a copyeditor sees a manuscript, there should be very few clunky sentences, very few grammar errors, and the story and characters should be as good as they are going to get.

Nonfiction, at least textbook and similar nonfiction, is more a matter of factual content than of style, story, and character. This is a huge difference. It's why those who work too long as nonfiction editors usually make lousy fiction editors.

As for grammar, the differences are the same. You can fix a nonfiction writer's grammar, and no harm done. Again, this is because content, the factual information, is what matters most with many types of nonfiction. But a fiction writer who needs too much help with grammar simply isn't going to get very far because grammar skills are part of style, part of storytelling and character building. A fiction writer needs good grammar skills to say what it is he wants to say, in the way he wants to say it. Very poor grammar skills means the story and the character simply will not be right, and having an editor fix the grammar won't help the storytelling and characterization problems that result from poor grammar.

Being a fiction editor is not easier than being a nonfiction editor, it's probably a far tougher job, or at least one that demands a completely different set of skills. I've done both, and the two skills are very seldom compatible. A fiction editor's skills are not so much mechanical as imaginative. A good fiction editor needs the same kind of storytelling skill, and the same kind of character building skill, as does a fiction writer.

Good copyeditors who can fix grammar, rearrange content, rewrite clunky sentences, etc., are wonderous creatures, and highly necessary in the world of nonfiction. As a once upon a time journalist, I know few newspapers could get by without a very good copyeditor who filters everything a reporter hands in. A good copyeditor may be the most essential person on a newspaper staff, and at many other places where nonfiction is the main material being published.

In fact, one of my favorite websites is a copy editor site. http://www.theslot.com/ Bill Walsh is simply one of the best out there.

But fiction writer need to learn these skills themselves, not rely on someone else to do them. It just doesn't work this way in the world of fiction.

Fiction is simply different. Fiction writers need good grammar skills, and need to be able to write sentences that do not clunk, except on rare occasions. Good editors in fiction deal primarily with smoothing over the seams in story, character, and plot. They also deal with length, which usually means helping the writer tighten a story that's too long, or simply tighting some sentences that are too long. But even here, a fiction editor has to tread carefully, and the good ones, at least, do as little messing as possible.

But what fiction editors, good ones, do not ever do is mess with a writer's style. Messing with style is the worst possible thing a fiction editor can do. It's the inexcusable crime.

Even an extremely good nonfiction editor, copyeditor or otherwise, can absolutely wreck a novel.

The simple truth is that the more a fiction writer needs a copyeditor, the less likely he is to succeed. But I found this was often true in the world of journalism, as well. The really good journalists, those who made names for themselves, particularly in the fields of essays, columns, and human interest, usually had as much skill and knowledge as any copyeditor on staff, and would have bitten the head off any copyeditor who started messing with style.

I read somewhere that when a fiction editor starts thinking - I'd change these sentences and say it this way - and does so - it's time to stop editing.

Hear, hear! I totally agree.

-- Don't mess with my manuscript. Make your editing suggestions on it. With blue pencil, pen or whatever. Don't feel free to make any changes. That is for me to decide.

If an editor at a publishing house suggests a change and I don't agree with it, then it's open for discussion. Show me why you think it needs to be changed, but don't change it for me.

The fiction editor's job is not to rewrite or 'ghost write' the novel. Just show me what you think stands out or you think needs changed and I will use my judgement to do the sentence rewrite or etc.

jomo, here are a couple of real life comments from the copy edit letter that I just received from our publisher.


"Q10-p.25. It's not clear that the original attacker here was the nurse. The first impression is that it's Monica. It needs to be stated earlier and more explicitly that Kate is being attacked by the nurse, but that Monica is, or appears suddenly nearby."

"Q18-p.173. Awkward phrasing. As originally written, this sentence makes it sound as though Kate were pushing the trucker into the alley, rather than into the store. Need more clarity."

"Q22-p.206. Confusing: When did Tom go back inside? Two paragraphs earlier, Kate says the cops didn't issue "us" any warnings. This implies that Tom is still outside with her at that time."

So, as you can see, the copy editor has indeed made "changes" to the text, but not to the extent of actually typing the proper words. The copy editor will expect that when the changes come back, the grammar will be correct (since the previous manuscript was correct.) So that leaves you with only one option if you're not comfortable with your grammar -- you'll have to go back to the paid editor to fix the corrections.
Once again, take the time to learn your craft and you won't need to pay an editor. Good luck!

Aconite said:

Sounds like you and Cathy are talking about the same thing. You're not making changes; you're suggesting the author make the changes you recommend (with the exception you noted about changes bringing the MS into compliance with house style).

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Copy editing, as I was trained to do it, also includes many changes that one simply makes without consulting the author. One corrects homonym errors and moves misplaced modifiers, for example, without saying anything. To tell an author "I've changed it's to its in line 4 because..." would only raise the cost of editing and offend the author. One also condenses wordy passages without explaining why; at least, I do.

Easy, now. One person is not all the writers here.

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True, but it isn't just one. I've seen the same hackles rise on other necks.

Jamesaritchie said:

...most of the textbooks I've read were boring as watching paint dry, no matter how many editors worked on them.

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I always looked for ways to make the writing more engaging: active voice, varied sentence lengths, and all that.

A fiction editor's skills are not so much mechanical as imaginative. A good fiction editor needs the same kind of storytelling skill, and the same kind of character building skill, as does a fiction writer.

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But let an editor try to exercise those skills and the author will scream "Back off! This is my story!"

You might be surprised at how much imagination/creativity goes into academic editing – and how much of academic writing takes the form of stories.

