I’m attending a conference on writing next month where I was signed up as an editor. However, by the time the organizers had signed me up, a lot of other editors had already agreed to participate. I was told to choose a “topic” for editing, but the only topic that hadn’t been claimed was sci-fi. Recently, I connected with someone from the conference who is working on a memoir, however, I was advised by the conference organizer to tell this author that I don’t edit memoir.

But, actually I do edit memoir. Quite well, in fact.

Filling in the gaps.

Above is a screen capture of a memoir written by Fred Gross. It was the first memoir I ever edited. I completed the edit in the South Bay in Los Angeles while waiting to serve jury duty. I had taken two folding chairs way in the back, and hoped the bailiff wouldn’t call my name. Eight hours later, he hadn’t, and Fred’s book was almost done. I performed a second pass at no charge because what Fred primarily needed was to add to his memoir. I believe I charged Fred a penny a word, below the industry rate at the time, and I gave him the second pass because the book needed it, and because Fred was writing a memoir about surviving the Nazi invasion of France during World War II. Important, historical stuff.

Fred knew how to write, but his memoir was too close to him—he couldn’t view it objectively to see the gaps within it.

Fred had written this book in the early 1970s, and when I met him he had been giving live talks on it for over 10 years, and failing to get a nibble on publication. Fred was a newspaper man. Fred knew how to write, but his memoir was too close to him—he couldn’t view it objectively to see the gaps within it. When he spoke in person those talks were better than the book he had in process because the audience could ask him directly about the gaps. Fred, however, couldn’t see the gaps in his manuscript. His brain didn’t see them because his brain knew what the missing pieces were, and probably supplied them to him every time he reread his book. 

Our brains are not our friends when it comes to editing. Just ask me. Every time I write a blog post, and, grudgingly run spell-check, I am surprised by all my typos. My brain is fixing them for me every time I reread my work. But, yeah, the typos persist. Your typos persist. Your holes in the story persist. It is the nature of writing, and any creative process.

But editors, in general, claim allegiance to one or two genres usually. This is standard. But I’m not a standard editor.

Think about how that comes about. People get an English degree, usually, and just decide, “Hey, I’m good at writing!” and they start calling themselves editors, and they edit the types of books they like to read. I took a different path.

A long and winding road.

I studied writing. First literature, then literary criticism, then art history, and creative writing, and then a huge dive into composition and rhetoric, which is why all my edits contain a pretty good proofread and grammar edit as part of the line/copy/developmental. I am well-versed in the APA, MLA, and CMS style guides. I spent many years doing college-entrance essays for students, because they, like Fred, often left out of their application stories exactly the information the evaluators wanted to know, because the students were too close to their own stories too. I would pick one up and look at the essay versus what had been asked for, and would shake my head at how thoroughly the students had missed the mark. Not because they were not intelligent humans. Because we’re too close to our own stories. All of us suffer that same malady.

I taught my first college course in 1990/91, and I taught my last college course in 2023. I stopped teaching because teaching involves a whole lot of other stuff that I find less-interesting than helping an author bring out a book. But, between 1990 and 2023 I taught creative writing, essay writing, memoir, critical thinking and analysis, film studies, surveys of literature in British, American, and African-American writing. I taught an ESL course here and there as asked. I taught some women’s history. I taught magical realism, and writing for the theater. And a lot more.

What all of that meant, aside from getting up to speed on each topic, was reading a lot of rough drafts, and second drafts, and final drafts of a lot of different styles of writing. 

I earned an MFA in poetry, studying under US Poet-Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera one-on-on over a whole semester, and then with Vermont poet Laureate Syd Lea for another semester. I was fortunate to be guided in craft by many talented and successful poets.

I don’t think you can be good at editing every genre when first starting out. And I don’t think you should learn on the backs of authors, who have no way to judge whether you know your stuff or not. But there are few other options, and so many authors are Guinea pigs for their editors. If a big-five publisher chooses an author’s book, they’re likely to hand it off to someone who is learning, and use it to teach that editor, and also pigeonhole that editor into one genre, because big publishers do that, and it makes it much easier to chop up the workflow. They’re not worried about the author getting the best edit. They’re training their workforce. And some editors will get assigned books that hit, while most will get assigned books that don’t, and those editors will be soon out of work, and set themselves up as “former editor for…” on freelance sites.

Avoid hiring editors who charge by the hour. You’ll be at risk of getting ripped off by a slow editor and subject to paying outrageously high fees.

So, editing is pricey. The Editorial Freelancer’s Association has set rates that range from 3-5 cents/word. (Don’t hire editors who charge by the hour. You’ll be at risk of getting ripped off by a slow editor and subject to paying outrageously high fees.) Those who are self-described as “a former editor for…” charge as high as 10 cents per word. Hiring an editor is probably the largest financial risk an author can take, but it’s also one of the most important in terms of succeeding.

If your goal is to pursue traditional publishing with the big companies or even the small ones, you need a professional edit. You do not need a proofread. Don’t pay for that. Do your edit and use Microsoft Word’s editor to proofread. It’ll do the job well enough. If a company or agent believes your book can be sold to a publisher, they’ll do another pass on it whether you want them to or not, and any publisher worth your time will do a proofread before publication. Present it with the narrative exactly where you want it to be, but leave them a little cleaning to do, or they may start hammering away at your narrative. (They may change the narrative/direction of your book anyway. It’s what they do.) 

So, how do you find a good editor?

There are several steps, the first of which is to obtain a sample edit. Five-ten pages is enough to see. But again, that’s only the first part of the process. Part 2 of this post features detailed information on what to expect from the sample edit and other steps to take toward securing an editor with the skills and mindset to both polish your work and teach you how to become a stronger writer through self-editing. You can access it here: