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Tag: hire an editor

  • Why I Hired an Editor to Help Me Polish My Personal Essay

    Why I Hired an Editor to Help Me Polish My Personal Essay

    You know all those times you pitch a publication and never hear back? After spending weeks or months on what you thought was a pretty awesome story?

    We’ve all been there.

    It’s part of the job, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. It’s hard to know what you did “wrong.” The blank void doesn’t help you fix what needs fixing so you can grow and improve.

    But what if, for every essay you wrote and article you pitched, you received line edits, notes and suggestions for improvements?

    We know hiring an editor is an important investment if you’re working on a book, but what about smaller pieces: the novellas and short stories and personal essays and articles?

    Why I hired an editor to polish my personal essays

    I worked on an essay for New York Times’ popular feature Modern Love for six months. That essay went through a memoir class, an amateur editor, a re-write, a hiatus and finally a few trusted friends. One of those friends was Dara Kaye, a developmental editor at a literary agency.

    I’d never experienced anything like Kaye’s edits. It was my story, but better. They were my words, but tighter.

    I found the magical unicorn: An editor who understood my style while bringing her own talents to the table.

    After half a year tweaking and reworking, my essay was finally perfect. I finally felt confident sending it out into the void. Modern Love didn’t take it, but xoJane immediately accepted my essay. As someone who had never published a personal essay before, I was proud.

    Kaye volunteered her time to review my essay, but I knew I needed to invest in her ongoing editing services.

    If you’re just starting to pitch publications or are branching out into new territory, hiring an editor for ongoing projects could be one of the best career investments you’ve ever made.

    Why hiring an ongoing editor is important

    “Trying to edit your own writing is like trying to lick your own elbow,” says Kaye.

    “You’re just too darn close to the thing. When you read something you’ve written, your mind fills in plot holes and glosses over misspellings, inconsistencies, and awkward sentences. You can’t see them, but they distract agents, publishers, and readers.”

    After realizing Kaye had helped me bring forth the strongest incarnation of my work, I hired her to help with all my essays. I’m balancing client work with personal projects, with a goal of slowly transitioning out my client work and focusing solely on personal essays and fiction.

    It’s going to be a long process, but the quicker I can get into publications I admire, the quicker I’ll create a portfolio to build that platform.

    Running every essay and story past an editor helps me accomplish three things:

    1. Increase my chances of getting published
    2. Give new editors the best first impression of my work
    3. Learn a ton about writing

    Carin Siegfried, owner of CS Editorial (and my first-ever publishing mentor) told me a major benefit of hiring an editor for ongoing work is that “over time, your editor learns both your style of writing and how you best respond to editing, and can tailor their suggestions to work better towards your writing strengths and weaknesses.”

    They can also morph into more of a writing guide as well as an editor. “If you have multiple projects,” added Siegfried, “Your editor might be able to point out that a minor project you were putting on the back burner actually is more marketable or has a better shot at getting published than the front-burner idea you’re really excited about.”

    How to find an editor

    Okay, you’re convinced. Now, where to find this magical unicorn?

    Referrals are a great place to start. Ask published friends for a recommendation or take to social media. Publisher’s Marketplace also has editor listings, but their website can be difficult to navigate.

    How to choose the right editor

    Obviously, you need to find an editor who you not only like, but can also learn from.

    Editors should: Know your audience

    Many editors work in a variety of genres, but your editor should have at least some experience in yours. So if your big dream is to be a war correspondent, don’t hire an editor who specializes in self-published erotica.

    The first editor I hired to help polish my Modern Love piece had never published a personal essay before. Although the price was right, her lack of experience with personal essays meant I wasted my money.

    “You want someone who’s familiar with your genre and dialect,” says Kaye. “If you hire a U.K. editor to work on a U.S. book, don’t be surprised if you end up with a more ‘colourful’ manuscript than you want.”

    You also want to stay consistent once you do hire an editor. “With one editor,” Siegfried told me, “your voice will have more consistency across multiple projects and you will be able to better stay on message. You don’t want some pieces to have a lesser quality than others, making your writing look uneven.”

    You should: Request a sample edit

    Unfortunately, there’s no universal, industry-wide standard for copyediting, developmental editing and proofreading. This is why sample edits are so important.

    Most editors will offer a complimentary sample page edit so you can better understand their style. If they don’t, ask for a sample from a previous project to help align your expectations.  

    Kaye asked me an important question about my expectations: “Do you want someone who will leave everything intact save outright errors? [Or] someone who will dig a bit deeper to suggest alternative wording for unwieldy or repetitive sections?”

    Everyone will approach editing with a different tack, but a sample can catch any red flags about whether your potential editor’s style will match yours.

    You both should: Agree on a communication style

    Have a conversation with your editor about preferred communication style. Kaye was kind enough to share examples of three different editing styles from real manuscripts she’s worked on:

    • Option A “Love this sentence! It’ll read more smoothly if you delete this comma.”
    • Option B: “Comma deleted; these are cumulative adjectives, not coordinate adjectives. (See CMOS 5.90, CMOS 6.33)”
    • Option C: no margin comment, just silent corrections

    It’s entirely up to you. Do you want an editor who’s expressive about their love for your writing? Or someone who just does the work without coddling you?

