My editor helped me tighten my story outline.

My editor strengthened my memoir’s narrative.

My editor caught that I’d used the phrase “Here’s the thing” 24 times in my manuscript.

My editor saved me from writing “pubic” instead of “public.”

These are four different kinds of editors: developmental, substantive, copyeditor, and proofreader. You might need all of them. You might even need a fifth wild card: a book doctor. That’s an editor who doesn’t tell you how to fix your manuscript’s weaknesses. Instead, she does it for you.

Still working out the flow of the story you want to tell? You need a developmental editor. Someone who looks at your manuscript from a bird’s eye view and helps you strengthen your structure, clarify your story, differentiate your characters, and better engage your reader.

You wrote a pretty good manuscript and it’s time for a professional to look it over? You need a substantive editor, someone who will go through your story line by line and work at the sentence and paragraph level.

And no matter what, you’re gonna need a copyeditor/fact checker and a proofreader. No agent, publisher, or reader wants to read a book full of mistakes, inconsistencies, and typos.

Un-Settling Books programs have all these kinds of editing built in, but for those of you who hate the idea of joining a “program,” we also do this work a la carte. You can step in when you’re ready and get just what you need.

Just know that good editors book out several months in advance. Make sure you talk to and secure the services you’ll need well before you’re ready for them.

Not sure what you need, or when? This is true of many if not most of the writers we work with. Let’s talk, no charge. You’ll come away from our conversation with clarity about what to do next.

Tags: working with an editor