Fiction writers need good grammar skills, and need to be able to write sentences that do not clunk, except on rare occasions. Good editors in fiction deal primarily with smoothing over the seams in story, character, and plot.

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Ideally, all writers have good grammar skills. Let's face it, though: most of them have a few grammatical blind spots. Your account suggests that by the time a novel is in production, the grammar is all right but the story, character, and plot need work. I'd expect the opposite. Aren't S, C, and P a fiction writer's peculiar strengths?

Jamesaritchie said:

A fiction writer's style makes him who and what he is. Style is what makes him unique, and in the fiction world, an editor who messes with style is a bad, nasty, editor.

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What if your style is interfering with your ability to communicate with the reader? IME, it's the writers who rail the most about how Those People Are Destroying My Unique Artistic Vision who could benefit most from taking the chips off thier shoulders and considering whether or not their style is working the way they intend.

When sentences are clunky, they should be handled, changed, rewritten, long before a copyeditor sees them, and it should be the writer, not an editor, who does most of the changing. Clunky sentences and overused phrases are something that, in the fiction world, should always be handled by the primary editor, working in conjunction with the writer.

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Agreed, agreed! But if that doesn't happen, and what the copyeditor gets is something that still needs work, then what? Should the copyeditor shrug and say, "Not my problem"?

Nonfiction, at least textbook and similar nonfiction, is more a matter of factual content than of style, story, and character.

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I am astounded. You think style doesn't matter as much in nonfiction? Tell me, those dry-as-dust textbooks you complained about--would it have made a difference to you if they'd been engaging? Would it have been easier to learn the content? How information is presented and arranged is at least as important as the information itself. Style is every bit as important in nonfiction as in fiction.

Very poor grammar skills means the story and the character simply will not be right, and having an editor fix the grammar won't help the storytelling and characterization problems that result from poor grammar.

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This is an argument against copyediting, how?

A fiction editor's skills are not so much mechanical as imaginative.

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Having been mystified by what Laurell K. Hamilton was trying to say because of her poor grammar, confusing style, and continuity errors, I'd disagree. For that matter, remember the Anne Rice dust-up?

But fiction writer need to learn these skills themselves, not rely on someone else to do them. It just doesn't work this way in the world of fiction.

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Again, I'm flatly amazed that you appear to be saying that nonfiction writers don't have to reply on good mechanics and good style, so patch-jobs by copyeditors are fine and to be expected, but a fiction writer's work doesn't need that kind of help. I think you're very wrong about that.

Good editors in fiction deal primarily with smoothing over the seams in story, character, and plot.

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You're talking about the ideal fiction manuscript. The majority of manuscripts, fiction or nonfiction, fall short of the ideal.

But what fiction editors, good ones, do not ever do is mess with a writer's style. Messing with style is the worst possible thing a fiction editor can do. It's the inexcusable crime.

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Messing with a style that's incomprehensible in order to make it comprehensible is not a crime, it's the editor's job. How in Hades can your style improve with maturity if editors never get to touch Your Beloved Style? It's certainly more tactful if the editor makes the suggestions and lets you have the final say, but I can think of several books that desperately needed a hard editor to chop them to bits, author's precious style be damned. The author's reputation isn't the only one on the line.

reph said:

Copy editing, as I was trained to do it, also includes many changes that one simply makes without consulting the author. One corrects homonym errors and moves misplaced modifiers, for example, without saying anything. To tell an author "I've changed it's to its in line 4 because..." would only raise the cost of editing and offend the author. One also condenses wordy passages without explaining why; at least, I do.

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Ah, okay. It never occured to me that correcting homonym errors and misplaced modifiers would be considered messing with an author's style, any more than correcting a typo would be. Condensing wordy passages, OTOH, I could see as a change of style, even if it is one for the better. For an author, it would take a lot of trust in your copyeditor to feel easy about that, but authors are tense people anyway and we get used to it. *g*

reph said:

Copy editing, as I was trained to do it, also includes many changes that one simply makes without consulting the author. One corrects homonym errors and moves misplaced modifiers, for example, without saying anything. To tell an author "I've changed it's to its in line 4 because..." would only raise the cost of editing and offend the author.

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There are also changes to house style. I edit articles for a biochemistry journal. (We edit them on the computer.) We make most of the changes ourselves. However, to save time, before we even get the articles, some things have been changed to the house style. If I notice on the original that the author used a certain style a lot, I will insert a query that explains that the change was made because of the journal's style. (I do that because I've gotten too many proofs back with those things changed back to the original.)

reph said:

One also condenses wordy passages without explaining why; at least, I do.

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When editors start out editing journal articles, they often want to change wordy passages or passages that sound awkward to them, or make other changes we used to make all the time when we were editing other types of nonfiction. Over time, you learn that sometimes, the wordy passage is (sadly) the only time something can be said in an accurate manner. We do insert queries when we change something for clarity. And sometimes, if you change something because it sounds awkward, you are changing the meaning of the sentence entirely.

And don't get me started on authors who remove all the serial commas because they think serial commas (apples, bananas, and oranges) are wrong, or the ones who change the phrase "a 1-hour incubuation" to "a 1 hour incubation" because they think the hyphen we inserted is an error.

AnneMarble said:

When editors start out editing journal articles, they often want to change wordy passages or passages that sound awkward to them.... Over time, you learn that sometimes, the wordy passage is (sadly) the only time something can be said in an accurate manner.

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You absolutely don't do anything that changes the meaning. I was speaking of deleting words that don't contribute, like a good Strunk & White disciple.

Aconite said:

...something that still needs work, then what? Should the copyeditor shrug and say, "Not my problem"?

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A bad copy editor would shrug "Not my problem."