How to Hire a Book Editor: What Writers Should Know

Congratulations, you’ve finished your first draft! The book you’ve worked on for months (or perhaps even years) is complete, and you feel ready to edit.

Finishing a manuscript draft of a novel or memoir is a huge achievement. But for many writers, knowing what to do next can be hard. You know you need to edit your book, but what do editing services look like? How much can you do on your own (or with beta readers), and when do you need professional editing? Do you need a copy editor, or would another professional writer do the trick? When is it time to hire a professional editor, and how do you find them and choose one out of many?

Award-winning author and writing coach Alice Kuipers is here to lend her wise advice on this subject. As someone who has worked with several editors across her books, Alice is well-placed to guide writers through this essential guide to hiring an editor—and how to make sure you find the right person for your book.

The first draft is not the end

Turning your first draft into a book you can publish, something that meets industry standards and, most importantly, that readers will love, is absolutely possible with the right support and editorial guidance. Today, we’ll look at how to approach this part of your journey as a writer, sharing how to turn a draft into a polished manuscript and the many possible steps you may choose to take.

Whether you’re a new writer or an author who, like me, has previously published, there are many reasons to hire a knowledgeable editor to help you with this journey—and it can be particularly crucial for self-published authors. Over the last year, I’ve been working with a freelance editor and it’s given me a clear roadmap I wanted to share with you when it comes to editing services.

I’ve broken this guide up into three parts:

• Step 1: What to do when you finish your first draft.
• Step 2: What you can do before you hire an editor.
• Step 3 (which is more extensive): How to approach hiring and paying for professional book editing services.

Hiring a professional editor can be expensive, and if you hire someone who isn’t a good fit, you might be left feeling deflated and unable to tackle the hard work of turning your manuscript into a publishing-ready book. Don’t worry. We’ll take time here to think about what makes a good editor and how you can find one for your work, so your book benefits and you don’t waste your time and money.

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The editorial journey can be long, and what you need from an editor depends on where you are along that path. Once you’ve read this guide, take a closer read of the part(s) that feel most helpful for you. Sending your work to an agent or publisher is a huge step, and when you spend time preparing your manuscript properly, you give it the best chance in the publishing world. As Stephen King says:

When you write a story, you are telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are NOT the story... Your stuff starts out being just for you... But then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right, as right as you can... It belongs to anyone who wants to read it, or criticize it.
—Stephen King

Step 1: When you finish writing

Celebrate!

The first draft is done! Before you start to edit, think about what you’ve already accomplished by getting so many words down onto the page. At The Novelry, when our writers finish a first draft, we encourage them to share the news in our online community so we can cheer them on. For me, I like to reward finishing a first draft with a treat—and my personal obsession is cowboy boots. While I’m writing the draft, I look at a photo of the pair I desire on the hard days. Think about what a reward or celebration might look like for you when you get to The End.

Rest

At this stage, most writers I know—and I include myself in this group—really want someone to read the book and tell them how much they love it. But while it goes against every instinct I have, I’ve learned through 20 years in the industry that it’s vital to take some time away from the manuscript.

Taking a rest is a really good way to see the work more clearly when you return to it, so if you’ve just finished a first draft and you’ve had your version of a celebration, then my best advice is to walk away. If you can, take a whole month. Stephen King advises eight weeks. Hemingway advised three months!

During this break, I love to read books in my genre to help me reconsider and deepen what I’m trying to do. I make notes. I think about possible issues. And I write all of these down for when I come back to the book for my edits.

As we share in our course material at The Novelry:

The second draft is where we put the hills in, the scenery, the detours, to arrive at a shining hilltop destination. But you need a month off now, to return to your work as a reader, and an editor... During your reading break, feel free to write prolifically, freely, longhand in your notebook or in a new blank document, but do not touch your novel manuscript.

