What does an editor do?

Been a busy month or so. Spent two weeks wandering around Europe, and worked through the beta-reader edits on my next novel. Just sent it off to my professional editor yesterday, and that means we may see a final product around the beginning of August. You guys may get your hands on this book yet.

Just as I did shove my book out of its protective little nest, I ran across this terrific breakdown of how to pick an editor from the endlessly helpful Shayla from Curiouser Editing. It really goes into detail on what an author needs to be thinking about as he makes the fateful decision on who will be his manuscript’s bridge from being a crappy rough draft no one should have to read to being a publishable book that people might actually pay money for.

So, it got me to thinking … how many of Shayla’s recommendations did I follow? Figured I’d highlight a few below and see how well I did.

I’m going to be candid here: a cheap editor is the second worst thing you could do to your book. The first would be neglecting to hire an editor at all. “But I can’t afford a professional editor.”

I think I’ve gotten lucky with both of my novel editors so far. For “Killing the Immortals,” I paid $770 for a copy edit + proofread. I found Rachel via Reedsy, a sort of clearinghouse for art-related freelancers. The upside to her was I thought she was a really solid editor who made a lot of very helpful suggestions. The downside was I think she may have been stretched too thin with whatever she was doing, and struggled with communication and providing me with reliable timelines. Being a stickler for timeliness, that sort of drove me nuts. But, other than that, she actually did really good work.

On this novel, I happened upon my editor in one of the author Facebook groups I’m a member of. She was offering half price on her services, and she seemed to have good references. So that’s only costing me $540. I think the edit isn’t going to be quite as extensive as the last one, but I also don’t think I need quite as extensive an edit this time. Shayla says to expect to pay $1,000+. So yeah, I haven’t gotten there yet.

Stay away from book editors who charge by the hour.

Well, I’m 1 for 2 on this one, but I may have an excuse to offer. Rachel simply gave me a flat rate to pay, and I paid in two installments. With Liz, my latest editor, she did use an hourly rate. However, she still gave me a full quote up front, and that’s what I’ll pay. So that’s gotta be better than her sitting back and telling me after she’s done how long it took her, and billing me for that, eh?

If an editor charges an author for a professional service and doesn’t follow through (i.e., improperly edits the book; doesn’t finish the edits; and/or doesn’t ensure that the author is happy with the final product), then that editor has cheated his client. If this has happened to you, ask for a refund.

Oh, man, I would absolutely do that. I’m fortunate in that I’m a grammar geek who’s written a lot of quick copy that had to be clean, so my stuff isn’t as tough to edit as I’m sure many people’s is. But I always find mistakes even so. If I started getting reviews that said my book was riddled with errors, I’d probably dig a hole in the backyard, crawl in and never come out again.

A copyedit for a full-length novel takes a minimum of six weeks.

My current editor says she can get it done in around four weeks, so we’ll see. But I’m not holding her to that. Then she says she’ll make another four-week pass on it after that. Rachel took pretty much forever to edit everything, so I’m sure she took plenty of time. My problem there was just knowing when stuff might be coming back my way. It’s the main reason I didn’t use her again.

Did the editor reply to my emails in a timely manner?

Liz has responded very well to everything I’ve sent her. Rachel drove me batty with her lack of responsiveness. She was fine until she actually got working on the book, and then she became really difficult to track down. Fortunately, she did the work, and she did it well. But yeah.

Was he professional?

They were definitely professional. No doubt. Although Liz and I have joked around a bit. She suggested I have a beer to celebrate getting my manuscript to her. It’s plausible I complied.

Was he friendly?

Neither of them called me any names. I probably deserved to be called some names, though. “Peabrain” isn’t a bad one.

Did he ask about my book? (In other words, does he care about your book or the money?)

They both showed a lot of interest in my book. Probably Rachel, especially. She had mostly worked on graphic novels at the publishing house she’d worked at previously, and was anxious to have a thriller novel on her resume. They’ve both been pretty enthusiastic about the writing.

Does he walk the talk? (How did that sample edit go?) 

That sample edit was really important to me both times. Going back to my grammar geek-ism, I’m able to tell pretty well if they actually caught stuff or not. If they miss any grammar, I’ll know it. If they miss something else, maybe I’ll catch that too. I’m not helpless here. Frankly, neither are any of you. If you’re an author, it’ll really benefit you to learn some of this stuff, so you can hold your editors accountable.

Guess what you are? An author. How incredible is that?

It is pretty incredible, isn’t it? I write books and stuff.