What’s An Editor and Do You Need One for Your Novel?

You’ve done it. After weeks, months, years – however long – of toil, you’ve finished your manuscript, and it’s time to publish it, right? Woah, not so fast! Some of you likely have heard of editors, but why spend the extra time and money on them? Your word processor has spell check, right? You’ve run it through Grammarly, so that’s enough. Not so much. While those are great tools for catching basic mistakes, a professional editor offers a second set of eyes. So let’s talk about editing.

What Does an Editor Even Do?

Before we go too far, let’s look at the job because it can often be confused with proofing. An editor’s job is to make sure your piece of writing, as a whole, makes sense and is the best it can be.

Grammarly will never tell you if a passage is boring, only that you could write it better according to academic standards. In their capable hands, they’ll review the facts of your story, ensure the readability flows, and tweak bits for better impact, amongst other fixes.

For most cases, an editor should be more than enough to review and rework your manuscript with you (though if you can’t afford a writing tool like Grammarly or Hemmingway App, you may want a proofreader, too.)

Now, I’m using the term “editor” broadly, but it’s important to note the different ways editors work. Primarily, I’m describing a substantive editor who looks at your story from a big-picture point of view to ensure it fits together correctly. They’ll catch anything incoherent and suggest a rewrite so that it will make sense.

Similarly, developmental editors look at your story as a whole but provide more in-depth notes. They’ll tackle all the little structural elements page-by-page so that it will be a hit with your target audience and your message comes across clearly.

While it’s great to work with both types of editors, if you can only afford one, you may want to forgo developmental editing since substantive editing can dip into it a bit.

Then there’s copyediting and proofing, similar but different. Copyeditors can go line-by-line to make sure each sentence makes factual and grammatical sense, helping with the flow of your writing.

And then, a proofreader would give your manuscript that final pass and polish, so there are no spelling mistakes or other errors. While both are valuable areas to focus on, you can likely hire a developmental or substantive editor that can fulfill these needs.

Do I Really Need Editing?

If my intro paragraph wasn’t clear enough: Yes. You can be the best writer, with perfect
grammar and spelling out there. Or, as I said, you can use some of the smart tools built
into most digital solutions.

But once all is said and done, you need someone to offer their objective and sometimes brutal opinion about your story’s structure, flow, and impact. No matter how technically well-written your manuscript is, people will put down the book if there are plot holes or unnecessary detours in the story.

The number of great stories I’ve read that have the occasional typo is a plethora, but the thing is, they were all excellent reads despite that. People remember the story, not that your “the cat said” on page 279 (well, maybe they’ll remember that – it’s kind of funny.)

I Put So Much Time and Effort Into This Story Already

As I’ve said before, writing takes time, commitment, and discipline. It feels like so much
work to get your story out of your head and onto the page when you consider all that.
So, the sense of accomplishment of finishing your novel or short or whatever will feel
incredible, and you just want to get it to a publisher.

But trust me, no matter how much time, research, and planning went into the execution, you need someone else to read it. And I don’t mean your mom or dad, who will likely think it’s lovely.

Or your friend who, while bright, hasn’t spent years professionally studying the craft and technique of writing. You need an editor. It’s worth the extra time and financial investment because they can catch things you likely didn’t in all your work.

Because when we write out a story, it’s, of course, so important to us, which makes us a
little too close to the work to view it objectively. What may have seemed like the most
brilliant exchange between characters could completely kill the story. It’s an editor’s job
to share that painful fact with you and help improve the final product.

So How Do You Hire An Editor?

It’s relatively straightforward, actually. Like any job, you look one up, start a conversation, and the rest goes from there. But to give you a little more to work with, here are some things you could look out for:

• How much experience do they have?
• Have they edited your genre before?
• Can they provide samples?
• Do they work for a company that offers other services for the price?
• How expensive are they based on all the above?

As someone who self-published, I’ve had a decent amount of experience hiring and working with editors (if you want more detail on the process, please check out what my course offers.)

Ultimately, what I think is just as important as credentials is that you can work well together: You must be on the same page (ha!) and communicate efficiently.

The author-editor relationship needs to be a partnership. You’re hiring them to work for you, and with you, so you don’t have to impress them. It’s in their best interest to help your book be the best it can be, so don’t let yourself be intimidated.

Once you’ve hired your editor and they take a look, it’s always a good practice to get another to take a second pass. They can have different goals in mind, whether for development or substance, and could catch little things the first one missed.

I did this for Getting By, and I know my novel turned out better for it. Even in my marketing work since publishing my book, I still review the work of the team I hired, catching minor oversights on their part, and they, too, see whatever I miss. In the end, the more eyes, the better!

If you’re finished with your manuscript and ready to get your story out into the world, please, please, please, heed my advice and let an editor or two review it. Trust me; you’ll thank me (and them!) for the extra efforts.

Good editing can make or break the success of a novel, so put in the time to find the right fit so your story will be an incredible final product you can share with the world.

If you need more advice on editors or what to connect with the team I worked with, please reach out to me at jsims@jairesims.com. You can also follow me on social media for more tips and suggestions to help you improve your writing.