This is what we call sideways writing. This is a story-development phase, a grander vision for the book you want to publish. Compose the book you would love to write without referencing yours. Keep penning titles, too! Now you know the scope of your story so far, it’s time to dream big, but with elegance too. Keep it simple. What’s at stake, and for who, and how do they get it?
—The Novelry

You’ll come back to your work with fresh eyes, ready to tackle the next steps, by returning to your story as a reader, not an indulgent parent.

Step 2: Things to consider before researching book editing services

Once you’ve had some time away from your book, you have an opportunity to consider how you can improve your work before you even start thinking about hiring an editor. We have a class called The Big Edit at The Novelry, where we break down editorial stages and steps, and where you’ll work with one of our professional editors to elevate your manuscript. In the lessons, we teach all aspects of the book editing process by masters of the craft—from interrogating the structure and shape of your story to developing your technical writing skills on a sentence-by-sentence level and learning how to create a pitch-perfect submission package.

While we dive into each of these aspects more deeply in those class lessons, in this article, I’m sharing four easy ways you can assess your own manuscript. These will be useful if you’ve already decided to engage some editing services, as you can work through them with the editor if you feel you need more support.

(a) Think about your story: what is it really about?

Our Story First Method™ means our writers sum up their story in a one-page synopsis we call The Plan. This helps writers see how the arc of their character develops, and we encourage regular updating of The Plan as the story evolves.

Many writers come to us after they’ve finished a first draft and use our flagship course, The Ninety Day Novel, to evaluate their story and consider their characters’ arcs with the help of the lessons and one-on-one coaching with a bestselling author. These conversations help our writers see where the work can be made stronger in terms of story, helping illuminate creative opportunities in a positive way and encouraging writers to self-assess their manuscript.

As you think about your own story, it’s helpful to try to distill it down just like this, into a single-page summary of What Happens and How This Causes What Happens Next. While you consider your story, notice how your main character influences and is influenced by the plot. This is your character’s agency.

Here’s another extract of some detailed advice from our course material:

One of the most common criticisms that writers receive is that their characters, particularly the protagonist, lack agency. This means that the story happens to them—but we want the story to be happening because of them. It’s often the case that this agency stems from your character’s motivation. If your novel has a main character who actively wants something from the opening sentence, you likely have a self-propelled plot which is immediately arresting, even from the pitch alone. It’s as if we are storytelling animals who hunger after the wants of our hero.
—The Novelry

(b) Analyze your characters’ motivations

Often in my first draft, I have a good sense of my main character’s motivation, but at this stage, I like to look more carefully at my other characters, too. Here are two good questions to ask yourself at this point:

• What is the motivation of the main character and the secondary characters?
• Why are they behaving the way they are?

Now you know your story, getting to know these characters using interview techniques helps you figure out what each person wants in each scene, and what or who is stopping them from getting it.

In The Ninety Day Novel, one of the lessons gives you a full list of questions to answer about your characters. These are some of my favorites, which you can use to interrogate your characters right now:

1. What is their secret fear or dread?
2. What are they ashamed of having done or not done in the past?
3. If given $10,000 or a large amount of disposable cash, what would they do with it?
4. If they had 24 hours with no laws applying and could do whatever they wished, what would that be?

As you get to know each person better, I find it easier to see what their motivations might be.

(c) Evaluate your scenes for effectiveness 

Each scene in a novel or memoir serves a purpose. In her guide to structuring scenes, writing coach Amanda Reynolds shares that:

Like the episodes of a continuing drama, scenes are the building blocks upon which each chapter of your book is built. They are self-contained mini-dramas, but they also work as a part of the whole, driving the story forward and connecting to the next scene—whether thematically, stylistically, symbolically, or very straightforwardly in terms of plot.

They may or may not involve your main character. They could, but need not, include dialogue. What all good scenes do share is that they always contribute something to your story. Readers should never feel they’re passively waiting for a pointless scene to finish.

