At my last company, the job of “editor” was sort of a big deal. The editor was typically the supervisor of the analyst writing the research reports. That meant the editor had two jobs: First, to provide content and language guidance to the analyst. And second, to cajole and nag the analyst into producing something…
It’s time to revise a previous draft — of a blog post, a report, a book chapter, or any factual content. You’re dealing with feedback from others, or maybe just your own better insights into what you wanted to say. Should you tinker with words — self-editing — or rewrite from scratch? How cognitive biases…
I like Google Docs. I’m happy to edit your documents in it. Just don’t watch me work, okay? I edit documents in Microsoft Word or Google Docs. If you’re the client, you get to choose. What you can expect from me is not just word edits, but comments explaining why I made the choices I…
When I start editing your manuscript, I learn something about you, the writer. That’s not just a side effect. It’s actually central to my ability to edit your work effectively. I don’t set out to psychoanalyze you. It’s just impossible not to. To improve a manuscript, I must understand the author’s goals What is the…
Every editor has had this experience: deep into a manuscript, you find yourself reading a familiar passage. Sure enough, it duplicates content that was earlier in the manuscript. Don’t just delete it. Ask yourself why it’s there, and use that knowledge to make the manuscript better. Why writers repeat themselves All writers repeat information in…
I’ve now written or edited more than 25 books published by traditional or hybrid publishers. I know what your publisher is looking for, and what they will and won’t do for you. So it’s time for some straight talk about that. Publishers in 2021 won’t generally edit your book. They are looking for a publishable…
The duration of your editing process depends far more on you than it does on your editor. I recently told a friend of mine that I was working on editing two 70,000-word books right now. “How long does that take?” she asked. I didn’t have a simple answer, and that got me thinking. I’ve edited…
Writing an opinion piece is rarely the end of the process. The editors of your target publication are likely to request revisions. An effective writer budgets time for those revisions and maintains effort and creativity through the revision cycle. Responding to edits In the last three posts, I explained how I pitched, researched, and wrote…
Last week, two different authors told me they were sending chapters to a bunch of their friends to get feedback. One planned to send it to 40 people. This is terrible way to edit. Consider what happens when you crowdsource an edit Anyone who’s ever read a Wikipedia article has seen the incoherent and personality-free…