10 Things New Writers Should Consider When Hiring a Freelance Editor

I work with writers on Reedsy. I work with writers on Upwork. I work with writing clients through a curated freelance agency in New York. Thirty-five years ago I started working in NY publishing houses, putting in more than a decade editing mostly nonfiction before turning to freelancing and to my own writing, three books with HarperCollins before changing direction and self-publishing after the death train of 2008–2009. I have written for The New York Times, Gourmet, AFAR Travel, regional pubs, started Edible Maine and another regional food magazine managing a wholly remote staff of a dozen journalists, photographers, and designers. Today, I write — and I edit.

The point: I know my shit, from proposal to epub formatting to pitching articles to dealing with the mega bitch Amazon to the slightly less so IngramSpark. More to the point: I know your shit, and boy do you have some stuff to learn. I can save you money. I can save you frustration. I can help you avoid that blood pressure spike, that migraine, that colossal timesuck and rework that bad choices entail. And guess what? It all starts with self-respect. And, like all good therapy, with the willingness to embrace change. That and some budget, gotta have some budget.

So, let’s jump right in at the deep end.

1. TIME TO SHUT THE FUCK UP — and let your editor speak! You’ve spewed your heart out in 100 thousand words, bled onto the freakin’ page, confessed things that would make a priest’s ears burn, that your mama never heard and so now, take a deep breath, stop talking, stop explaining. Time to release your baby into the arms of an expert. Quiet yourself. Go do yoga. Swim. Prepare to listen, prepare to hear, to open yourself to true knowledge, to experiencing the experience of another.
2. VALUE YOURSELF BY VALUING ANOTHER. For fuck’s sake, it took you two years of nights and weekends to write this, at the cost of sleep, certainly, but also maybe relationships, friendships, jobs, sanity, who knows? So you go out there, into that murky freelance universe, and you go on some forums, and holy shit! I can get someone to edit my book for $270! Umm. Yeah, kinda, sorta, not really? While you might think, hey, they speak English, so what if they’re in fill in offshore outsourcer here? I hate to be judge-y, but that has sweet FA to do with their editing skills, particularly cuz you’re not looking for an offshore book publisher. Just say no to the low-ballers, from whence-ever they come. Yeah, this is where the budget comes in. So, what now?
3. AVOID THE VANITY PUBLISHERS. These fuckwads have every corner of the internet staked out to reel in suckers. But YOU are too smart for that. You don’t go to a brothel for a gynecological exam. You don’t go to the planetarium and come out thinking you’re an astronomer. An editor provides a defined professional service. He/she/they are able to explain exactly who they are, who they’ve worked with and for, how they work, what exactly they do, what exactly they don’t do, and for how much. Oh, and guess what? The vanity publishers’ editors…yeah, $6/hr offshore hires.
4. PAY FOR EXPERIENCE, PAY FOR REAL WORLD CREDENTIALS. So, please tell me. Why would you hire someone who has three years’ experience in a narrow genre or who gets the gold-star rating from some platform because they’ve passed skill tests x, y, and z? Breaking news: skill tests can be faked in numerous ways. (Some jobs advertised on freelance sites are seeking exactly that: hiring test takers.) More breaking news: you can actually verify whether or not a person has worked at a company for x years by calling the HR department of that company and inquiring.
5. HIRE THE FEAR — THEN GO CONQUER IT! They, the truly good editors, seem to be looking into your mind, reading between the lines, making you pee your pants with their prescience. Your book doesn’t really start until about fifty pages in, the main character isn’t likable, there’s no third act, no one talks like her, how do we go from medieval Rome to 2020 Long Island in a line break? Yeah, you got work to do. It’s like Home Depot (but don’t shop there) — you can do it. And a good editor can help, show you how.
6. AN EDITOR IS NOT JUST A MANUSCRIPT MECHANIC. Fix the clutch. Change out the rear brakes. Replace the ball joints. Hopefully, when you choose an editor, that person will be someone who can walk with you on the whole journey, not just one finite bit of it. Editing a book is as much an art as a science. Or, perhaps, it starts as an art and finishes as a science.
7. DON’T HAVE A CASABLANCA RELATIONSHIP. Don’t expect your editor to do the thinking for the both of you. My guiding principle is, first, do no harm. Keeping the book as much in the spirit, as in the words, of the author’s intent is the goal, and the latter follows on the former in the good editor’s mind.
8. EDITING IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE; IT IS ALSO NOT PAINT-BY-NUMBERS. Let’s face it, no life hangs in the balance if that modifier is left dangling, or Chapter Three remains a hot mess, or Hermione still seems to suddenly appear as a character on page 112 to kill Ted two hundred pages later sight unseen in between. If you are any kind of writer, a good editor can help you solve your book’s problems. It may take a go round or three, but you will get there.
9. YOU CAN’T POLISH A TURD. I am a writer. I have, over the years, produced half a hard drive full of stillborn projects. Dreck. Bad idea. Juvenalia. Dumb plot. Hit the wall. Derivative. A truly good editor will be honest with you even though they are in effect emptying their wallet onto the ground. Some projects just need to die for you to move on to something that has a chance to live.
10. PRACTICE HAVING REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS. The act of writing is not inevitably followed by the act of publishing. It can be, but it is not always meant to be. Sometimes, even after you’ve killed all your babies, worked with your editor to fix Chapter 3, nailed that tween girl’s tone just right, replotted to avoid cliffhangers, and cut the first fifty pages, the book is just gonna end up being a few kilometers on your lifelong path to you becoming a better writer. The New Yorker just may never come calling. That’s okay.

Bottom line: a good editor is like a gigolo but they never fuck you — or fuck with you. They make you look good, they bring out the best in you, they pimp your sentences and fluff your verbs. But they don’t have any reason to lie to you, to promise you Per Se and deliver a hot dog. You pay them for that tough love, and you love the hurt, even as you kill your babies, throw out a week’s bloody prose, eviscerate the denouement, and kiss that perfect ending goodbye. They deliver all the bad news in the nicest way and convince you to take it. Think about it.