When should I hire an editor for my novel?
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I’ll be honest—I didn’t even know this was a thing people did, hire editors on their own, until I got desperate.
Here is how it went down for me, followed by my tips on when you should consider hiring an editor for your novel, how to pick an editor, and what types of edits are available to you.
How I wound up hiring an editor for my novel
It was 2014, and I had been writing and rewriting (and rewriting, and rewriting) my novel for 3 years.
Looking back, I know that three years isn’t all that long. But it felt long.
And more importantly, I was at an impasse. I was emailing agents (“querying” them) and hearing “no” over and over.
One agent in particular who had turned me down but had been generous enough to get on the phone with me and talk about what she would need to see in a revision in order to re-consider the book, had reviewed two revisions over the course of 18 months and turned down both.
As in, she’d turned me down a total of three times.
I didn’t know what to do to make the manuscript better.
I’d taken classes, gotten feedback a gajillion times from my fellow writing students and from writers in my own writing group, and restructured the format of the book twice.
I’d added a kidnapping then taken it out. (If you’ve read When You Read This, you are probably laughing.)
I’d changed the main characters’ names forty times.
And I felt it. I was wiped out, sick of the book and sick of myself. I didn’t know what to do next, so I googled “editor for a novel” and landed on the site of New York Book Editors.
I’ve since learned that New York Book Editors was fairly new at that point—only a year old.
It looked reputable, and the site made me feel happy. They also offered a “trial edit” by your editor before you committed to a full edit—for $150, you could give the editor a test drive.
I was so willing to try anything that the trial edit was an easy choice. And when I liked what I saw, I splurged for a full edit—this was over six years ago, but I believe the price was around $2,200 for a developmental edit. It was a fortune for me at the time (it still is, but less so than it was then). I put it on my credit card and crossed my fingers.
The editorial memo, they called it, came several weeks later. The editorial memo is a letter from your editor that accompanies your manuscript full of the editor’s notes.
But I didn’t make it to the manuscript notes. When I finished reading the letter, I didn’t even bother opening the manuscript to see my editor’s notes. I never have, to this day. I didn’t need to.
Here is a taste of my letter—perhaps you’ll see why:
Dear Mary,
Thank you so much for entrusting your manuscript to me. It is such a wild and original novel; I truly have never read anything like it. There were so many sentences that I loved, so many quips that made me laugh out loud. It’s rare to see prose that’s so clean and confident, especially in a debut novel. I can tell you honestly that you have a special talent for writing, and I have no doubt that you have many books in your future.
Let me warn you up front: I’m going to give you some tough love in this editorial letter. I want you to look at this edit as not only about this novel, but about your growth as a writer. Writing a novel is hard work, and every revision is practice for this novel and the next.
My main project is to investigate why your novel is getting rejected, and how we can change that around. There is an enormous, enormous amount of potential here. The concept is new and interesting, and your writing is so sharp—funny and smart, with an eye for the absurdities of modern day life.
The problem I see is that the general worldview of your novel is deeply cynical...and I noticed that while you’re drawn to the cynical and absurd, the story you actually want to tell is very earnest. At its heart, this novel is about a cynical man’s redemption. It is about a woman—a ghost, really—helping him understand love and connection...So the plot of the novel is actually set up to make us believe in redemption and hope. But the characters don’t support it.
You have the humor in spades. It’s the heart that you need more of. And heart demands deep work. (I should say here that I was really impressed to find as I was reading that the prose was near-flawless. On a sentence-to-sentence level, your writing is remarkable.)
If you are serious about this novel, I want to encourage you to reshape it, to give your characters more love.
With gratitude and best wishes,
[Name of editor]
DAMN.
I sat in silence and felt that feeling of being both seen and called out. I was relieved and heartened, but also afraid.
I don’t know if that letter has the same effect on you that it had on me since it’s personal for me, and, of course, it’s only an excerpt so you aren’t getting the full thing (the full thing is quite long), but I was gutted by it.
The moment I read her words, I knew she was right. You have the humor in spades. It’s the heart that you need more of.
My book needed heart.
I’d known in writing it that it was true—not Iris’s blog, which had plenty of heart (if you’ve read When You Read This, you know what I mean). It was the story around Iris’s blog that lacked heart. That was the part that was empty.