    I’m in the former camp. If you’re going to criticize, I need a buffer. It’s been great to have an editor who reminds me why I do what I do.

    “Knowing and setting expectations for communication will make the work flow smoothly,” says Kaye. “My favorite clients are the ones always seeking to become better writers. They’re the ones who trust my judgment but are also comfortable asking ‘Hey, can you explain that rule?’”

    Kaye and I have worked together on two pieces so far. By the end of the 2015, I’d love to have a list of bylines or a competition win. But I’m also super happy to have a growing collection of near-perfect personal essays I can pitch until they’re published.
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  • Big Writing Project? Why You Might Want to Hire an Editor

    Big Writing Project? Why You Might Want to Hire an Editor

    When I first started teaching writing more than 20 years ago, I was excited to have my college students participate in what was then a newfangled idea: a writing workshop.

    What a wonderful concept, I thought. Have new writers share their works in progress with each other, in order to improve and learn from each other! Everyone benefits from a second set of eyes, right?

    It was — and still is — a good idea to have other writers critique your work. Writing workshops are more popular than ever, whether they are classroom exercises or informal groups of friends who meet once a month to share drafts in progress.

    But after a while, I stopped having my students workshop each other’s drafts without me leading the discussion.

    Why? Because not all second sets of eyes are created equal.

    Not everyone is gifted with the ability to provide pertinent, accurate and clear feedback. Some writers might be very talented at essay-writing themselves, but offer terrible advice to other writers about how to improve their essays. Writing workshops without an expert leader often become a case of the blind leading the blind.

    Too often we confuse feedback from a friend for authoritative editing.

    I’ve learned this by teaching writing workshops, but I’ve also learned through my own experience writing books.

    Good intent doesn’t always equal good editing

    When I was  working on my first book manuscript, I asked friends to read drafts. They provided lots of interesting feedback, but they did not help me navigate the difficult terrain of book writing. Eventually, I stopped asking friends to read my work and started hiring editors.

    At first it seemed odd: I was a teacher of writers, a prolific freelancer, and even a book editor myself! Surely I did not need to hire an editor? But then I remembered my own lessons: 1) everybody needs a second set of eyes, and 2) not all feedback is created equal.

    The first book editor I hired was someone with experience editing narrative nonfiction magazine features. I needed her help to transform my book from eight separate chapters into one book-length story. I couldn’t see how to restructure the chapters on my own, although I’m an astute editor of narrative nonfiction.

    I was too close the material, and needed that second set of eyes for one particular revision my publisher wanted from me. No writers’ group would have been able to offer me that assistance.

    Every writer — even me — needs an experienced editor to be their second set of eyes. [bctt tweet=”The right editor can be invaluable, the wrong one disastrous.”]

    Poor feedback can do real harm, turning a promising manuscript into a muddy mess, even if (and especially if) it is from a well-intentioned friend in your writing group.

    Why even experienced writers need editors

    As a professor, writer and editor, I have decided that a good editor should be as essential an aspect of the writing process as writing daily or revising often. But not any editor will do. Finding the right editor for your project is key: the right match is important.

    For instance, a developmental editor can help a writer restructure a manuscript, turning a mediocre draft into a stellar one.

    A copy editor, who focuses on sentences, can take a brilliant, dense manuscript and make it a brilliant, compulsively readable one.

    Book authors who are also experienced book editors can help a writer navigate the process of submitting a proposal to an agent.

    I have hired all three kinds of editors in my writing career, depending on my needs at the time.

    How to know if you’ve found the right editor for you

    If you’re worried about how you and a potential editor will work together, think about asking a few of these questions before you sign a contract.

    1. Will you focus on developmental editing, line editing or proofreading?

    These are three different types of services. A developmental editor will assess the overall project and suggest ways to revise and restructure. A line editor will improve your sentences and transitions between paragraphs. A proofreader will ensure the project is grammatically correct and free of errors.

    2. What do you specialize in?

    There as many genres for an editor to specialize in as there are genres to write. You want an editor with experience in your genre. Specialties include fiction, non-fiction, memoir, essay, scholarly writing, history and journalism.

    3. How do you charge?

    It’s not enough to know what an editor charges — you also need to know whether she works by the hour or the project. If you receive a flat project quote, divide the total by the number of pages to figure out the hourly rate.

    A project rate with a cap (“no more than x amount”) is easiest when budgeting.

    4. What won’t you do for me?

    Do not assume your editor will help you get your project published. It’s one thing to improve a manuscript, but another to sell it.

    Make sure you and the editor agree on the scope of services so you are not left disappointed at the end of the process.

    5. Who are some of your previous clients?

    Asking this question will help you gauge how experienced the editor is, as well as how similar your project will be to ones she has recently completed.

    Still not sure you’ve found the right person? Here are a few more questions to ask an editor before you sign a contract.

    Have you ever hired an editor to review your writing? What did you learn from the experience?