Strong scenes allude to what’s to come and define what’s been before. They encapsulate a mood, a moment, a happening. They reveal clues and move the plot along at pace, contribute to character development, and further the readers’ understanding of the story.
—Amanda Reynolds

Evaluate your scenes with an honest eye and consider whether and how each one serves your book.

(d) Check your word count

It’s important to know if the word count you’ve achieved with your first draft is close to the industry standard. As our editor Krystle Appiah points out:

Readers have expectations! If someone has read several novels in one genre, they will have an idea of how many words a novel in that category should be. If yours is tens of thousands of words under (or over) the average word count your reader is expecting, this will naturally be met with raised eyebrows or a good measure of suspicion.
—Krystle Appiah

Novels from various genres consist of various lengths. For me, writing a crime novel, my first draft fell short of a typical full manuscript length of between 80,000–100,000 words. The word count for a typical novel also depends on your intended audience, so if you’re writing for middle-grade readers, you’ll find the word count to be far shorter at 40,000–60,000 words, and for Young Adult novels, the length will be between 70,000–90,000 words.

If you’re falling short or your current draft is too long, you can take time during your break to think about where you could deepen your story or pare it back. To explore this further and to find out the ideal word count for your genre, have a read of Krystle’s detailed blog on word counts.

Ready for a second pair of eyes?

Once you’ve improved your manuscript to the best of your ability, it’s time for an outside reader. For me and my current manuscript, this is the stage where I began searching for a good freelance editor, because over the last few years, I’ve pivoted from writing for children and young adults to writing crime. My agent, who sold my previous books, doesn’t love the genre as much as I do, so I wanted the draft of this book to be in the strongest possible shape when it came to sending it out to publishers. I needed a professional editor who specialized in crime fiction and was comfortable doing a developmental edit.

Let’s look at how you can decide what your manuscript needs, and how you can find and hire the right editor for your book.

Step 3: Finding and hiring a book editor

The internet is awash with freelance editors, and it can be daunting to know where to start. But don’t worry, we’re here to help! Let’s break down the process of finding and hiring the right book editor for you into five separate stages.

Before we begin, you will need to prepare yourself to make significant changes to your story as you professionalize your writing life and carefully consider who you’ll work with to edit your book. As we say in The Big Edit:

Your editor’s job is to get you to a publishing-ready draft. It’s a major step up, and happens through a big leap of their expertise and insight and your courage and willingness. Writers develop in leaps; books develop in drafts.
—The Novelry

(a) Consider their qualifications and experience

Anyone can claim to have knowledge of professional editing, and it’s vital when you start this process that you find an experienced editor who knows the industry and who has worked with authors or publishers you’ve heard of. In this situation, beta readers are not going to be enough.

Don’t trust your work to those who claim to be editors, but have never been employed in that capacity. On a marketplace platform like Reedsy, for example, you may find some lovely people, published authors, and literary agents offering editing services but their feedback is more likely to be driven by their personal tastes, whereas a professional experienced publishing editor understands the market and the publishing landscape and should be able to set their preferences and genre-based interests aside. An editor who has been employed by a publisher will know the standard you need to reach to achieve publication.

The gun-for-hire solo freelancer does not have recourse to a wider team to cross-check their assumptions and ensure their advice is beneficial and appropriate in the current market. In publishing, things change, so you will need someone who has an up-to-the-minute understanding of the market and what literary agents are seeking right now.

At The Novelry, all the members of our editorial team have acquired, edited, and published books at Big Five publishers, including Penguin Random House and HarperCollins. They have had plenty of formal training, working with authors like Stephen King, Lee Child, Tomi Adeyemi, and John Grisham. Look for these types of accreditations as you begin an online search for book editing services. The team works together, and gives carefully weighed advice.

Think about it this way: does your editor have an interest in your success? At The Novelry, published success stories are all-important as proof of our expertise and central to our mission. Our editorial team will work with writers in round after round of edits to get them publishing-ready.

