Very informative. I was wondering if you felt so much editing gets in the way of your own voice as a writer or if it stops you falling into the traps we authors set ourselves? Maybe a theme for another post?
At present, I think that we all have to wear so many hats. The fact is that my professional writing career is in limbo: Am I a TV critic, a board game critic, a screenwriter, or a novelist right now? When I'm depressed and wondering how to make it work, that feels like a curse. When I'm working on projects I'm passionate about and can see a path through the muck, it's exhilarating. I'm all of those things, and it may add up to more than their sum. Awful hard to see it from here, though.
I can see over the last few Substacks that you're doing a wardrobe assessment, examining all those hats. It's been illuminating for me, who's a bit of an idealist and shies away from discussing market principles.
Congrats on being accepted as an editor by Reedsy! And thank you for taking the time to share your insights as an editor in various capacities. I've edited others in a more academic context, but book editing is a completely different world to me and I'm still learning. You wrote, "The majority of successful writers aren’t edited formally prior to gaining an agent." What types of editing do you suggest for first time potential authors? I'd love to know what you think. I've seen so many different things on the internet and it's very overwhelming.
I'd say first things first, do what you can for free - get a writing group, a reader you trust, or a fellow writer with whom you can share critiques - all of these can pick up the same things an editor would. There are plenty of self-editing resources out there for free or cheap, too (I produced one for WriteMentor here: https://write-mentor.com/courses/community-learning-hub-online-modules/lessons/self-editing-with-kesia-lupo/ ). When you feel that you've got your book as far as it can go, and you are feeling happy with it, I think it's time to start querying. There's the option of being pretty responsive to critiques you get in queries - i.e. if you have a lot of responses saying that the beginning needs work then you can go back and do more. There is no right way to go about this but I generally like to dissuade authors from spending money to try to get published as there are no guarantees, and it can get very expensive. (Yes, I realize I'm talking myself out of a job - though it's still a great idea to hire an editor if you're self-publishing, for instance!) I hope this helps and thanks so much for reading my newsletter.
I love reading your posts (thanks for continuing with them!) and it's always so helpful to hear your insight because of your experience as an author, agent, and editor. With everything so competitive right now, do you think agents are spending more time editing before submitting? Or are they more likely to choose projects that are nearly sub ready when queried? Perhaps both? Thanks! :)
Anecdotally, I'm definitely seeing more newer agents getting editorially stuck in - but I don't think any agent is going to say no to a book that is close to sub ready. Thanks so much Michelle. :)
Very informative. I was wondering if you felt so much editing gets in the way of your own voice as a writer or if it stops you falling into the traps we authors set ourselves? Maybe a theme for another post?
Thank you Julia! Good question - short answer is it does get in the way and I still fall into ALL the traps. But yes, maybe one for next time…
At present, I think that we all have to wear so many hats. The fact is that my professional writing career is in limbo: Am I a TV critic, a board game critic, a screenwriter, or a novelist right now? When I'm depressed and wondering how to make it work, that feels like a curse. When I'm working on projects I'm passionate about and can see a path through the muck, it's exhilarating. I'm all of those things, and it may add up to more than their sum. Awful hard to see it from here, though.
I can see over the last few Substacks that you're doing a wardrobe assessment, examining all those hats. It's been illuminating for me, who's a bit of an idealist and shies away from discussing market principles.
Here's hoping all the hats fit eventually.
I get how you feel! It is hard when you have all these different hats - hoping things work out for you too.
Super insightful!! And congrats on switching over to freelance and being accepted on Reedsy! GOAT.
Thank you so much!!
This is all very enlightening. Congratulations on Reedsy!
Thank you so much!
Congrats on being accepted as an editor by Reedsy! And thank you for taking the time to share your insights as an editor in various capacities. I've edited others in a more academic context, but book editing is a completely different world to me and I'm still learning. You wrote, "The majority of successful writers aren’t edited formally prior to gaining an agent." What types of editing do you suggest for first time potential authors? I'd love to know what you think. I've seen so many different things on the internet and it's very overwhelming.
I'd say first things first, do what you can for free - get a writing group, a reader you trust, or a fellow writer with whom you can share critiques - all of these can pick up the same things an editor would. There are plenty of self-editing resources out there for free or cheap, too (I produced one for WriteMentor here: https://write-mentor.com/courses/community-learning-hub-online-modules/lessons/self-editing-with-kesia-lupo/ ). When you feel that you've got your book as far as it can go, and you are feeling happy with it, I think it's time to start querying. There's the option of being pretty responsive to critiques you get in queries - i.e. if you have a lot of responses saying that the beginning needs work then you can go back and do more. There is no right way to go about this but I generally like to dissuade authors from spending money to try to get published as there are no guarantees, and it can get very expensive. (Yes, I realize I'm talking myself out of a job - though it's still a great idea to hire an editor if you're self-publishing, for instance!) I hope this helps and thanks so much for reading my newsletter.
Thank you so much, Kesia! This was incredibly helpful! Thank you for affirming my hesitation to start paying for writing services just yet.
Thank you very much for the insights 👍❤️
Thanks, as always, for the publishing industry insights. Best of luck with the editing gig!
Thanks so much, Ronan!
I love reading your posts (thanks for continuing with them!) and it's always so helpful to hear your insight because of your experience as an author, agent, and editor. With everything so competitive right now, do you think agents are spending more time editing before submitting? Or are they more likely to choose projects that are nearly sub ready when queried? Perhaps both? Thanks! :)
Anecdotally, I'm definitely seeing more newer agents getting editorially stuck in - but I don't think any agent is going to say no to a book that is close to sub ready. Thanks so much Michelle. :)