When working on your manuscript, there's always a point where you consider hiring an editor. However, there's many types of editing, let alone editors. Here, I'll break down not just every type of editing and figuring out which your book needs the most, but decisions to make based on your publishing path.
Now, the first thing to know before we get into this is that the most likely scenario is that your book needs every single type of editing I list here. Yes, you heard me. Every single type. However, that doesn't mean you need to hire an editor to do these things or, depending on your publishing path, that you have to do these things at all. I'll get into that later.
Publishing Paths: How Do They Determine Editing Styles?
The first thing to discuss is what the different publishing paths to publishing are. According to me (and others, I promise) there are three main paths to publishing: traditional publishing, small presses, and self-publishing. All of these routes are equally valid, but they require a different eye and editing style.
Why? I'll get into that right now.
Side not: No, I will not apologize for how much I love this typing cat gif.
1. Traditional Publishing
Now, traditional publishing has three main steps: querying, submission, and publication. In short, traditional publishing requires you to query an agent, have that agent send it off to editors at big publishing houses, and have those editors love it so much they help you get published with said publishing house.
I can do countless posts about the querying process and what makes a good querying and opening pages later (and I will) but not now. Now, I'll tell all you aspiring trad-pub authors what kind of editing you should and shouldn't spend you money on.
When querying, you have to remember a few core ideas: the novel you publish will more than likely not be exactly the same to the one you query.
During the trad-pb process, your agent is more than likely going to help you edit and polish your manuscript before sending it on submission. Then, if you're lucky enough to nab an editor, their job is literally to help shape your novel into its best version. Of course, all of this will come free of charge to you, as their payment will be given once the book sells depending on your sales.
When talking about hiring your own editor in pursuit of trad-pub, we're talking about going into the querying process: the very first step. We're talking about trying to get an agent.
Agents don't expect manuscripts to be perfect. While I highly highly recommend multiple beta readers and critique partners before beginning your querying journey to help clean up mistakes and such, they're not editors and your manuscript will not be close to agent-ready just because it's not riddled with typos.
No, the types of editing I recommend the most for trad-pub-aspiring authors are both developmental editing and line editing. These types of editing are what shine during the querying process and lets the agent ignore a few typos along the way. Since your book will be going through countless edits if (fingers crossed!) you get a publishing deal, it's a waste of money to contract copyediting or proofreading services, in my opinion.
2. Small Presses
First and foremost, there's a large difference between small presses and subsidy (also sometimes known as vanity) presses. Small presses are traditional publishing houses with editors and all, but that are considerably smaller than big names. These presses often don't require an agent to submit and my recommendation is the go with the same kind of editing as trad-pub: developmental and line.
Small presses will not ask for any sort of payment in order to publish your book.
Subsidy publishers, however, are a different story. They may appear the same as a small press to the eye, but they're not. While I don't know enough to get into subsidy publishers and the benefits/disadvantages of publishing with them, I'd recommend researching the situation thoroughly before committing to one.
The easiest way to tell a small press from a subsidy publishers is that a subsidy publisher makes you pay to publish your book. They may find cover artists or have editors, but you'll have to pay out of pocket for these services. Unlike the trad-pub world, you have to spend your own money before the book is ever published. Also, unlike self-publishing, subsidy publishers also take a cut of your books profits once it's published.
3. Self-Publishing
Last but not lease, we have self-publishing. Unlike what some may like to think, self-publishing is not a backup plan or an easier route to publishing. In fact, its much more costly and could even be considered harder with the amount of work you must put in.
Self-publishing authors have to find or make their own covers, hire editors, do marketing, handle inventory, and so much more! Since the author is the first and last eyes on the book, however, I'd recommend a very different style of editing from trad-pub.
Ideally, self-published authors will have gone through every level and type of editing for their manuscript, but editing is costly. I'd recommend looking for or inquiring about editing packages that will help you cover most if not all of your bases, so things like copyediting and proofreading are highly recommended for self-published authors alongside the regular developmental and line editing one may recommend a querying author.
Quick and Dirty Guides to Figuring Out What Part of Your Novel Needs the Most Work
So, now that we know how publishing paths affect editing, lets talk about how to identify issues with your own work. Entertain the idea that you can only have one of the three main edits (developmental, line, and copy) done to your work. Which would you choose? Do you know how to tell?
Well, these are my top quick tricks to figuring it out!
Developmental Editing
Figuring out your book needs developmental edits it probably one of the easiest and is commonly found by trad-pub-aspiring authors when forced to write a query and synopsis for an agent.
No matter what path you're choosing, I find it's always helpful to be able to write a query and synopsis for your work. Why? I'll tell you.
A query and synopsis basically highlight the main plot points and overarching arc of your story. You'll have to know your main character's goal, their obstacles to getting that goal, and the end result. If you don't know this, you need developmental edits.
If your query or synopsis just reads like a series of events that leads from point A to point B without any real process along the way, you need developmental edits. There should always be a story getting from A to B so, if you can't pinpoint yours, it most likely needs some more work.
Overall, being able to summarize your book into a page or two (or a tad bit more, if you're not actually querying) is a really good tool to figure out if your book needs developmental editing.
Of course, there are also issues like pacing and such, but beta and critique partners are more likely to point those out, so you'll know if you need to hire an editor to work on them with you.
Line Editing
So, all your beats seem to be in the right place according to your betas and maybe a developmental editor but... people are getting confused about appearances. Sentences don't seem to convey what you want them to. You get comments that maybe the writing is a bit stilted or choppy or doesn't flow as well as you want it to.
Well, my friends, all of these comments are easily fixed by a line edit! If you get any comments like these, your manuscript definitely needs one!
Copyediting
So, you've gone through your developmental edits and your line edits. You think you're done but... no, I forgot a comma!
Copyediting not only looks at the grammar and sentence structure throughout your manuscript, but inconsistencies and factual errors! If your book feels good but needs a cleanup after all the hard work into making it shine, copyediting is the kind of editing for you.
Bottom Line
That's it. Those are my top tips for identifying and choosing the right kind of editing for your manuscript! Hope it helps!
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