Episode 101 - The First Process of Publishing: Editorial with Orna Ross
October 12, 2021
In this week's episode of The Indy Author Podcast, Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors joins me for the first of a series of seven episodes devoted to the Seven Processes of Publishing. This week the focus is on Editorial. We talk about the different stages of editing, and the importance of distinguishing the deepening and development process from the correction and clarification process. We discuss how you can gain distance from your work by experiencing it in a different time, place, or format. We discuss the different types of professional editing, and how to balance your opinion of your work with the opinions of others.
Orna Ross is the founder and head of the Alliance of Independent Authors, a non-profit professional business membership organization for self-publishing authors. ALLi provides trusted advice, supportive guidance, and a range of resources, within a welcoming community of authors and advisors.
"I recommend to treat the hiring of an editor like you treat taking on a spouse for life. It's a really huge decision. Do not rush it." —Orna Ross
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[00:00:00] Matty: We're here for the first of our series of the seven processes of publishing. So, hello, Orna for rejoining us on The Indy Author Podcast!
[00:00:08] Orna: Hi Matty, delighted to be here, for this big project.
[00:00:12] Matty: Yeah, I'm delighted to have you back. And today in this first episode, we are going to be talking about the editorial process, but I thought that because ALLi doesn't consider the writing part specific to the seven processes of publishing, that's pre publishing, but I didn't want to overlook the writing portion. So obviously we could do another seven episodes on writing, but I thought just to ease us into the editorial discussion, are there any parts of the writing process that you think are especially important to prepare yourself and your manuscript best for the publishing processes that follow?
[00:00:51] Orna: Yeah. Sure, so obviously writing is the most important thing. By not including it in the publishing process is not in any way to say that it is a stage to be rushed or anything like that. On the contrary. So, I mean, officially the publishing process begins when you bring in the professional editors. But obviously writing still goes on after that, and we talk about that in a few moments, when we look at the formal editorial process, if you like. But it's really important to prepare your manuscript really, really well when you're a self-publishing writer. So it's always important, to do the very best you can.
[00:01:34] So, there are seven stages as you so rightly said to the writing process itself. And those end stages of the process for a self-publishing writer are more intense, I think, because you are going to be publishing your own work and that in a sense means that you have to get to a higher degree of perfection before somebody else sees it.
[00:01:59] So very often when you're submitting to traditional publishing, there is a whole series of sending it out, getting feedback, getting it back, getting it rejected, and if you're lucky, in the rejections, people will pick out some aspects. Or even if they don't, very often when it comes back, you'll read it again and you'll think, okay, I'll polish it up another bit before I send it out again. So very often there's self-editing processes going on in the submission. When you know you're going to publish yourself, you can rush things. I think that's the main thing I would like to say is, take it easy at the end. ...
[00:00:08] Orna: Hi Matty, delighted to be here, for this big project.
[00:00:12] Matty: Yeah, I'm delighted to have you back. And today in this first episode, we are going to be talking about the editorial process, but I thought that because ALLi doesn't consider the writing part specific to the seven processes of publishing, that's pre publishing, but I didn't want to overlook the writing portion. So obviously we could do another seven episodes on writing, but I thought just to ease us into the editorial discussion, are there any parts of the writing process that you think are especially important to prepare yourself and your manuscript best for the publishing processes that follow?
[00:00:51] Orna: Yeah. Sure, so obviously writing is the most important thing. By not including it in the publishing process is not in any way to say that it is a stage to be rushed or anything like that. On the contrary. So, I mean, officially the publishing process begins when you bring in the professional editors. But obviously writing still goes on after that, and we talk about that in a few moments, when we look at the formal editorial process, if you like. But it's really important to prepare your manuscript really, really well when you're a self-publishing writer. So it's always important, to do the very best you can.
[00:01:34] So, there are seven stages as you so rightly said to the writing process itself. And those end stages of the process for a self-publishing writer are more intense, I think, because you are going to be publishing your own work and that in a sense means that you have to get to a higher degree of perfection before somebody else sees it.
[00:01:59] So very often when you're submitting to traditional publishing, there is a whole series of sending it out, getting feedback, getting it back, getting it rejected, and if you're lucky, in the rejections, people will pick out some aspects. Or even if they don't, very often when it comes back, you'll read it again and you'll think, okay, I'll polish it up another bit before I send it out again. So very often there's self-editing processes going on in the submission. When you know you're going to publish yourself, you can rush things. I think that's the main thing I would like to say is, take it easy at the end. ...
