Do you need to hire a developmental editor?

Once again, I have found myself privy to a debate about the merits of hiring editors. This time the focus was on developmental editors, and some of the comments... You have no idea how hard it was to bite my tongue and not go mental on social media.

Before I get too far down the track with this argument, I should remind my readers that a developmental editor looks at the story aspect of your manuscript. They will examine the structure, the character and plot development, the narrative voice, concepts of show vs tell, and all the nitty-gritty that goes with it. If you are looking at nonfiction (and not just creative nonfiction), a developmental editor still looks at structure, but they will examine the flow of information and the level of detail provided. Developmental editing is a huge job and the most important editing phase.

I have written about the stages of editing before, on numerous occasions, and still, I read far too many books that are lacking on the developmental editing front — both fiction and nonfiction. But I digress...

So... The comment that really got me riled up...

I quote:

"I was in a workshop with a literary agent ... she said she believed “all freelance editors were charlatins.” No joke. She wasn’t including copy editors in that group."

Okay, we'll ignore the fact that charlatans is spelled incorrectly. It was a comment made on social media, and even my phone spellchecker has failed me on numerous occasions. (Stupid autocorrect!) But the commenter in question also recommended that the writer who posed the original question about hiring developmental editors should seek an editor from Fiverr for all the good it would do them.

OMG, my eyes saw red. I so wanted to rip a new hole into the commenter for such remarks, but I would never do that on public social media. Nope, I turn such debates into a blog post instead. (Hmm... This could be a problem, but I'm doing it anyway.)

It's time to dispel some myths about what it is like working with developmental editors (myself included), and why I have made the decision to always hire a developmental editor for my personal writing projects.

The Real Costs of Editing. Here we go again!

Within my various editing groups, there seems to be a common complaint among editors, and it revolves around the issue of appropriate rates to charge. We editors seem to be in this "damned if we do, damned if we don't" position.

Most of us encounter those who look at our quoted rates and balk at the price — but as one said to me the other day, it's not necessarily the people we think either. (She sent out two quotes the week before, with the same rate quoted: one to a lawyer and the other to a retired gentleman. It was the lawyer who complained about the cost. The retired gentleman smiled as he paid the bill.) The flip side of this coin is that some look at our rates and compare it to the rates offered by others, and go, "Oh, you mustn't be very good. You're not charging anywhere near enough for what you say you do."

What are we editors to do?

Most of us encounter the former type of writer more than anything. Let's face it, there's this inherent nature that people have to be stingy with their finances, complaining that they can't get something for free. There's not a lot I can do about the second category, but with the first, I can educate writers about what it is they really face when working with freelance editors.

The Real Cost of Editing

I have recently joined a freelancing site in an attempt to drum up business. Let's face it, struggling writers often don't have a lot of cash; however, in going through the job listings, I've noticed a trend. Many writers don't actually have a true understanding of how much editing really costs.

I have encountered many jobs where a person has a budget of US$10, but they are wanting their manuscript of unspecified length to be fully edited by an experienced editor. That in itself is a complete joke, but the sheer number of them (many of whom are located in the US) has driven me to write this post. I feel the need to highlight to my readers exactly how much time goes into editing, and why you need to be prepared to pay in the order of US$600 – US$3000, in some cases even more, depending on the type of editing you require and the editor's experience.

You Need to Register Your Copyright

Every so often, I come across some blog post or a Facebook group message, or something, where a writer is asking about copyright certificates and the like. Amazon is becoming more insistent on obtaining those copyright certificates, and rightly so.

Too many times, I have encountered some horror story where some honest writer has had their precious work taken down from the Amazon sites because some BLEEP has chosen to claim that they own the copyright. If this happens to you, it falls on you to prove the other person is wrong.

To complicate matters, far too many writers choose not to register their copyright with a copyright authority because of the cost. However, these are the writers that run the risk of finding themselves being the victim of some copyright scam.

All writers want to protect their writing as much as possible, and for the most part, people are honest. It’s the shady ones that you need to worry about. Here is where taking a few simple steps can save you.

We can tell you haven’t edited your book.

There are many out there now self-publishing. They're decisions to head down this path have come about for a variety of reasons and there is nothing wrong with it. There have been many successful writers who have self-published, just as there has been many writers who have been traditionally published that bombed.

In some cases, writers elect to push for self-publishing because it's the fastest way to get your book out there. For time-sensitive, non-fiction books, this is likely the path you'll take. However, there is a HUGE difference between (1) producing a quality product that was self-published and (2) self-publishing because you want it out there.

In a previous post, I spoke about rushing the process. One flavor of the rush-the-process beast is the publish-without-editing variant.