The word “editor” conjures up a wizened little man or woman with a red pencil, finding all the places you wrote “which” when you should have used “that.” That is so far from what a good developmental editor does, which is to make a manuscript better. A great editor goes further, making a piece of…
I see a lot of publishers and other service companies offering a “developmental edit” for your book manuscript. I’ve seen what a lot of these editors do. In many cases, it’s pretty superficial, and quite far from actual developmental editing. Developmental editing is about making fundamental improvements to the relationship among the author, the reader,…
Jeevan Sivasubramaniam, editorial director of the publisher Berrett-Koehler, recently wrote that if you love your editor, they’re probably not doing a good job. This contradicts my experience. Great writers love great editors — and hate them at the same time. It’s a strange relationship. An analogy Imagine that you are working with a personal trainer…
Since I published my book, people are coming out of the woodwork asking me to ghostwrite for them. Ghostwriters are expensive and are often unavailable. So you should think carefully if you really need one, or if you need a developmental editor. Here’s a table of tasks that developmental editors and ghostwriters for nonfiction books…
For anyone who hasn’t used a developmental editor, it may be hard to understand what a developmental editor does. Put simply, a developmental editor reads a manuscript and makes suggestions intended to help that manuscript accomplish the author’s ultimate goal of communicating meaning. For example: Standing in for the reader Because of the kind of…
Developmental editing is the process of making a nonfiction book better in every way — including clarity of ideas, structure, tone, paragraphs, sentences, and words. Developmental editors aren’t cheap. Today, some ideas on how to manage that expense and make the book better at the same time. Cheap editors aren’t a bargain Depending on the…
What is a developmental editor? And why would you need one? What a developmental editor does The job of a developmental editor is to help you make your book better. Lots of people are confused about editors, because “editor” is one of those words that covers a huge amount of ground. At a publication, an…
A developmental editor can help make your book better. They also cost money — and spending that money wisely demands some preparation. Here are a few tips on getting the most out of a developmental editor. Choose the right kind of editor The job of the (nonfiction) editor is to stand in for your eventual…