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[00:02:36] So after your first draft there at least two other drafts that you need to do. The first one is the deepening draft and it's best done when you've completed a first draft to your own satisfaction. It's best to put it away for a while and get some distance and then do a deepening draft.
[00:02:55] And the deepening draft is an elaboration. The first draft is for you to see what's there, explain it to yourself. The second, the deepening draft is about explaining it to everybody else. And so you identify gaps. And I think the most useful thing to do in this draft is to look at bits that you really like, pick out their shining qualities and then try to bring those qualities to the bits that you're not so happy with. So it's an elevation process, really.
[00:03:22] And so I always recommend that people go through, they begin after the first draft, after they rested the first draft, they begin by picking out the bits you like. Our inner critic is so alive that the first thing we want to do is correct, but actually strengthening your strengths is better, is equally important, but I actually think it's more important. You could argue that it's equally important, but for me, I think it's more important to recognize your strengths and to develop those and augment the awesome. This is how I like to think of it.
[00:03:56] And then the next draft is clearing the crap, so the correction draft then comes afterwards, the fixing up. And there's a lot of information and advice there about the correction, but not so much about strengthening what's good. And all of us as writers, we have strengths and weaknesses, and it really does help us to develop our craft and to recognize which aspects we are good at and which ones we need more support in. So the deepening draft, then the editing, the self-editing and clarification draft, and then there's all the finishing actions that we need to take to wrap it up as it were.
[00:04:39] And then I think the other thing that really is good to do before it goes to a professional editor is to get some form of beta reading done, whereby you send it out to some trusted people who know what they're talking about. You could give it to your family and friends, and you will get feedback there, that's fine, if you want to, if you have kind of family and friends that want to read it or will finish it or whatever. I don't. But if you do, great.
[00:05:05] I know that for a lot of people, they have family members kind of the first reader and their ideal reader. That's great if you have that. But go beyond that. Go to people who actually have some expertise, either who read a lot in your genre, or who actually are writers themselves in your genre or have worked as editors. The more they know about your specific kind of book, the more useful their feedback can be.
[00:05:30] So, send it out to I would say at least five trusted others and get some feedback. And as always with feedback, read it, absorb it, and see what makes sense to you. If a few people are saying the same thing, it's usually something to take note of and make some changes accordingly.
[00:05:49] They may suggest ideas for what you should do. You may accept that idea straight up, but more often what you'll do is say, I don't love the solution, but I do see the problem and then get stuck in there and solving it in your own way. And then you should be ready for a professional edit.
[00:06:08] Matty: I felt that one thing that I've learned over time is among my pool of people, my pre edit readers, my beta readers, I've started to realize what their focus is, what the focus of each of them is. So I have one beta reader who is great at the big picture, who can step back and say, I really felt like about a third of the way through there needed to be something else big that happened in order to sustain me through the following chapters. And so I'm always sure to give that person an early copy.
[00:06:40] And then I had the reader that's, more, I found a typo on page 75, and so I give that person later. So I think it's also important to adjust when you involve each of the readers at the point when their strengths and reading are going to do you the most good. Because it doesn't really help me to find the typos when I'm still trying to figure out the plot. And it doesn't really help me to find out a great plot idea when I'm at the end and it would be harder to adjust.
[00:07:05] Orna: Terrific tip. Yeah, really good. And I mean, this is great when you establish a team, when you've done more than one book, when you have a few books under your belt, and you get used to working with the same people. Yeah, it's fantastic when that happens, and you have dedicated readers. Because the relationship improves on their ability to read your work and to understand what you're trying to do, all of that improves as the relationship becomes more long-term so, yeah, that's really great.
[00:07:34] Matty: I always think it's interesting to hear people talk about writing because I'm almost always astounded, I'll hear authors whose work I love talk about it, and I just want to say, seriously, you can create a book doing that? I mean, the thing that strikes me every time is, I've interviewed a lot of crime fiction and thriller authors on the podcast and almost all of them are of the, and that I was so surprised when I found out who the murderer was family. And I think how can you possibly do that?
