Don't Piss Off Your Editor

The editor and author relationship can be one of the most important of your writing career. We surveyed 100 editors and I’m excited to share the best (and worst) practices that authors can engage in. This survey was created and administered with Breann Green with Three Point Author Services << contact Breann on Facebook or visit their website here.

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Full Transcript:

We surveyed over a hundred editors to find out the things that they love and hate that authors do. Let's dive in and discuss the commonalities between the answers. One of the most common answers was sticking to deadlines. As you can imagine, editors have a packed calendar and you are one of several authors that is lined up on that calendar. If you turn in your manuscript late, it is going to cause them to hit the next author late, which has, you know, a trigger effect all the way down the line. So if you realize that you were not going to make your deadline, communicate with the editor, as soon as you can. It isn't going to fix the issue, but if they have advanced notice, then they can work to rearrange their schedule and to update the expectations of the other authors in line. But when you can always, always, always meet your deadline, because what you will find is if you don't eat your deadlines, the next time you reach out to that editor and want to get on their calendar, chances are they're going to be booked or just flat out tell you no. So meet your deadlines, and if you can't meet them, communicate with them as early as possible.

The other thing that you want to be in communication with about is your word count often if especially if you're booking months and months in advance and you aren't sure exactly how long your book's going to be, but you're expecting it to be, let's say 60,000 words. If you find out that it's going to be 75,000 words or 80,000 words or shorter than you originally expected, as soon as you know an accurate word count on your novel, shoot them an email and let them know because however long it's going to be, that's going to determine how long it takes them to review it. And again, is going to affect their calendar.

Okay, let's see. Number two, and this was by far listed, more than anything else in editors were really heated about it, and it's called scope creep. I actually had to Google that term because I was not familiar with it. But the bottom line is scope creep is when you send your editor either the full manuscript or half of the manuscript, and then you send them updates because you've made changes or you deleted chapter 42 and replaced it with new content. And unfortunately, I have done this multiple times. So when I read those survey results, I cringed inside because I have done this and I can absolutely understand why it would drive an editor crazy. So once you send that manuscript off to the editor, do not send them any more versions if you can possibly help it. Finish your manuscript, send it to them and then wait for them to go all the way through it, send back their notes. And if you did have revisions; include it in the next round of edits,

Third; use track changes. So this is more typically a newer author thing. When you send your manuscript, which needs to be in a word doc or a file that they can open using Microsoft word; they are going to send you back all of their comments. And then, you're going to go in and make those changes according to their suggestions. When you make those changes, be absolutely positive that you have track changes turned on. This is to ensure that they can see your changes and they don't have to try to figure out what changes you made, which is an extremely time-consuming and frustrating process if they have to do that. So, absolutely, absolutely be sure before you start revisions to turn on track changes and to save a version of your manuscript with all of those track changes showing so that they can see them

The next section refers to your manuscript. And one of the major things that drove editors crazy was authors that would send over a rough draft of their manuscript without editing it at all first. So before you send your manuscript over to the editor, you want it to be as perfect as you can make it. That includes finishing it, by all means, run it through spell check, or if you have something like Grammarly or a digital editor like that, run it through that, but go through and read it several times, improve it where you can. Don't have half completed scenes with a note to finish this later. Do as much as you can pretend like you're about to send this to an agent or to a publisher or you're about to publish it. And you want it to be as strong as it can before you send it to the editor.

These editors are reportedly getting manuscripts that are very, very rough or someone, especially if it's someone who has never written a book before that they just finished it and they sent it to them and they haven't really worked on it at all by themselves. Or if you are too close to the manuscript, get a beta reader to read it. There are places to find beta readers. I discuss it in my course, but get beta readers to read it, take their advice, make changes, and then again, send them the best manuscript we can so that they can do their job and make it even better. And don't expect them to rewrite it. They might tell you a character needs... your characters need more development, but they aren't going to go through your manuscripts and add things in. They're going to make comments, they're going to give you suggestions, and then it's going to be your job to actually go through and rewrite your manager.

Another thing is just have the expectation that when you send your manuscript off, you aren't going to be getting back piecemeal, parts of it as they review it. You have to send it off and then you have to just be patient. And trust me, that is a very difficult task sometimes because you're so excited and you want to know what they're thinking, and you're stressing about it, and you're emailing them and you're going, please tell me if you hate it, blah, blah, blah. Try not to bother them. When you submit it or prior to submitting it, you should have discussed an expectation of how long it would take them to return it. So then let them do their thing, and then you will review all of their changes at one time when they return the manuscript. And it's the same way for sending it to them; do not send it to them in chunks. Don't send them the first half and then the second half in a separate file or divide all of your manuscripts into different files by chapters. It needs to be in one file. You're sending them one file and you're getting one file back.

And the last but not least, and this is something that I've been mentioning the entire time. Communication, communication is number one. One week I would suggest; one week before your manuscript is due, reach out to the editor and say, Hey, I just want to make sure that we're still on schedule for me to deliver book XYZ on January 1st. And they should respond within 24 hours and say, yes, I'm expecting to on January 1st, I'll see you then. And at that point in time, when you reached out to me and say, the manuscript's final word count will be 62,500 words, give or take, you know, a hundred words, so that's a great time to tell them what that is. If you have been way off in your initial estimate, you really should have reached out to them prior to this, but worst case scenario, a week before, let them confirm your appointment and let them know the final manuscript count and then submit it to them by then. And if you have it done earlier, send it to them earlier because oftentimes they, you know, might finish up the manuscript ahead of them and get a headstart on it, or either way, they have the peace of mind of knowing they have your manuscript in hand and it's done.

Again, communicate, communicate. If you don't understand some suggestions they have; asked them questions. I would, you know, put all of your notes in one email, don't send them four or five different emails that they have to go through and answer different things and figure out your emails. You know, be concise and professional, but communicate, communicate, communicate. It's better to over communicate than under communicate. And let them know your thoughts where you're at in the process. Be open to their suggestions. If you disagree with them, don't argue with them, but feel free to communicate with your feelings. And if an editor isn't the right fit for you, make it through that book and then learn from that mistake... not from that mistake, but learn from that experience with the next editor. time

Again, you want to have a great editor author relationship. This is your reputation; editors talk amongst themselves just like authors do, so do everything you can to have positive interactions with your editor. And if you follow the suggestions in this video, it's going to go a long way to helping because you want to be that author that as soon as your email hits their inbox, they go, "Oh, I love working with Alessandra. I'm going to put her on my calendar. I'm going to shift things around and get her in quicker." And they look forward to your emails, they look forward to your manuscripts and then they in turn treat you well, they respond quickly, they edit you quickly, and they communicate with you quickly, which is great on both sides. Great to have communication and to give great communication. So, I hope this video helps. Best of luck with your editor and author relationship!