QQ No. 8
"Why do I need to keep editing my manuscript through various drafts before it’s sold to an actual editor at a publishing house?"
Literary agents are often asked these QUESTIONABLE QUESTIONS by writers looking to understand how book publishing works. They’re reasonable questions and yet they reveal a misunderstanding about the industry. I hope this series of answers is useful.
8. “Why do I need to keep editing my manuscript through various drafts before it’s sold to an actual editor at a publishing house?”
The first and most obvious answer, is that most of the editing will happen before an editor has even smelt your book.
It happens with yourself. It happens with your fellow-writer-pen-pals and of course, it happens with your agent. A fact which often gets overlooked. Probably because editors get to bear the glamorous editorial nametag. But I mustn’t sound too bitter. Agent isn’t bad.
As an agent I’ll work forwards and backwards with you on your manuscript before I try to sell it. If I don’t, take it as a compliment. Sometimes I can be editing a manuscript with an author for up to a year before selling time.
But I work with the hope that the version of your book presented to an editor is so good it stuns them with the powerful feeling they need to buy it. The best version of your book won’t merely feel like a good choice for a gap in the market, the publisher will sense they have the opportunity to acquire something distinctive – an exceptional book that will make an impact.
I understand this is stressful.
The time spent editing is delaying the sale and the work is unpaid. It’s frustrating for writers to see their book’s sale being pushed back by seemingly endless reworkings of the manuscript and proposal. It saps their creativity. Each edit drains away some of the adventure of writing. You can only return to the material so often before it looks dead on the page.
You need to feel sure that you’re getting the most from each revisit to your manuscript.
Are you certain the editorial input you’re getting from your agent is the best available? Are their comments insightful and helpful? Do they seem confident? Have they represented this kind of book successfully before?
Your agent may not be as skilled as the editors they are targeting to acquire the book, everyone needs to recognise their skills and their limitations. The job of agent has several important elements. Editorial guidance is only one, but it is one.
Sometimes a critical part of this job is finding you an editor who can offer a richer editorial engagement than my own. But the book must be good enough at sale to attract that editor into bidding for the rights in the first place. I represent a wide range of book genres and am not equally skilled as editor for all of these. That’s why occasionally I bring in a freelance specialist editor to work with us. There’s no excuse for not making your book all it can be before submission. My most confident editorial work is often with non-fiction books. With fiction, I can always offer self-awareness as a reader, reactions to scenes and characters and my mood flow through the book. Some novels I take on land deep inside me and I have access to a powerful response that I can articulate.
I have noticed something about editing that I haven’t talked about that much with other agents or editors. It felt almost magical the first times it happened.
I read the writer’s manuscript or book proposal, marked up all my thoughts and suggestions and then sitting with the author going through the text, it soon became clear that the passages I most admired, the bits whose brilliance jumped out at me or had me lost in story, were also where the writer had most enjoyed the act of writing - periods when they felt they inhabited their book, or it enclosed them. You can feel it in the brio of their writing, a pulse of glee emanating from the text - the writer’s own joy in their creating.
Another source of pleasure is seeing a great editor’s impact on a writer’s work. I think of a historical novel I sold to an imprint of publishing house Hachette. The author had had books published before. Her novel was already good. It could have been published at the time it was sold – and yet her editor’s contribution coaxed out an even higher level of storytelling. It’s a lovely thing to witness. Editors routinely add editorial value, but still these occasions of vision and empathetic engagement stand out.
That said, sometimes your ‘editor’ spends little time editing your book. I have sold books only partially written – and when published, it’s clear the best editorial work was done on chapters we worked on together before the book was sold. Which doesn’t necessarily mean the editor was a wrong choice.
Your editor may or not invest a lot of time on the edit. But it’s far from the only work they can do for you.
The ‘editor’ job title is a misnomer.
When you look forward to your publishing deal, don’t just wish to get the book’s ideal editor. Hope to get much more. Because the successful publication of your book depends on them – depends on the publisher’s various departments: Design, Production, Distribution, Sales, Marketing, Publicity and, yes, Editorial, all being focused on a common goal: to have your book make an impact.
It is one person’s responsibility to unite all their efforts.
They call them editors.
You might be better off thinking about them as the Managing Director of your book. Just don’t call them that. Nobody wants to be called Managing Director except the person who wants to be a managing director. “Editor” sounds much cooler. Why else has the title survived?
[ENDS]
Read disclaimer and hint for writers here.
Fascinating, and encouraging - I'm enjoying this deep dive into the process.
In TV / film they’re called “producers” (the “editor” sits in a windowless room with a stack of monitors, assembling the film)—which seems a more accurate description of the overseer’s role (“managing director” does feel too corporate, rather than logistic+creative). Not sure if “producer” would be cool enough for them (?). Plus, of course, publishers’ appropriation of “editor” predates TV and film’s by decades (centuries?).
PS what you say about the best bits of a manuscript jumping out when editing (“You can feel it in the brio of their writing, a pulse of glee emanating from the text...”) resonates with me for sure, both as a writer and as a reader.