[00:08:03] And for me, I've always found that doing this full-time now and needing to be as efficient as I can, the more I outlined ahead of time, the fewer unproductive paths I went through, and that worked pretty well until the book that I'm trying to finish for the editor now. And so this is my, I guess, eighth or ninth novel. And I felt like it was getting more and more efficient by sort of going through and doing a very high level, you know, the whole story in 10,000 words, and then fleshing it out a little more. Now it's the whole story in 30,000 words and doing passes through it.
[00:08:41] But this time I feel like I stretched it out too long and now I'm really struggling to retain my interest in what is probably the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, I don't even know any more, pass through it. So I think it's just something that people have to keep an eye on and not get locked in and realize that something might've worked for three books and maybe not so much anymore and it's time to rethink.
[00:09:04] Orna: It's funny, isn't it? The way writing goes like that, and I think that kind of thing happens before leveling up. So usually a change in your process, a change in your way of doing things is a breakthrough at the craft level. It's usually my experience there's something there that's about to change and be different. So it's actually quite an exciting time. But finding your way through to a whole new way of doing things, it can feel quite painful actually, because you can feel a bit lost and confused until it rights itself.
[00:09:38] Matty: And I think the beta readers can play a great role in that, especially if they're trusted colleagues, but also generally fans of your work, because you can get done with the almost final draft and think, oh my God, this is so boring, who would want to read it? And then give it to people, and you can, it's very therapeutic to hear, as you said, you know, what you're good at.
[00:10:00] Orna: Yeah, and they see things you didn't see. And Michael La Ronn, I think I may have said this the last time I was on your podcast, but it really struck me and I'm always quoting him. Michael La Ronn is one of the ALLi team here. Novelist and nonfiction writer and poetry, he writes across the three genres, and he has a saying that the worst judge of a book is its author.
[00:10:24] Just forget it. If you're bored it does not mean somebody else is bored, if you think it's fantastic, it does not mean somebody else, or even you tomorrow, are going to think it's fantastic. Your opinion really isn't important at all. Just keep on moving through the process.
[00:10:41] Matty: Yeah. It's what the readers think that really counts in the end.
[00:10:45] Orna: Sure. And even then, what's it going to be? Some of them are going to like it and some of them aren't going to like it, and what do you even do with that except do the next book? So it is constantly that kind of keeping your eye on what needs to be done next rather than getting too lost. And I see this with new writers, I suppose I'm speaking particularly to people who may be listening who are on their first book, because I do see this a lot with people who are starting out. But there's great energy for the first draft and even a second or third pass through. But then there could be a reluctance to finish and get on with it, as it were, and you can get stuck in the writing and rewriting.
[00:11:30] And I'm not suggesting that's what's happening here with you at all because you're very experienced, that's different. But there can be a fear about putting your book out for the first time and you can get caught in a perfectionism that's not really improving it very much. You're just going round and round in circles really, and anything, any major improvements you're going to make has been done. There's nothing else for you to do. And the most useful thing for you as a writer is actually to get it up, get it out there, publish it, get some readers, get their feedback, get going on book number two. It's going to be much better for your development as a writer than doing another pass.
[00:12:07] Matty: Yeah. And I also liked the advice about letting it sit for a while because you can, if you're just slogging away, slogging away, slogging away, at some point, you're not going to have any new ideas. And I know you and Michael, although I think you have different recommendations for the duration of time to let it sit, but both have that common recommendation about letting it sit for some time.
[00:12:27] Orna: Yes. I suggest much longer than he does. You know, he had a heart attack when I was saying, if you can, leave it for a year and we'll go away and work on something else. But of course, Michael doesn't take Michael anything like that, it takes me a year to put a book together. It doesn't take him anything like that. So, I do think it's very useful to go away and work on something else and come back because we get so closed to the work, particularly, if we've been drafting and redrafting and you just don't see it clearly. And working on something else actually improves you craft a little bit, so when you come back, you're a bit better than you were when you were there previously. But it's really, you want enough distance to approach it like a reader rather than the person who authored it.
[00:13:17] Matty: It is fun sometimes, and I think I had this conversation with someone on the podcast fairly recently about going back. Of course, if you ever reread something you've put out before, like if you're preparing for a reading or something like that, and of course you're going to see things you want to fix, but then every once in a while, you do come across the things that are like, whoa, that's pretty good. I'm pretty proud of it. So that's fun too.
[00:13:44] So let's assume we've taken all these steps, we're at the point where it's as good as we and our beta readers can make it, and now we're looking at the professional edit. So talk a little bit about the different types of professional edits that are out there and what the differences are among them.