A book editor doesn’t just fix errors—they offer hands-on creative feedback and work in collaboration with you, the author, to make a manuscript the best version of itself. A good editor will also bring their experience of the ‘acquiring’ and ‘publishing’ processes to assist you with pitching your book. Find an editor who has experience in receiving submissions from literary agents, so they can help you prepare your novel for that very submission process! If the editor has been on the receiving side, they’ll know exactly what publishers are looking for. What’s more, they’ll have a warm and professional relationship with many literary agencies.

As you look through the qualifications of the book editors you’re considering, read through their testimonials and research where they say they’ve worked previously. Ask around your writing community to see if anyone you know has a recommendation for any specific editing services. If you don’t know any writers, connect on social media and ask! It’s important for writers to build a community, and this could be a good step for you to start building that network for yourself as you reach out.

It’s also important to think about the genre of your book and how accomplished the editor you’re considering is within that space. While a professional book editor may have terrific testimonials and qualifications, if you’re writing historical fiction and they have spent most of their career editing science fiction, they won’t be a good fit. 

(b) Consider the cost

Working with a professional book editor can be expensive, so having clear expectations on your part and on the part of the editor when it comes to fees is vital. Make sure you understand how much it will cost for them to read the manuscript once, and what their editing services include with that payment. Asking these questions will help:

• Will they sit down and talk with you in a virtual call?
• Will they respond to follow-up questions?
• What level of edit should you expect for that cost?
• How much would it cost for a second read if you and the editor decide one is needed?
• How much have you budgeted for this?
• What happens if the project goes over budget?

(c) Be clear about what level of book editing you need

As you start to research book editors, it’s really helpful to ask yourself what sort of edit you’re hoping for and what various editors can offer. Knowing the types of edits a typical manuscript goes through is useful to help you self-assess where your book might be.

These are the four main editorial services for you to consider:

Developmental editing

Developmental edits can also be referred to as structural edits.

Developmental editing is the stage when you and your editor can talk about any major or foundational changes that could improve your book... Proposed changes will naturally be different for every book. There are, though, broad questions that most writers tackle at this stage. Generally, they all aim to determine whether the final draft of your book fulfills its promise for readers of the genre.

• Is the opening the most intriguing it can be?
• Is the ending satisfying?
• Are there any missing or extraneous scenes?
• Are there plot holes to fix?
• Are we interested in each of the characters?
—Lily Lindon

Although you’ve already done this work in Step 2 above, often a manuscript needs at least one further round of work with a developmental editor to get it into its strongest shape.

Line editing

If your book is in good structural shape, it’s time to look at the quality of the line-by-line writing. This is where your craft as a writer comes in—you can improve your writing to make it smoother. Many writers understand this editorial stage far better than the developmental stage, and often believe their manuscript to be ready for line editing when, in fact, it still needs work. I’ve made this mistake with nearly all of my books, partly because I want to be at the line-editing stage sooner than I am! I’ve learned to slow down and pace myself through several drafts of developmental edits, which means I don’t waste time line-editing material I eventually need to cut.

Are there words you use too much? Are there metaphors that don’t quite work? Jokes that don’t land? Your editor will make expert suggestions to polish every page until you’re both happy it’s the best it can be.
—Tash Barsby

Here are some good questions to think about as you work with your editor on your line editing:

• Does each sentence honor each paragraph?
• Does each word honor each sentence?
• What is the purpose of this word/sentence/paragraph/chapter in the story?

Copy editing

A copy editor checks your manuscript for accuracy and consistency, improving the readability of the text and ensuring that it’s free from errors. It’s their job to help you fine-tune your manuscript, getting it ready for publication, and they should have extensive experience in this that they can direct you to. An editor who is skilled at copy editing is likely to be very different from a developmental editor.

