Book Editors: What Do They Do? Should You Hire One?

Why authors have to hire book editors?

After writing your book, what do you do next? Or rather, what should you do next? Submit your work to agents and publishers – or have a professional review your work? If you deeply care for your story and the people who will read it, you will probably do the latter. 

In the book publishing industry, there is always someone who could help ensure the quality, brevity and clarity of your book, be it fiction or non-fiction, a memoir, thriller, devotional, etc. Such is the job for the book editor, who could be either a copy editor or line editor or even both.

If you are an author, whether aspiring or experienced, you need people to review and critique and work. Many authors would be content with just having family and friends read their work and provide feedback. Some others don’t bother seeking feedback, believing or thinking their work is already perfect and is just going to get positive-only feedback or are just too timid or shy to ask for feedback.

A smart author, however, will seek and implement feedback as needed. If you are a smart author, you will proactively seek constructive feedback to improve your overall writing and storytelling skills, help your ideas grow and your stories succeed, see what’s working and what’s not, and, above all, write the best book ever. The best person to help you achieve such objectives would be your book editor.

Why should you seek professional help for your book? If you are a smart author, you will know it’s essential to have your manuscript reviewed by a pair of critical eyes. If it’s difficult for most people to spot every error in a written document, it’s practically impossible for an author to pick up every error in their manuscript because all too often, one’s brain will read what he/she thinks he/she wrote, making makes it easy to overlook mistakes.

What does a book editor really do?

It is the book editor’s business to pick up authors’ mistakes. The book editor will approach your manuscript differently as he/she has the capability to scan your manuscript for any sort of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors that you and other authors routinely come unstuck over. Book editors are impartial; though they can get invested emotionally and/or intellectually in your story or narrative, they will not have the same attachment as yours to words or phrases. They will not hesitate to delete words, phrases, and even paragraphs to improve the overall flow of your story or narrative.

Book editors got their start by excelling on their languages subjects in schools, which is the best place for aspiring authors and editors to develop their love for reading and writing. Many editors also honed their craft by working at related jobs, such as teaching. There are also authors such as Greg Van Arsdale (author of Beyond Mere Belief, The Genesis Project, and The Chuck and Lisa Series) who transitioned into full-time book editing. Given his versatility and range, Van Arsdale’s Copy Editing and line editing services cater to both fiction and nonfiction authors.

Book editors exhibit the following skills:

Exceptional Editing. It is the book editor’s job to spot and rectify grammatical errors, sentence construction problems, redundancies, overuse of phrases and words, and other languages issues – barriers to an author’s publication goals. A book editor can iron out all such errors without compromising your story or narrative.

Excellent communication. A book editor should know how to communicate with their author-clients to get a better view and understanding of their work. This skill is best exhibited in their work – the edited manuscript.

Ability to handle pressure. Book editors have time to read manuscripts and deal with authors but only a few seconds or a few minutes to decide whether a sentence needs a period, a question mark or an exclamation mark, or a paragraph needs to be trimmed or tightened or an adjective or an adverb.

Ability to meet deadlines. For full-time book editors, things go round the clock. There are scores of manuscripts to read, tons of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors to blot out, and decisions to make. Book editors cannot keep the authors waiting or let the manuscripts collect dust.