[00:13:59] Orna: Yeah. So, I mean, I think we touched on it a little bit already. I think of them as three. People break them down in different ways. So the way in which we break them down is threefold.
[00:14:09] So you've got the big picture and editor who looks at the work as a whole. And there's all sorts of names for these different editors, so it can be a bit confusing at first when you come to it, because the UK terms and the US terms can be a bit different and then the people have different terms for it. But essentially, we're looking at the development of the novel. So, the book could be nonfiction book either that we're talking about or poetry books.
[00:14:35] So we're looking at the book as a whole, its structure and if it is fiction, whether the characterization is consistent, consistency generally, repetition. Repetition of effect at this level, at the developmental level, so you have, a tendency for revelations to come in the same sort of way each time it happens, for example. And we all have favorite tics and things, that we don't even know that we have.
[00:15:04] This is the big picture person. And, really, really, the most important editing for a first book, for new writers who are publishing for the first time. It's expensive and a lot of writers resist actually forking out for this kind of work, but I can't stress how important it is and how much to view it not just as a publishing expense, which it is, but to view it as an investment in your writing craft.
[00:15:39] So lots of authors go off and do MFAs, MAs in creative writing. Honestly, the investment in a good developmental edit of a book that you've already done is a better investment in terms of learning what you need to learn to progress you to the next level. I'm not saying you shouldn't do MFAs or MAs, but I'm just saying if you have to choose between one or the other, I know which one I think is more important. It's just so important to begin to understand a book at that level, at that big picture level, it really develops your craft as a writer.
[00:16:17] The next level then I think of as being on the kind of the paragraph and sentence level. It's called copy editing, and again, there are lots of different terms for it. But the editor here is looking more at the actual structure of your sentences and your paragraphs, your chapters, but particularly how you use words, making sure that grammar is okay, again, calling repetitions, smaller kinds of repetitions, the repetitions of words or phrases that you tend to overuse, all that kind of thing.
[00:16:52] And then the third and final stage is proofreading and that's at the word level where things are being corrected, proofreading, typos, and again, grammatical infelicities or misspellings or all of that.
[00:17:08] So I think the overall thing to say about the three kinds of editing is language is a very complex substance. If you're an artist who is working with mud or something, it's different. Language is very, very complex and it's very detailed, and we need professional help to see how we're using it. Our brain when we look at our own work goes into a sort of a blur zone. Working with editorial professionals really helps us to sharpen our awareness of language and how we use it generally, as well as obviously specifically improving that particular book so the reader can enjoy it. So all of this is about making what was in your head as clear, as crystal clear as possible for the reader to understand it.
[00:18:00] Matty: I had a question, this is going to be a little selfish because this is the situation, I find myself in now, but I think this is probably a scenario that other people share as well. But basically, I'm budgeting for one edit, and I have an editor that I've worked with on several books and in general, the copy-editing aspect isn't that intensive. And in fact, in some cases I've just told him it's generally cases where I'm trying to favor grammatical correctness over ease of reading in a genre type fiction book. And, I've even said to him, just highlight the parts that I need to work on because I can fix that myself. What I need is more of the big picture, more of the developmental edit.
[00:18:40] And so, as an example, in one of the books that he edited, there was a storyline that I had wrapped up at the end, but he was saying, this is supposed to be more of a thriller. You've wrapped it up, but it could be wrapped up much more excitingly. And so we had a conversation about sort of weighing adding some excitement with plausibility and how to balance that, so it was satisfying but also plausible. And so that's always what I'm looking for from my editor. And then for the proofread, I have some beta readers who are excellent proofreaders. So I generally just give them the final copy to get the proofread done.
[00:19:16] But the situation I'm in now is that my book is eventually going to be, let's say, 80, 85,000 words. And I probably have about 70,000 words of fairly final copy. So in a way, I want to give it to him as-is because if he says, oh, this whole subplot is just not working at all. I don't really want to have polished it up, taking the time to polish it up before I give it to him. So there's always this balance between giving them as much as possible so you get that professional perspective, but not so much that you've overworked something. Do you have any advice on that front?