And it was empty because I’d not let myself feel while writing it. I’d felt deeply while writing Iris—and then, I’d set out to write the story around her story and hoped I could pull it off with cleverness and inventive structure.
But no. That much was now clear: I couldn’t.
Cut to the end of this tale: I took my editor’s words seriously, and rewrote the story over the next six weeks—with heart this time—and landed an agent.
My wonderful agent Claire was—and still is—the same agent who’d rejected me three times prior, the one who’d also seen potential but hadn’t been able to take on the manuscript until it had, well, heart. I worked out the courage (audacity?) to pitch her a fourth read, and a mere 48 hours later, this is the email I got back from her:
Mary, I stayed up late to finish this, having started it just today, and wanted to email so you’d know my feelings first thing tomorrow. Oh, it is beautiful. I am both astounded at the metamorphosis since last time, and not, because these glimpses of something so very beautiful and true were most definitely there before. But this—it feels like some carapace, some nut has been cracked open, and all that without losing any of the incredibly funniness and unsappiness that you always had. I snorted on the subway when I read Carl’s ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, I really did. I do think there’s distance to go. I do have “things” still – but, but, it is the most exciting thing I’ve (re)read in ages and I find myself just intensely moved. The “midnight - when the party gets good” scene will live with me for a long time. I would love to be part of this, and be your agent. What do you think – can we do this? Are you having others read it? Let me know your thoughts.
And that was it.
I’d given it heart. And Claire saw it.
Some nut cracked open.
Everything I’d needed was in that editorial letter.
When should I hire an editor for my novel?
It’s hard to say—I know that even entertaining this conversation is a privilege.
Good edits cost over $2,000, sometimes closer to $4,000, which is not something many people can afford.
On the other hand, I couldn’t afford it, either; I just made it work (read: spent money I didn’t have by putting it on credit). And was it worth it? See above.
I would say that if you’re truly stuck and can’t figure out what’s wrong—you’ve maxed out your own creative juices and resources, and you’re ready to give it one more shot or “throw in the towel” as my mother would say, it could be time.
Or you could take my course for half that, which many people have done to unlock the nuts of their finished drafts. (Yes, that was a shameless plug, but it’s also true.)
It also could be time if you’ve been getting rejections from literary agents and they aren’t telling you things that are coalescing into an actionable revision plan, or they’re just rejecting you without telling you anything.
Rejections are part of writing, and for almost every writer I know, it took months, if not years, to find one.
All of that is to say that at some point, you may want to hire a professional to weigh in—it could save you more time and energy. I chose to go with one when I was becoming a cloud of self-pity.
How should I pick an editor for my novel?
Easy—you should go with New York Book Editors.
Have you been reading this blog post? They’re the best.
And not more expensive than anyone else who will do a decent job. And you want someone who’s going to do a decent job—this is sort of like hiring someone to do your taxes or fix your roof—you don’t choose the cheapest guy on the block unless you want to end up with a lien on your property or water in your bed.
But truly, do your homework.
Whether you go with New York Book Editors or not, you’ll want to research before you invest—ask to see proof of outcome. What have previous clients said about the experience? Have those clients gone on to publish? Does the editor have a track record to which they can point?
These are important questions to ask.
What’s the difference between a developmental edit, a line edit, and a copy edit?
A developmental edit (which NYBE calls a “manuscript critique”) is a broad, overall edit that addresses the “big picture” issues in your manuscript.
It’s the first edit, and comes first because it doesn’t make sense for someone to go in and edit things like specific word choice and whether a particular metaphor works or not when there are entire sections of the book that might need to be cut.
A developmental edit addresses things like pacing, character development, and overall tone and structure. Your editor will write you a letter outlining the suggestions for revision but also make notes within the draft as well.
A line edit is a much closer edit—and is what you may think of when you think of editing. Someone makes your sentences better.
Finally, a copy edit is the final stage and the most detailed level of editing. Think, grammar queen sweeps in and dusts up your errant apostrophes.
In sum, don’t be too proud to get help
I hope this post gave you all the insight you need into when to hire an editor for your novel. If you can afford it, a great edit by a great editor can be a life raft for a lost writer.
Want to hear me tell my story to Natasa at NYBE? Check out our recent interview below!
Have you had good or bad experiences with editors you’ve hired? Please share in the comments below—I’d love to hear!
