Why You Should Hire a Professional Editor

Why You Should Hire a Professional Editor

By no means do all writers “need” to work with a pro editor. There are other options, such as working with only beta and alpha readers. Others rely on their colleagues and their own proofreading abilities and research, because it can be much less expensive to go without formal expertise. Of course, while beta and alpha readers are highly recommended in the publishing process, going through the journey without assistance from a professional book editor altogether is a big mistake.

Book Editing Benefits:

Depending on the genre of book you’re writing, your book editor will help you with multiple aspects; seeing your book from multiple fresh angles. While many editors work with their own style and format, they will all bring these benefits to the structure of your book:

1. Help you refine what you want to communicate
2. Save you from your writing weaknesses
3. Help you focus your narrative; therefore creating a more impactful message
4. Expand or trim your text, depending on the type of writer you are
5. Bring cohesion to storylines, chapters, and enhance characterization
6. Help you pace your story – bring more energy or slow it as needed
7. Weeds out your writerly foibles

The Biggest Benefit

As you can tell, the list can go on and on… But the real secret about professional editing is that it makes you look that much more trustworthy, impressive, and brilliant- all on your own. Obviously, we’d all like to think we really are that brilliant, but you don’t realize how much you miss, even in the grammar and mechanical parts of a manuscript. It’s such good form to credit your editors by their name whenever you have the chance. Your readers won’t know all the secrets: how many times they had to corral your wandering plot ideas or excessive adverbs. The reader will already assume you have an editor, so it’s best to give them a piece of material that leaves them saying, “Look what this author just did in this paragraph! Amazing!”

Our Own Mistakes Are Harder To Spot

As a consumer and reader, you probably catch other people’s mistakes all day long. Yours? Not so much. This is the nature of writing! Getting absolutely of your own head, bias, and intentions is a gift that nearly nobody has. To a certain degree, one could argue that “writing is subjective,” but writing to a specific audience is an art, and also a science. It’s important to hire someone with the proper tools and skillset to achieve your goals, instead of ‘shooting in the dark’.