[00:19:54] Orna: Yeah, I do. I know exactly what you're talking about because you can waste our other, as well as money, you can waste our most valuable resource, which is time. And if you're going to lose big chunks, particularly in the developmental process, you don't want to have polished it too finely. And this is what I find again happens a lot with beginner writers and stuff, they can spend a lot of time polishing the small stuff way too soon, long before the other stuff has been organized.
[00:20:24] So, yeah, I mean, the other thing that your question really highlights, and I think it's so important to say this is, this is not linear, and this is never straightforward. So it's always a little bit messy and it's always a balancing of different needs and we don't have infinite resources, time or money, for this edit, and so we're always balancing. And so, yes, I think if what we're asking for is a developmental edit, then there's not a lot of point in getting very stuck in certainly at the proofreading level.
[00:20:57] The problem with not doing it well enough at the copy edit level is that there can be a lack of clarity. So sometimes if the words are loose it's because something else is loose. And so while we do want to protect our time and protect our money and so on, sometimes it's nothing for it except to get stuck in. And I know this is a really unsatisfactory answer because the answer is, as it so often is with publishing and indeed with writing, is it depends.
[00:21:28] And really you are the best judge. If you feel that giving it to him as it is, you have the skills to do the copyedit when the time is right and that it is written well enough for him to be clear about what happens there, because sometimes if we haven't done, if we haven't gotten in there at the paragraph level, it's blurry. It's not clear what you're trying to achieve. It's not clear what you're saying, for example, about a character. Or your setup might be very clear in your own mind, but because you haven't done the work at word level, it's not actually that clear to the reader what's going on there.
[00:22:07] So as long as you don't have that kind of thing happening, as long as there's clarity there, then particularly if you feel there will be recommendations about, you know, that needs to be more exciting and you’re going to have to add in text, remove bodies of text, then yes, I think you could go ahead and give it in what might be a rawer state than you ever have before.
[00:22:33] Matty: It's interesting too, that you had mentioned earlier that even the terminology that's used for these different kinds of edits is different, and so when people are going out to look for an editor, there's not a guarantee that their expectation when they say "developmental edit" or "copy edit" or well, I think "proofread" people probably have a common understanding, but developmental editor, copy editor, other terms for that, that the terminology they're using is the same as the professional they're speaking with. Are there any recommendations you have for people to make sure that the author and the editor have a common understanding of what the expectation is?
[00:23:07] Orna: Yes. You're absolutely right and the other thing that comes in here that also adds to this challenge for the author who's seeking the best possible professional, is that some editors offer different kinds of editing, but they really are best at one type than they are they're better at than. Sometimes the testimonials on their website are general sorts of glowing testimonials, but you're not necessarily getting the full picture because obviously their website is there to sell their services and that's 100% the way it should be from their perspective.
[00:23:42] So I recommend to treat the hiring of an editor like you treat taking on a spouse for life. You know, it's a really huge decision. Do not rush it. Really do your research. So when you get to the point, first of all, have a look around and create a list of possible editors for your work. And then when you're seriously considering somebody, really investigate that person, first of all, in dialogue with them, so ask lots of questions and see what kind of answers you get. If there's somebody that does samples, get a sample, so you see what's there. Some editors don't do that. Lots do.
[00:24:27] And even if you feel this is the right editor for me, go through that process, do take your time. Look at the testimonials on their website. And then contact the authors. Ask the author what kind of edit they did, what they most valued about it, ask them about their weaker points. You know, we feel very grateful to our editors because they really do improve our books. They are the great unsung heroes of the publishing industry. They are just amazing, and I love the fact that indy authors now are really bringing their editors to the forefront, foregrounding them in their acknowledgements and so on, which didn't always happen in the past, they were very invisible. So I think that this is all marvelous.
[00:25:09] But having said that, every professional is good at some things and not so good at others. So have that discussion with the authors on the website, or if you come across an editor who's tying in to an author's book and you think they would be right for you. So in other words, do your research. Really don't take somebody on until you've answered a lot of questions up front because by the time you get the service, it is too late.
[00:25:37] And also recognize that even with all of that, it may be that you'll end up with an editor that isn't perfectly right for you. And also that sometimes they're right for the first book and the second book, but then not so much after that. So don't be afraid to change your editor, and if you are changing, you'll probably go through the same process again.
[00:25:59] Don't take your friend's recommendation, my editor is great. Sure, they probably are great for them, and they might be great for you, but do not take that for granted. They may not be at all.
