A great piece of published writing doesn’t just go from the writer to the reader’s hands, but an accepted manuscript will go through several very important phases of the publishing industry before it finally gets to be print and read.
Editors are a cog in the Great Publishing Machine, for which all writers should be eternally grateful. A book editor cleans up the written manuscript, and changes the necessary evils – and then dots all the Ts.
An editor can be hired by the writer, but might also be contracted by the publisher.
While the world has many excellent editors, the real trick is to find the right one to make the manuscript shine.
Here are 7 important steps for finding the right book editor, and what you should do next.
1. Know What Editors Actually Do
Editors are often good writers themselves, but change hats in order to step into another phase of the publishing industry. Excellent editors are writers and journalists, but also language practitioners and proofreaders with experience in every facet of their industry.
While a proofreader looks for grammatical mistakes, editors take a closer look at the written word to make small (and larger) changes to prepare it for publication.
An editor has an important task, and almost no good book in the world has been published without one.
While some writers edit their own work, most editing should be left to third-party freelance professionals – and that’s just because writers miss their own mistakes, but an experienced freelancer won’t!
A developmental editor helps the writer to develop their manuscript, and counts as a more specialized type of book editing that works with a story-in-progress.
Once you know what kind of editor you need, it’s time to go to the next step.
2. Prepare Your Manuscript
A writer should have a pretty good manuscript before they consider getting in touch with an editor about it.
Unless you need a developmental editor who will guide you on where the story and characters could be heading from here, prepare your manuscript for submission first.
Standard manuscript format is preferred by most editors. Subject your writing to at least one proofreading before you contact an editor.
Just because editors fix mistakes, does not mean a writer has the liberty to leave these mistakes in there knowingly. Editors prefer to work with manuscripts that have already been cleaned up by either the writer, or a professional proofreader.
3. Edit Yourself First
It’s not just about manuscript format, even though it’s a great idea to make sure your formatting has been done before your editor gets hired. It’s also about editing, and what goes on between the first and last page of your book.
Edit yourself first. Book editors will prefer stories that have been written coherently. If there are plot holes that you already know about as a writer, fix them and don’t wait for your editor to point them out – this will only waste their time and yours.
A book manuscript doesn’t have to be perfect when you call in an editor: that’s what they’re for. But at the same time, make sure you are not sending them the Titanic on paper – and just hoping they fix what you should have.
4. Find Book Editors
Once you have the first (or maybe fourteenth!) draft of your book ready, it’s time to start the quest for a freelance editor to look at it.
Whlie some editors are already under contract from publishing houses, these editors only come in once a book deal has been signed in – though you can still find some of these editors working in their freelance capacity. Online, you can hire a book editor that could suit the style your book is begging to find.
5. Shortlist the “Golden Few”
The internet can show you thousands of excellent, experienced book editors right on one page. If you have more specific needs, you can just enter them into the search bar – and Reedsy can point you to the direction of what you are looking for.
Looking for book editors in New York, one of the worldwide hubs of the publishing industry?
Make a list of several editors who you imagine could be the right fit for your writing style and budget. Don’t just pick one, shortlist the “Golden Few” first before you intend to make your final choice.
6. Contact Your Potential Editors
Have you found the “Golden Few” editors that you would like to contact?
The next important step would be to get in touch with them!
Let’s assume that you have an excellent book right now, and that the right editor for it is out there somewhere. With the right editor, your book can turn into the Great Book that it’s meant to be – and it might even be on its way to a bestseller.
There are some important things each editor might want to know. As a writer, you want to include your book synopsis, the word count, and at least one excerpt of your story for an editor to know more about your questions.
7. Discuss Needs (With Your Potential Book Editor)
An editor has to know what their clients need, and what their client is hoping to achieve at the end of the project. This is why meetings between a writer and their editor can be one of the most important steps to making a writing project work.
Once you have chosen an editor to work with, these discussions that you will have through the process can be called extremely important.
Without them, editors and writers have no idea if they’re working on the same project.
This is why it’s so important to choose the right editor for you and your book.