How not to hire an editor

Editors typically care more about quality than money. If you want to hire one, this should change your approach.

Learn from how this guy tried (and failed) to hire an editor

Earlier this week, I received an unsolicited private message in LinkedIn, proposing to hire me as an editor. The sender, let’s call him Mr. X, was previously unknown to me. His LinkedIn profile described him as a “Family Office Partner/Investment Manager.” The message read:

looking for a thought partner-editor-writer

Hi Josh,

I’m launching a [three-sentence description of media project]. Are you the think partner we are looking for? Open to a quick chat? Want me to send you the job description?
Thanks,

[Mr. X]

Like all editorial professionals on LinkedIn, I regularly receive AI-generated pitches for scam “opportunities.” And like all consultants and owners of small businesses, I frequently receive ludicrous proposals from “family offices” to buy out my (one-person) consultancy. So I’m skeptical.

(As you read this, I’d like to note that I never agreed to keep this conversation or pitch confidential, in fact, the sender never even asked me for that. So I’d be well within my rights to publish all the details of what he’s planning. But that would be rude. So I’ve obscured the details; just know that he was offering an opportunity to help create or edit financially focused content.)

I sent this terse message to determine if it was possible this was a real opportunity and not a scam:

Is this a paid gig? If so, send the description. I’m available freelance only.

Sure enough, he responded with 1000 words of detail. I’ve redacted most of it in the description below since you don’t need the details to get the gist of the offer:

yes paid. yes freelance perferred [sic]. I did this with ai so nothing is fixed here. Just thought it would help with alignment a bit faster

I’ve built a [description of financial services newsletter].

Success in this job isn’t wordsmithing, efficiency, or matching what you think I subjectively want. It is whether the content solves the reader’s problem. . . .

We expect to need multiple writers and editors for this project, so we are building a small, dependable editorial team rather than hiring for only one position.

Where we are

We are pre-launch, with no paying customers yet.

[More details on the job, sounds very much like AI wrote it.]

You are editing a brand-new system of ideas, judged against one test: does it solve the reader’s problem?

If you edit from instinct or preference, this won’t work.

You’re the right person if
You’re an expert in newsletter architecture.
You’ve helped build paid newsletters from scratch that produced real sales.

[Lots more description of what he’s looking for, including . . . ] You have high intellectual horsepower. You can take a new problem and its assumptions, hold them accurately, and work through the logic independently.

[Many details on his exact desired process]

You’re the wrong person if . . . [more details]

To apply

Send me:

One paid newsletter you helped build and the number of units or subscriptions it sold.
One piece you edited, before and after, where your edit made it land better with the reader. Tell me what you changed and how you knew it worked. . . .

Please answer these questions directly. Generic applications will not be considered.

The trial

Strong fits will be paid to complete a short trial.

[Description of his trial process]

To his credit, now I could see exactly what he wanted. I could also tell it wasn’t right for me. So I responded in an attempt to end the conversation and stop wasting his time and mine.

Thanks for clarifying.

I’m not interested in the work to qualify for this. I have plenty of work, mostly on books.

Good luck. Good bye.

Then, from him . . .

anyone you could point me to that would be a better fit? I feel like the skills are very transferable. Because I am teaching them a framework to solve their problem.

and its [sic] way more lucrative then selling a book these days.

There seemed to me to be two messages in this: That books are for suckers and that money is what matters most. That was enough for me — I certainly wasn’t going to sent my friends to this guy. So I wrote back:

Nope. And thanks for taking a pot shot at my career on your way out — that was super classy.

And then, of course, from him:

NOT A POT SHOT! Sorry you interpretted [sic] that way. I just had to recruit someone with your experience and we were comparing his fee schedule vs ours. I was highlighting the benefits of pivoting from your career and learning something new. Good luck.

Wow. The classic non-apology apology: “I didn’t do anything wrong, I’m sorry you’re so dimwitted you couldn’t see I was trying to help you ditch your career for something better.”

If you want to hire an editor, you can learn from this interaction

You don’t want to be like Mr. X here, who made several classic mistakes in attempting to hire an editor. Let’s list them.

1. Be aware that our inboxes are full of scams. You need to be clear right up front that you are trying to hire and pay someone for editorial work. The leads I respond fastest to start with, “I’d like to hire you as an editor.” I don’t really know what a “think partner” is.
2. Don’t lead with money. Editorial professionals are most attracted to interesting work that makes a difference. We like to get paid, sure, but if we really wanted to make money above everything else, we’d be doing something more lucrative than editing. Keep this in mind as you attempt to hire one.
3. Don’t pitch us with AI. AI is a hot topic among editors these days; many of them hate it, and lots of others are justifiably suspicious of it. So if you start your pitch with “I did this with AI,” you’re basically saying, “I used AI because I’m too lazy to write the job description myself.” In other words, your time reading is less valuable than my time writing. And that’s insulting to the people you’re trying to hire.
4. Take note of how editors describe themselves. At the top of my LinkedIn, it says, “I help nonfiction authors succeed.” At the top of my website, it also says, in big black type, “I help nonfiction authors succeed.” I’m not hiding what I work on, it’s right there as obvious as I can make it. It’s the same with any other editorial professional. I describe myself as a book guy. So don’t be surprised when I say I work on books.
5. Take no for an answer. My LinkedIn experience goes back to 1982. I’ve been working on books for 20 years. It’s a little late for a career pivot, and I’m not looking for advice from somebody I just met. When I tell you what I do, if it’s not what you want, stop pitching and spend your time on someone else.
6. Don’t be clueless about the value of books. I’ve helped financial services professionals write books that generated lots of lucrative leads for them. Authors I’ve worked with have generated more than $20 million from their books. The authors I work with know books can make them money, even if it’s not from book sales. So if you describe your untested system as “way more lucrative then selling a book these days,” you just look ignorant.
7. Learn to apologize properly. If you made a mistake, own it. “I’m sorry you were offended” is arrogant, false, and insulting.

If, after reading all this, you want to work for this guy, send a message and I’ll connect you. Just don’t blame me if it works out poorly for you.

On the other hand, if you want to hire an editorial professional more motivated by quality than money, this is a good example of how not to to do it.