The Editor Gets Edited by Jodi Brandon

 

The Editor on Being Edited

Oh, how the tables have turned! I am a longtime book editor, and I recently went through the editing process from the other side of the table, as my next book, Write. Publish. Market., will be published this fall. I know full well that “it takes a village,” no matter how clean a manuscript is when it hits my editing desk.

 

In late May I picked a launch date for my book. I worked backward to create a publication time line. To allow for editing and design, I knew the bulk of the writing would need to be done over the summer. I followed the advice I give my writing coaching clients and created a writing schedule to complete my manuscript by the end of August. June would be for research and brain dumping and getting organized, and July and August would be for writing. That would give me time to review and revise before sending to my editor just after Labor Day. The best-laid plans, right?

 

The Writing Calendar

Life Gets Edited

My nephew visits from California each summer, and this year he visited in July rather than June (when he usually comes), smack in the middle of my writing time. Oops. Normally he splits his time with my husband and me, and with his grandparents (my parents). This year, however, my mother was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor a couple days before he arrived, so she was feeling lousy, had many medical appointments and tests, and frankly wasn’t really up for entertaining a pre-teen. Moral of the story: My nephew spent the entire two weeks at my house, and not as much writing got done as was scheduled. But that’s life, right? So I adjusted the calendar, doubled-down on some days in August, and got the manuscript finished — whew! — just before leaving for a conference. The timing ended up being great, because I was totally unfocused on the text for a few days but had time to do a review the manuscript with “fresh eyes” before submitting to my editor.

Editing With Fresh Eyes

I was able to revise the manuscript fairly quickly since I had been away from it — really away from it — for several days. I found I really enjoyed the process of reviewing the text, creating a heading hierarchy, and moving some sections of text to more appropriate places within the manuscript once I was able to see the overall manuscript more clearly.

 

Then it was off to the editor. At that point, I started to panic. Surely there are errors; I know better than to think there aren’t. But how embarrassed would I be to receive an edited manuscript with tons of errors?! I am, after all, an editor. Or even worse, what if she read it and said that I had not written to the intended audience? I had not allowed time in the schedule for major revisions before it would be due to the designer — just “typical” editing — and I had already announced the pub date on social media, to my email list, and so forth. Thankfully I have editor friends who recognize this sort of panic (like I do, when I’m the editor and not the “editee”) and calmed me down.

 

Instead of practicing what I preach to my clients (that is, to not think about the manuscript while it’s with the editor), I couldn’t help myself. I did not, I am pleased to report, open the manuscript and touch the text — it drives editors out of our minds when authors do that (version control, people!) — but I did stare down the table of contents for close to an hour each day. I waited (somewhat) patiently for 10 days until it was due back to me with edits and queries.

The Hard Part of Being Edited

When I received the manuscript back from my editor, I cringed. So many silly errors and typos that I should have caught and corrected, editor or not. But it’s like I tell my clients all the time: When you are so familiar with the text, you read what you think you wrote instead of what you actually did write. That was definitely the case for me.

 

It’s hard to be on the receiving end of queries and tracked changes, I admit. My editor did a great job of asking questions to help my clarify points in the text, pointing out a few terms that I should add to the glossary, and correcting mechanical errors. Her eyes on the manuscript helped me from publishing a book with silly (read: avoidable) errors. (Yes, I plan to have the book proofread before publication, but we all know that something always, always slips through, no matter how many eyes read the text, right?) Her expertise made my manuscript stronger and, well, just better for my readers. She pointed out a couple sections that could be moved, in their entirety, to another part of the manuscript where they’d make more sense from a reader’s perspective.

End in Sight for Editing

I worked through all of my editor’s edits and queries carefully and returned the manuscript to her for a second and final editing pass with her queries answered. I did not keep count, but my guess is I accepted more than 90% of her edits. I then wanted to sleep for three days (but instead I caught up on client work). The second-pass edit came back much cleaner, as is usually the case, and after one more review, I submitted the edited manuscript to the designer for layout. Again I wanted to sleep for three days (and again I instead caught up on client work). My book came out on Amazon Kindle on November 1, 2016 and I couldn’t be more pleased with the result!

 

Jodi Brandon has more than 20 years’ experience in book publishing. After graduating with BAs in professional writing and business administration, she began her career in New York on staff at William Morrow (now part of HarperCollins), and later moved to book packager Smallwood & Stewart and ultimately to niche publisher Career Press. In 2001, after relocating from New York to Philadelphia, Jodi launched her freelance editing business, with a specialty in non-fiction books. Jodi’s passion these days is working with independent nonfiction authors readying themselves for self-publication as an editor and a writing/publishing coach. Write.Publish.Market. is now available on Amazon Kindle. 

 

jodi@jodibrandoneditorial.com

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I had my copy of Write.Publish.Market as soon as it was available. A must-read for every entrepreneur! Get your copy today and let us know what you think.   Write.Publish.Market. is now available on Amazon Kindle. {This post contains affiliate links. that means I get a small commission when you purchase something using my link.}