What's the Average Price Range For An Editor?

The answer you're likely to get here is to first learn to write well yourself. Study, read good books, and most importantly, write.

Good luck with your novel.

You do not need a paid editor at all. Many authors are fine editing their own work. There are also people who you can exchange stories with and critique each other's work, and that's absolutely free. This person can be a friend you know, but most people usually get other writers to help. You can find someone to critique your work here on AW. For instance, maddythemad is my beta reader (in essence, a beta reader is a critque partner, but there is some thread elsewhere with a more in-depth explanation), and I met her on the boards. Absolute Write also has a Share Your Work section where you can get feedback.

Hi all, I attended the writer's conference in New York in May, got a literary agent to look at my manuscript. her stance was that my story is very compelling and she wanted to know if i could get with a professional editor to (tweek) it to get it up to snuff for submission . can anyone recommend a professional editor from the absolute write website? i've looked at so many ads on the internet that they all seem to be running together now!

The one I'll recommend here--if you're dead set on hiring one--is Anna Genoese, who has started a freelance editing service called Aleuromancy. She was a Senior Editor with Tor Books, and was MY editor for our first five books. She's an AWESOME style editor (plot, characterization, logic) as well as a stickler for grammar and punctuation. Her prices are reasonable, but not cheap. There are some others too that I've heard recommended, but Anna's the only person I've worked with professionally.

Edited to add: Oh, and please remember that in the case of a professional edit, the GOAL is always that you learn from the process. In the event you accept the suggestions (and they're ONLY suggestions--freelance editors seldom actually do the work themselves) and you're accepted for publication, you'll be later expected to have learned how to make your own edits, and submit proper grammar, puntuation and word choice.

brenda c said:

Hi all, I attended the writer's conference in New York in May, got a literary agent to look at my manuscript. her stance was that my story is very compelling and she wanted to know if i could get with a professional editor to (tweek) it to get it up to snuff for submission . can anyone recommend a professional editor from the absolute write website? i've looked at so many ads on the internet that they all seem to be running together now!

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Run away from that agent. Fast!

Let's be realistic: if you're writing a novel, & it's the first thing you've ever completed -- not just fiction, but ANYTHING -- you're pretty much screwed.

You could easily throw a few thousand bucks at it & end up with a highly polished piece of crap.

Learn to write. Spend a few years at it. If you want to take a "short cut," then get accepted to "Writers of the Future" or Clarion, or go get your MFA. Understand that some of us like to say that few writers make any sort of commercial success before completing pieces totalling a half-million words -- no, that isn't a typo. Even then, it's not unusual that a "first novel" is actually the third or seventh or twelfth completed book-length manuscript from that writer.

That's the reality.

Only a perpetual amateur will persist in believing there's any cheap shortcuts.

S. Blackburne said:

I'm a sixteen-year-old writer, and one of the things I'm trying to do right now is write a vampire novel. But I'm also very poor, as is my family. How much would it cost, on average, to hire a professional editor to tune up your work?

I'd like to know, because it seems with every resource I've researched on the internet, it all basically says a person needs an editor to look over their work and help them with their proposals.

Thanks for your time. =)

-Sierra

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Provrb1810meggy gave good advice about critique partners. I'd also suggest you spend a lot of time on AW before moving to the agent-search stage--for instance, you don't send out proposals for novels (I made the exact same mistake when I started researching. One of the first links I came across was on how to get an agent for your book, and how to write a proposal. It took me a while to realize that proposals were only for nonfic.)

Or, maybe try taking a self-editing course. I teach them several times a year, and I know others do, as well--they can show you how to find your own weak spots and strengthen them yourself!!

Don't pay an editor. Make it the best you can make it...cultivate your skills. And then write something else.

I'm not asking you to give up your dream...just to invest more of your time into it. Write. Edit. Write. Edit. Repeat.

Visit http://www.chinarice.org (my site) for the free advice. Don't hire me or anyone else. Just read the advice. Learn to edit your own work. Make it the best you can, put it away for a while, come back to it with fresh eyes and see more ways to improve it. Repeat. Repeat. And so on.

Once you can't find anything to improve, find willing friends and/or critique partners who will give you advice. On-line critique groups are free. You critique me, I critique you...

Whenever a reader suggests a change, you don't have to make it. Just think about it. Especially if multiple readers suggest the same thing. Now ask yourself why. If it's something you don't mind changing, go ahead. If you can't change it without sacrificing what makes the novel special to you, stand your ground, but be grateful for the advice anyway because it tells you what reaction to expect.

All authors worthy of the title break rules, but they do it deliberately, never out of ignorance. So read, and read, and read some more. Learn what works for the masters and learn what doesn't work for the idiots. Who are the masters and who are the idiots? Whoever you say they are. You're an author!

If an agent says you need to hire an editor, be very leery. If that agent then recommends someone, now you're probably looking at an "agent" who gets a kickback, and who has some other ways to part an author from his money, and who maybe has never sold a book because he's paid by authors, not the publishers who are ultimately paid by the readers. Your readers. If he gets paid without finding you some, he's a crook.

Never pay to be published. Never. Never pay an agent, never pay a publisher, and be very leery about paying an editor. I charge two cents a word, and sometimes I throw in a discount. When the prices get higher than mine, you're getting scammed.

But if I understand you correctly, you're working on your first novel and it's not finished yet. Please please please don't think about editors. Write it first!

Congratulations on coming this far! Most people who "want to be authors" never write. You write. That's the one part of the process that nobody can do, because only you can write like you. That's your voice, your mind, your heart, your vision, on that computer screen or that paper. Be very proud of that.

Good luck! Keep us posted!

Best regards from Thailand,
Michael