No, your editor (probably) can’t make your book great

If your book stinks, I can’t make it great. But if your idea is awesome, maybe I can.

I get hired as an editor by all sorts of people. They bring me a manuscript — or sometimes, just an idea and a chapter or two — and say “Help me.”

I have all sorts of tools I can bring to this task. I can help you differentiate your idea. I can help you arrange the chapters in your book into a more rational, more dramatic order. I can help you arrange the content in each chapter. I can point out where your arguments are weak or trite. I can make suggestions on where you can insert stories to make your points come alive. I can highlight and edit clunky sentences, endless paragraphs, rambling asides, holes in logic, and repetition.

I can even tell you why you are having problems and what practices to follow to become a better thinker and a better writer.

Taken together, all of this can help you make a big improvement in your book. But I cannot perform miracles. I cannot turn garbage into brilliance. I cannot make up content out of whole cloth. I cannot do your thinking for you.

Three levels of book editing

Like all good editors, I can make things better — up to a point.

If you bring me a heap of undifferentiated, repetitive, poorly differentiated blather built around a weak and hackneyed idea, I can improve it. I can help you make the idea better, find support for your arguments, and organize the content better. I can turn a big mound of crap into a barely publishable book. It will be expensive and won’t help you much, but I can do it.

If you bring me a manuscript built around an interesting idea but one that has significant problems — for example, repetition, poor organization, flabby prose, and clumsy wording — I can improve it. I can help you turn a decent but flawed book into a good one. The good book, promoted properly, can probably help you accomplish many of your goals.

If you bring me a fascinating idea and a collection of great content — stories, research, personal reflections, gems of concepts explained well here and there — I can improve it. I can sharpen the idea. I can help you find the magic words to make the description of that idea come alive. I can show you where your text is shining and where it is not, and suggest how to make both parts a whole lot more effective. I can help you cure your bad writing habits. I can find the parts of your prose that both of us love and make them shine. I can help you turn a promising book into a great, amazing book.

The first kind of book makes me lots of money, but doesn’t make me happy. The last kind makes me very happy. I would much rather help midwife three great books than struggle to make one crappy book publishable, even if both sets of tasks pay about the same amount.

Most editors are like me — and AI will not replace them

Most editors are not in it for the money. They’re in it for the thrill of helping bring great books into being. That pays off in other ways: in personal fulfillment, and in a reputation that brings more great authors your way, including authors who can pay more for quality.

I can’t be sure, but I think AI tools are likely to get better at making crappy books publishable and decent books better. But I don’t think they will ever be able to turn promising but flawed books fantastic. That’s why I don’t think the best parts of my job are in danger.

This is work worth doing. It’s why I get up in the morning. And I’ll keep doing it until my brain, my eyes, and my hands can’t do it any more.