[00:26:14] Ideally, you should be working with an editor who's experienced in your genre. There are trope and particularly some genres have very strong tropes that you need to be following and your editor can really help you with that kind of thing if they're experienced in that genre. If they're not, they can't, they won't know, so that's important.
[00:26:35] Matty: I can speak to that from an editorial point of view because I made a brief foray into providing editing services. And the manuscript that was brought to me was a fantasy book, which I not only don't write, but I don't read. And I wasn't sure about it. So we did a sample edit, and in this case, I charged, it was like $50 for 5,000 words or something like that. And I made some comments, and I stand by the comments I made, but I didn't have that pool of knowledge to be able to say, if you think about how so-and-so handled it in such and such, whereas in more like the crime, fiction, mystery, suspense genre, if I were having that conversation, I could have a conversation that would be meaningful for the client. So we both agreed that we weren't going to go ahead. We were both happy with the decision not to go ahead with that. But it did make me realize the importance of having someone who's familiar with your genre, so you're all speaking the same language. Also the idea of paying for a sample edit I think is well worth it.
[00:27:36] Orna: I do too, because even though you guys didn't decide to go ahead, I'm sure she got value from that experience. And you did too. So, I think that's the thing about writing and editing and the relationship and the relationships indeed, because over time you will have had relationships with lots of different editors, is that it is an unfolding and that is a learning. And every single book, every project is an opportunity, is a learning opportunity and I think that is the way to approach the editing process, to open yourself wide up as an author to this being a learning process.
[00:28:12] And, again, I know after you've done it a few times, this becomes much easier. At the beginning, our very first book, our baby, which has been pulled up from the bowels of our toes. Bad biology there, but you know what I mean? And we're so emotionally attached, and it can be difficult to get any sort of editorial response. It can be difficult to take it in the right way.
[00:28:41] So a lot of self-care, I think, when you're going into your first dealings with a professional editor. Again, depending on the editor, some are super sensitive and say all the right things, and some writers say, I don't need you to say all that, give me the hard stuff, you know. And then other writers, particularly at the beginning, no matter how sensitively it's couched, it hurts at some level. And you’ve got to know yourself and if you are that kind of person, you have to take time and care of yourself in that process, or you won't get beyond it.
[00:29:16] And you can trust that after you've done this once or twice, it stops hurting, actually. And you get to the point, you cannot wait for your editor's feedback, and you want it to be as tough, for them to really go there, that's what you actually want. That can be impossible to imagine when you're starting out, but it totally does get to that. So yeah, look after yourself in the editing process, if you're a sensitive and particularly if it's your first book.
[00:30:15] Matty: There's a great episode I'd like to refer people to, which is Episode 88, which was "How to Receive and Give Critique with Tiffany Yates Martin." And one of the things we talked about was the idea that an editor, or a reader for that matter, their comments are about their reaction to your book, not about you. And so if you can look at an editor's input and say, oh, it's interesting that they thought this character wasn't well-developed when I felt he was a fully fleshed out person. Not, I can't believe that they didn't think I did a good job developing this character. If you can think of it as almost like market research. It's a professional market research of your book on what their experience was while they were reading it. That could help soothe the sting a little bit.
[00:30:57] Orna: Yeah. Any tricks, anything you can do that helps you through that at the beginning, especially. And for me it is wearing that learner's hat and really trying to open your heart as well as your mind to what's being said. Because the editors sometimes may slightly miss the mark. But the fact that they've raised something nearly always means it's worth your attention, to turn your attention to whatever it is they've raised.
[00:31:28] And sometimes we take the editorial report, take it away and don't go back to the editor. But most editors will be very open to you saying, I saw it this way. You see it that way. Could we go a little bit more deeply into this? I mean, they won't do that if you're doing it for 25 things, but if you've got a genuine query about something and you don't quite get what they're saying, or you really feel they got it wrong and you'd like to tease it out with them a little bit, most editors are very open to that.
[00:32:05] Matty: I had an example of that with Ann Kinnear 4, which was "A Furnace for Your Foe," and it takes place on Mount Desert Island. And my editor was questioning, he was saying, it's quite a coincidence that this group of people just happens to already know this group of people. And my position was, it's a small community, especially off season, the population is like 10,000 and these are both people who are running in the fancy upper echelons of that society. So it would be actually weird if they didn't know each other. But what I took from that is I haven't set up the context for people to understand that it's a small, insular community. You know, it wasn't that that was the wrong decision for me to make. It was that I hadn't set it up effectively for the reader. So I think that's a good example of what you're talking about.
