Today’s question is, when should I hire an editor? And the question of when you should hire an editor is an important one. And it’s important to know what an editor’s job is first and how they can help you before you hire one.
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What does an editor do?
As a beta reader, an editor is like another set of eyes for your manuscript. It is someone who can help you see errors and plot holes that you may have become blind to because you’ve seen your manuscript so many times. But unlike a beta reader, an editor should be a professional.
Now, what does that mean? It means they should have a lot of experience and education in writing, editing, publishing, and hopefully, in your genre, your niche because that can help even more since this experience puts editors in a position to give you valuable feedback. Targeted feedback that’s more likely to help your book succeed.
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Editing or Proofreading?
Many authors are unsure how to revise their work. Do they need editing? Or would proofreading be sufficient? And what precisely are the variations among the two? Editing and proofreading are components of the same revision manner.
Editing after the very last revision and proofreading earlier than submission, however, produces distinct consequences relying on the document, and writers have to apprehend what every manner consists of to make the proper preference in terms of revising the writing.
In this article, I spotlighted the variations between editing and proofreading and summarized the key functions of both.
Editing
Editing includes revising the textual content and suggesting methods to enhance the high-satisfaction of writing in phrases of voice style, herbal expression, and rhythm. Editors additionally attempted to sharpen the effect of every phrase through substituting vocabulary phrases after receiving editing, additionally referred to as language editing or line editing.
Your writing needs to be clear. Your phrases and expressions are more precise, your language much less clunky or repetitive, and your normal writing quality more expert. High-satisfactory writing is critical in all instructional and expert fields. If your niche happens to be fantasy books, then you should hire a fantasy book editor before publishing your novel.
Proofreading
Proofreading is almost always the last step in the editing process. Consider it a quality check before submitting your article to your intended audience. Proofreading corrects a variety of flaws, including spelling and capitalization errors, misspelled words, and mechanics. Early draughts of any type of writing are rife with errors.
Good proofreaders are aware of these guidelines and will correct any formatting issues discovered during the final process. Many authors believe that grammar or spell check software can successfully proofread their work. Regrettably, this is not the case. These systems are good at catching most spelling mistakes, but they will miss most homophones and grammar mistakes in complicated texts.
To spot all objective flaws in the writing, you’ll need a thorough understanding of how terminology and symbols should be used in English papers. Even a few punctuation or language issues might annoy readers and dissuade journal editors and researchers from continuing to read.
Editing and proofreading can be done in tandem as two components of the revision process, or they can be done separately on a piece of writing. While editing essentially improves your writing, proofreading, on the other hand, perfects it. Before submitting their work, many authors have it edited and proofread.
Getting the appropriate feedback
A lot of times, with beta readers, all you’re getting is a personal opinion. Now, if the beta reader is pretty experienced at beta reading and their experience in reading for the purpose of giving feedback, they might be pretty good at it, but some people just don’t have that experience, or they don’t have certain know-how and knowing what kind of feedback is really going to help somebody.
Editor has spent time educating themselves and then just working and getting experience so that they know what feedback is going to be most useful for them. This feedback can be about the story itself. That’s developmental editing, or about the writing style, grammar and punctuation, and things like that. And that’s line editing or copy editing.
Make sure to revise your manuscript
Another important consideration you need to think about when you’re hiring an editor is to go through multiple revisions. They don’t come out perfect the first time. Although more experienced writers, they might write better for straps.
Most of them still need a lot of work. Before you send your manuscript to an editor, my first suggestion is to let it rest and then revise it yourself. After you’ve done that, go ahead and take another rest period. When your manuscript is resting, send it to beta readers.
Then once you get it back, look at their feedback, decide what to use, and revise your manuscript again. Or some writers will repeat this process more than once. That’s up to you. But after you’ve done at least one round of self-editing and one round of reader feedback and revisions based on that feedback, it’s a good time to start shopping for editors.
When to hire an editor?
You might hire an editor to prove the first few chapters of your book if you’re sending them to an agent, so that’s another time you might hire an editor. Maybe you haven’t written the whole book yet.
Maybe you’re pitching, and it is a good time to help you clean up those first three chapters, not just for grammar and punctuation, but also if you hire a developmental editor who is also a copy editor, you can also get them to give you feedback on what seems to be working, what’s not, if they’re too boring, if you started the story too early, et cetera.
Conclusion
Editors are not just good for editing your novel. You can also hire an editor if you need your back cover copy. They can also help you edit your website and your marketing copy. If you wonder whether your editor does any of these things, just ask. Don’t be afraid. They might even help you edit your book description just to make it more exciting.