Proofreading

After copy editing, the final stage of book editing is called a proofread. At this stage, the manuscript is about to be shared with a reader. Hiring a proofreader when your book is almost publication-ready is essential if you plan to self-publish, so you can be sure that your final manuscript is as close to perfect as possible before it reaches the reader. Proofreading is different to copy editing, because this step ensures the writing is flawless and free of grammatical and spelling errors. You don’t need to pay to hire a proofreading editor if you’re submitting for publication, although we do still recommend making sure your manuscript is as flawless and error-free as you can possibly make it if you’re submitting to an agent or a publisher.

One thing to keep in mind is that when you start talking to a professional book editor, they may suggest you need more extensive edits than you’d initially hoped, so it’s important to stay flexible in this process and find someone to work with whom you trust.

I’ve learned to slow down and pace myself through several drafts of developmental edits, which means I don’t waste time line-editing material I eventually need to cut.
—Alice Kuipers

(d) Talk to the editor

The best way to see if you and your potential editor might be a good fit (especially if you are considering more than one editor) is to have a short conversation. I prefer to do this in a virtual call, because it gives me a good sense of the editor’s personality and process. I want a professional book editor who is knowledgeable and rigorous but also kind and positive—and also someone I get along with well enough to trust.

At The Novelry, we have monthly Ask the Editor sessions where our writers meet the members of our editorial team and ask any questions they have about their stories and the editing process in general. Our editors also host special guest sessions with publishers and agents, giving a good sense of their interests, knowledge, and confidence with various genres. These friendly and informal spaces are a good way to get a sense of an editor’s personality.

If you want to find a similar space, look out for online conferences where your potential book editor is presenting, or see if they’ve shared any video content for you to review.

(e) Can they do a trial edit of your first chapter?

When I started to work with the editor I hired, we began with a shorter contract. I asked her to read a chapter outline, the synopsis, and the first few thousand words. This meant that we could do a good developmental edit based on her thoughts on the chapter outline, and I could keep the costs down. I worked on my book editing with her comments and improved my manuscript before sending the whole book to her for a full read, where she gave more focused feedback.

Doing this helped me confirm that the editor felt like a good fit for me. So don’t be afraid to ask your potential editor what a shorter edit could look like when you first contact them about their editing services, and check your budget accordingly.

In The Big Edit, when you first meet the professional editor you’ve chosen from our editorial team, they will have already read your chapter outline and synopsis, so they can do this developmental work with you before you progress to The Ultimate Manuscript Assessment. This process leads to success for our writers because it helps them deal with bigger structural changes before they move on to polishing the work.

How to show up for the editing process

Hopefully, you have now found someone you want to work with! Here are a few quick tips to help that process go seamlessly.

1. Don’t rework your material once you’ve sent it

It’s so easy to suddenly see changes you could make when the manuscript is in someone else’s hands. If ideas come to you at this stage, make some notes and input any changes once the editor has got back to you.

2. Be on time

From the beginning to the end of the editorial process, treat the whole experience professionally.

3. Be respectful and organized

The editor may love your work and want to introduce you to people they know in the publishing industry one day, so showing up the way you would for work is a good way to present yourself and build relationships.

4. Listen

The art of being edited requires that you listen in an open way to someone else’s experience of reading your work. You’ve chosen your editor because you’ve been able to ascertain that their editing services will work for you and your story, so listening to their advice and comments is key to the success of your book.

If you want more support through this whole process, have a look at our online creative writing courses. Editing is hard, but as you learn to interrogate your writing and make it stronger for a reader, you’re increasing your chances of industry success.

If you want to ensure that you work with a professional editor who has experience working on highly acclaimed and even award-winning titles and who has sat at the editorial desk of a major publisher, take a closer look at our editing team. When you sign up for certain classes and courses with us at The Novelry, your sessions with a top editor are built in—along with our supportive community, your personal coaching from a published author, and our deep-dive modules and lessons: there to take you and your story all the way.

Wherever you are on your writer’s journey, we can offer the complete pathway from coming up with an idea through to ‘The End.’ Sign up and start today. The Novelry is the famous fiction writing school that is open to all!