Thread: Now who would be my main editor on a novel? Agent? Do they do that before sending?

I'm a bit confused, now once I get an agent, do they hack up your work, or hire a seperate editor to go over any questionable parts and get you to rewrite your work, and who would pay for that if that is how it's done? Or do they shop only the work they like around, so if your not obtaining an editor it's a clue that you need to hire a helper to go through your work for you and give you tips, etc to work on it before resubmitting it around?

I have not submitted, but from what I have read, You have to work with the editor and pay them. The agent might help you find a good one.
Until you are a published author that sells, I don't think they will invest much if any money into a work until they buy it. If they bought it, it is probably fairly close to being as perfect as possible.
Agents send your work to publishers, they can't afford to invest in an unknown.
Basically, agents and publishers are overwhelmed with unknown authors. So you are the one to have and pay for the polish applied to your work.

From people I know who have novels published, you edit it, then hire a professional editor to edit it again (some skip this step), find an agent (if you're skilled, dedicated and lucky), they sometimes recommend another edit with someone they know or work with, get a publisher to buy the book, and then they have in house editors run through it again. Every edit step involves you editing it though, based on editors' suggestions. Then you get a publication date about a year or two later and start the process over with your next book.

Just a note to anyone who might not know, publishers and agents aren't looking for diamonds in the rough, they want the end product that has the best chance of selling with the least amount of effort. If you were an agent, or publisher, would you want a story that you could start printing right away, or one that would require a year of back and forth with the author, with lots of edits and changes the author may or may not want to do?

I get that but I won't have money to pay an editor???

So you take the time and get better and learn to do most of that yourself. I know everyone is in a hurry to get published, but if you can't get your novel to a good enough point that someone will be willing to finish off the polishing, then you aren't ready to be published. Becoming a good writer takes time and practice. You are in a good place to learn more, and to get some feedback on your writing. While the people here might not all be professional writers, I'm betting there are quite a few that are professional readers. You can't read novels for several decades and not be able to tell bad writing. Might not always be able to provide an answer to how to fix it, but it can identified.

I haven't seen your writing so I don't know your skill level, but if you had an editor, would you be able to fix the issues pointed out? If unsure, find a book called 'the first five pages' and read it. It's written by an editor, not a writer, and it brings a whole new understanding to the other side of the process of publishing. It makes it clear that pretty much every person going through a slush pile is hoping to find certain things that will let them send out a form rejection in the shortest amount of time possible so they can get onto the next one. To sum up the numbers provided in the book, 85% of submissions are given a form rejection based on, at most, the first five pages of a novel. Sometimes less. The other 10% are the ones that usually get some type of comment with the rejection, since the writing is far and above most of what gets sent in. So to have a chance at getting an editor to consider purchasing your story, you have to have it good enough that if falls into the top 5% of what is submitted.

It's why there is self publishing (or vanity press).

If you don't feel your writing is there, then keep at it till it is. Write different things as well. Grow your abilities. Good writing is hard work.

Well, a bit about myself, I'm coming from a background as a freelance journalist, so editors are not new to me. I also have radio producing experience in public radio, and have interviewed several novelists on-air, so I've been in other positions in the production/advertising loop regarding this sort of thing. I'm a nerd, I study things for the sake of knowing them and I am extremely well read in certain areas. So I will hunt down how to do anything right!

SOme on other sights have offered suggestions of how to get around not having money to pay an editor.

1.Find a trusted friend to read and point out mistakes. While not a professional editor they will be able to point out mistakes and give you feed back on weak parts of the story. They are book buyers so they know what they like.

2. Some writing groups can help with this also. Same as above except they have tried to write also.
3.Teachers: if you are in a writing class or even in high school you might be able to have a teacher look it over.
4. submit samples to writing forums for critique. The people will disect the work note the weak areas, suggest better ways to say it, write it. This has helped me more then anything else.

Why would you need to pay an editor? I have never understood that. It seems to me that by the time you'd be ready to submit, you'd have rewrote your novel so many times you'd have caught all of the grammatical errors and what not.

I guess some people want to submit before they get it perfect. Or is it that you just don't know how? I know someone who hired a professional editor because they loved the creative process of storytelling but didn't have a clue about grammar or spelling, lol.

Yeah, but I believe editors do more than spellcheck your work. There are also flow/pacing issues, inconsistencies, things that are explained well enough in the author's head but not in other peoples, etc.

Having a fresh set of eyes -- especially a fresh set of eyes that is well trained and doesn't belong to you -- well help improve your book.

I really should talk to my published friend, he's a historian, just to catch the historical stuff would be great to get his help. I wonder if I could pay him a tiny bit upon the books sale if it sells and make a deal to help me that way. I was hoping he'd consider coauthoring stuff, but I got no response to that idea.

Let me ask you a serious question: Have you written the book yet? If the answer is no, you're wasting time worrying about things that may not even happen. Halfway through, you might decide to scrap the novel and start something else. These are the questions you ask when you've finished a novel.

If you're at that stage, I'll humour you. No, an agent will not edit your book. That is not part of their job description. Their job is to pitch your novel to prospective publishers and get you (and them) the best possible deal. An editor edits. Some publishing houses provide in-house editing, but you're mostly talking about making sure words aren't spelled wrong. Proper editing questions everything about the writing: pacing, plot holes, length, characterisation, everything. I assume that's what you're after.

If you spend enough time reading and writing, you can edit your own work. It takes a certain mindset to look at it objectively, but it can be done. There are those who tell you it can't. Ignore them. If you set enough time to studying the language, learning the nuances of it, you can edit anything short of something written by a professor.

Apparently you are not following any of my threads. I'm about to work on polishing my novel.

If you spend enough time reading and writing, you can edit your own work. It takes a certain mindset to look at it objectively, but it can be done. There are those who tell you it can't. Ignore them. If you set enough time to studying the language, learning the nuances of it, you can edit anything short of something written by a professor.

Thank you! This is how I feel. But keep in mind I did have a LOT of people (intelligent ones) review my work in the earlier stages. It was a great help at that time, and I learned so much about writing from it based on all the different things these different people had to say. After that stage I reached a point where I felt confident with my own abilities to rewrite and edit without getting the opinions of others, but it was a process.

I think those with required writing 101 histories in college may have a distinct advantage. As well as having been forced to write many papers in Psychology using APA style.