If you’ve written a story, then you might be wondering who could help you next. That someone could be an editor. But are editing services up to mark? If you plan to self-publish, then you’re going to need a freelance editor.
If you’re pitching to a publishing company and get accepted, then it’s the editor that you will be dealing with initially, and of course, they’ll also work with you throughout the project. Why don’t we have a look at what an editor does?
What Does An Editor Do?
1. They have experience
An editor will know your genre really well. They’ll know what works and what doesn’t work. For example, they’ll know if you’ve pitched the wrong age or if your language is too complicated for the age that you’re hoping that your book will be suitable for.
2. They may help you publish
An editor working for a publishing company will assess your story’s potential In the marketplace. In other words, if you’re hoping to get your story published through a publishing company, they will be putting their money into that project. Therefore, they want to make sure that they can recoup their money through it.
3. They will help you polish your manuscript
They can make suggestions regarding their content and also help organize the narrative if it needs it. That means if moving a section will make your story flow nicely or make more things, then they might well suggest that. It’s really good to get those sorts of recommendations because sometimes you can’t see it for yourself.
4. They will proofread
Some editors might expect your manuscript to have already been proofread. But if you were expecting them to do this, then make sure that you come to an agreement about that before you actually hire them. Sometimes they provide this service, and some just don’t
5. Help with the title
An editor can help you find your best title and help you write your blurb. They’ll know the sort of title that will help your reader’s attention and know how much and what to write on the back cover. If this is new to you, then it’s really good to get that sort of help from someone who knows the business really well.
6. Help with formats
A freelance editor can help you format your book; whether that’s going to print or producing an ebook, you will need to make sure that everything is visually right, that might be tight size, page layout, line spacing, or paragraph breaks.
7. Fact-checking
You might want to ask your editor to fact-check for you. They might suggest removing cliches or clarifying exactly what you mean. They might polish up dialogue or make descriptive writing more expressive.
If you think you are ready to hire an editor for your fiction book, then hire a fiction book editor online.
Some Questions To Ask Before You Hire Someone
How do you figure out who’s the best editor for your project? Or how do you find out who’s a qualified editor for your projects? I’ve got some questions for you that you should ask every single editor you’re thinking about hiring for your project. Let’s start with the first one.
What does the process look like?
I’ve never had a book edited before, so I have no idea what to expect. Good editors are going to walk you through this process. They want it to be collaborative. They should want their clients to feel comfortable every step of the way.
So the more they know upfront about what’s coming and when it’s going to happen, the easier it is, right? I mean, it just takes the fear out of it as much as it can. So I outline the whole process. Every editor works differently, so the details of the process look different. So you want to be looking for things like queuing communication.
Is this someone who wants to communicate by telephone, and you prefer to communicate by email or vice versa? Is there communication during the project while the editing is going on? So you have to figure out, you know, talk to the person about the process, what it’s like, what it looks like, and all that, and then get an idea, get a feel for if that seems like your working style meshes.
How long is it going to take?
The next thing you should ask your editor is how long is it going to take? And the simple answer here is it really just depends. It takes two weeks if your book is 30,000 words, it takes 8 weeks if your book is 80,000 words, but it just really depends. It depends on what kind of editing you’re looking for.
So it depends on what type of editing you’re looking for. It also really depends on how clean your manuscript is. So you don’t want to write the first draft and then paint the editor. That’s a waste of your money. You want to have revised the manuscript. You want to have incorporated feedback in that manuscript. And you want to do some self-editing. So the cleaner you can make that manuscript.
Each time you go through it, you will see fewer and fewer hopefully errors, right? Whether those be like typos or those be you know continuity questions or flow questions or clarity questions. Any questions about the manuscript, there should be fewer and fewer each time you go through the manuscript as a whole.
So once you think you’ve got it as clean as possible, then you go to an editor, and the reason for that is simple. No matter how an editor structures his or her fees, whether it’s by word by page, by our, it all boils down to time, how long the editor is going to be spent working through your manuscript.
The more errors and mistakes and things like that there are incorrect, the longer it takes, and the more you’re going to pay, especially if budget is an issue. For the proofreading stage, which is sort of the last look before the book, it’s printed. So it’s really, I mean, it can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending on how long your manuscript is and how clean it is.
Conclusion
This brings us to the end of our discussion. Deciding to hire an editor for your book not only comes with extensive research, finding the most suitable editor for you but also with consideration of all factors that can have a significant impact on your manuscript.Though you may not always find the right editing service due to whatever reason, they are definitely worth the research and serious consideration.
