How To Test A Copy Editor

A good copy editor can significantly improve a book in all sorts of subtle and beautiful ways; a bad one can slash-and-burn their way through a manuscript and render it almost unreadable.

If you've ever considered hiring a copy editor to look at your work before you send it off to publishers or agents, here's a handy list of questions to ask before you trust them with your book. Read every word. Learn it off by heart. This is why professional editors are to be respected and adored.

Manuscript Display Sites: What Are The Chances?

On Authonomy’s message-board a while ago, a writer commented that she thought that HarperCollins would probably find one manuscript on Authonomy each month that was good enough to publish.

One a year might be a more reasonable hope.

When I was an editor I’d have been thrilled to find one publishable submission a month. But the vast majority of submissions I received weren't even readable, let alone publishable. Perhaps 10% were coherently written and showed a reasonable understanding of spelling, grammar and punctuation: but we considered very little of that 10% for publication because most of it just wasn’t suitable for our lists. We published non-fiction but fiction made up about half of the submissions we received; and the non-fiction that was submitted rarely fitted into the genres we worked within.

Based on what little I’ve read on Authonomy I’d say that a lot of the writing showcased there would come in the top 10%, so is already ahead of the game. But most of it is still a fair distance away from being publishable, as is perhaps evidenced by the fact that so far, just one book has been picked up for publication from the many that appear there.

Editorial Agencies

Suppose you’ve written a book which has received nothing but rejections, but you don’t understand how you could improve it. One way to get specific advice is to pay for an editorial assessment of the book which should point you in the right direction.

Editorial agencies are not without their problems: there are plenty which offer very expensive bad advice; and there are a few which are out-and-out scams (Edit Ink, anyone?). Some, though, provide a useful service: Sharon Maas, who had three novels published by HarperCollins, doubts that her first book would have been published at all had she not first worked with an editorial agency to improve it, and I’ve heard good things about others, too.

Writing a good book and using a good editorial agency to improve it won’t guarantee immediate publication, though, as Sally Zigmond discovered; and even the good agencies won’t always get it right—if you write in a genre they aren’t familiar with, or in a style they don’t particularly like (regardless of its literary merit), then you’re not going to get the best advice. And using the wrong agency for your particular book, even if it’s a good one, can be an expensive mistake to make: those reports can cost hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds.

If you’re determined to use an editorial agency to improve your book, how should you proceed? You need to find a few reputable agencies: either through personal recommendation, or through your own research. They must be run and staffed by people who are qualified to do the work: either by having appropriate editorial experience, or by being published writers themselves. They must be able to demonstrate that their reports have been effective: most will provide a list of clients and testimonials. And when you check, you’ll find those testimonials corroborated elsewhere, by people who are not in the agencies’ employ, and who have had a good degree of publishing success as a result of the advice that they received.

Cutting The Slush Pile Down To Size

The slush-pile is an ever-present sea of despair. Some writers wallow about in it for years, while editors avoid it's depressing claggy depths. Most of the books it contains have no hope of ever being published by a mainstream publishing house; and yet their writers are so determined to be published that they submit their work repeatedly, racking up the volume of the slush pile and making it even harder for agents and editors to discover the few commercially-publishable works that the slush-pile contains.

If the books which stood no chance of commercial publication were removed from the heap, the submissions system would be transformed: volume would be reduced and response times could be improved; and the big publishing houses might just well reopen their doors to unsolicited manuscripts.

How could this be achieved? First, by writers taking more care with their submissions by editing their work more carefully, and by ensuring that they submit only to appropriate markets; and then by the provision of an ethical alternative route into publishing for the manuscripts which are commercially unpublishable.

I’ll be discussing that last point in greater detail soon.

With Apologies To Angelas Everywhere

There’s a certain sort of writer that I’ve met a lot of over the years: I’ll call her Angela.

Writing means a lot to Angela. She considers it a form of high art: an expression of her true nature. She keeps her writing secret for a long time and when she finally lets her friend Beverly read it she’s reduced to tears when Beverly suggests that it might need a little revision.

Angela still has confidence in her work, and after much thought she decides that the problem lies with Beverly, for making such hurtful comments. Beverly has to be wrong, Angela insists: especially when Angela discovers Caroline’s writing group where everyone tells her how wonderful her work is.

So when Angela starts to submit her work to professional markets and gets form rejections (or, worse still, rejections which tell her that she’s just not good enough), she knows who to believe: her friends from Caroline’s writing group who have told her, over and over, that mistakes don’t matter, and that unknowns never get published unless they’ve got connections.

The one thing Angela never hears from her friends at Caroline’s writing group is that her work isn’t good enough. Which is a shame: because if she understood that she might put the effort into improving it, and eventually get it published.

On Criticism

1) Criticism of work is not criticism of self. So try to never take it personally.

2) When you’re offered criticism, consider how well-qualified the person making the offer is to criticise your work, and adjust your response accordingly.

3) While you’re not obliged to make any changes to your unpublished work as a result of any criticism it might receive, you’d be wise to consider doing so—especially if several readers have made the same suggestions.

4) Remember that your levels of reading comprehension drop dramatically when reading a criticism of your own work: you filter out the good stuff and magnify the bad, so that you translate “this is good but you need to work a little on your characterisation” into “I hate all your characters!”

5) Once your book is published, remember that people are entitled to their opinions and the only professional response to a review is to say thank you.

Right. Does anyone have any other points they would like to add to the list?

There’s An Odd Thing About Criticism

There are some strange dynamics to literary criticism.

The people who are most qualified to criticise—editors and agents—will usually not be eager to comment, while the people who are the least qualified—your mum or your best friend—will bite your head off for an opportunity to read and comment on your work.

When you receive criticism, this odd dynamic remains: editors and agents are likely to find fault with your work while your mother is likely to tell you how wonderful it is.

These dichotomies are paralleled by most writers’ reactions to criticism. The better or more experienced a writer is, the more likely he is to value the opinion of his editor and the less weight he’ll give to his mother’s proud comments.

Novice writers, however, insist that such editors just haven’t understood their work, and anyway—their mum loves it.

Don’t Polish For Ever

While blog-browsing I came across this rather wonderful comment here:

If your raw material is zirconia, no polishing in the world will make it a diamond.

Isn't that great?

I’ve heard of writers who have been reworking their first novels for eight or ten years in an attempt to get them published. They don’t seem able to move on to their next: instead they keep niggling at their first novel hoping to make it perfect, when they’ve got little or no hope of doing so.

The truth is that very few first novels get published, and that most published writers have at least one unpublished novel behind them. A writer learns so much with that first extended piece that subsequent works are almost always better.

Katie Fforde wrote eight novels then nearly gave up writing before getting a contract for her ninth, Living Dangerously. Her books are now everywhere.

Patricia Wood (who sometimes comments here: hello, Pat!) wrote three unpublished novels before Lottery was picked up: she ended up with the sort of advance that we all dream of, and a shortlisting for the Orange Prize for fiction.

Nicola Slade (who also comments here: I hope you’re waving, Nicky!) wrote six novels before her seventh, Scuba Dancing, was published: she's gone on to sell another, Murder Most Welcome, and has another deal looming.

By all means polish your work, but remember to keep writing new stuff too. Your writing will change and improve over the years, and there’s only so much you can do to improve an early, weak attempt.