[00:32:51] Orna: It's a really good example. And it's those things we don't know we don't know. We take it for granted that it's there because it's so much in our head, we don't realize that we failed to mention it or failed to develop it enough. Brilliant example.
[00:33:06] Matty: I did have a question. Earlier you were saying that sometimes the person who is an editor for a couple of books becomes not the right editor for subsequent books. And if you're in a situation where you're writing a series and you've decided to switch editors, what's the best way to ensure that the new editor is sufficiently familiar with the previous books that they can make the transition and not have the effect be jarring? You know, you want it to be a seamless transition for you and your readers. How can you enable an editor to do that?
[00:33:36] Orna: Yes. A series, it's tricky. So I will preface it by saying that ideally, same editor from beginning to end of series. That is the ideal and that happens most of the time. But there are all sorts of reasons why that might not happen, and it doesn't happen sometimes. So it might be that the relationship just deteriorates. It might be that your editor decides to stop editing and wants to become a skydiver. There are all sorts of reasons. So the thing is, if you are asking somebody to pick up books three or four or five of the series, then they need to read book 1, 2, 3, and 4. And that may very well end up costing you money. Because ideally, they should have a good lead in and full understanding. And the best way for them to have full understanding is to read the full books.
[00:34:30] And some authors think that if they want the business, they should read the books. Well, the better the editor is, the less likely that's going to happen. So it's going to cost you, probably to switch editor mid run. You can brief them very well, and probably both is ideal. You should give them a good indication of where everything came from before the book that they're receiving now and where you intended to go if you know that, which you probably do, where things are going to go in subsequent books.
[00:35:01] So in short, it's a headache. It's a headache to switch mid series. And if you have to do it, it's like everything in life, preparation cuts out lots of problems down the road. So the more you can actually give your editor to prepare them for the job of it, picking up the series, the better. Yeah, so there isn't really an easy answer for that.
[00:35:27] Matty: One idea I thought was good, and I think this came from the "150 Self-Publishing Questions Answered," was basically hiring them as if they were doing a proofread. You know, if you have to come up with a way to quantify the value of them reading through a series, that that would be one approach. I mean, hopefully they don't actually find a bunch of typos, but I would think they would be sort of reading at a speed and depth that would be equivalent to proofreading, because proofreaders probably aren't assessing plot structure. They're breezing along looking for the missing comma. And that's what you need your editor to do. Is that something that seems like a reasonable way if you do find you need to pay for a read of those earlier books?
[00:36:12] Orna: Absolutely. I mean, you're not paying for them to developmentally edit those books. Absolutely not. And you may find that they may not even charge you the full cost of a proofread for all of those.
[00:36:24] You might want to get them to do a proofread while they're there, because every book, you can find millions of typos. No book can be over edited, really. Books just stop because everybody has had enough of them and doesn't want to invest any more time and energy into them. And it's time to move on to the next one. But every book's improvable no matter how good it is. So, yeah, it's a good way to approach this.
[00:36:49] Matty: One thing I have found is that there are two times when I want my book to be proofread. One is right before I upload it to the platforms. And one way I've done that, and I think an economical way, is to send a note out to writers' groups I belong to and say, for the first one or two people who get in touch with me, I will give you a pre-publication copy of the book, ebook or PDF or whatever, and I'll pay you a $5 bounty per typo up to $50. And there's always a couple of people who are interested in doing that and I always pay them $50. Don't tell, but I always pay them $50 regardless of how many typos they find.
[00:37:28] And then the other time I really want somebody to take another look at it is if I ever have my book open in Vellum, for example, when I was proofing, proof listening, I guess you'd call it, the audio book I had Vellum open and every once in a while, I'd see a missing comma or I'd see I use the word evidently too many times or whatever, and I could just make it right there in Vellum. So it was ready to generate an updated version. But my fear is always that I do something in the process, I do an unintentional cut and paste or something like that. And so after I've done that kind of work, I send a note out to a private Facebook group and say, I'll give a free copy of the book and all you have to do is read it and tell me if there's like an inexplicably chunk of text right in the middle of a chapter that makes no sense with the surrounding texts. And so those are some economical ways people can get some editorial help, right at the end when it's just the tiny cleanup.
[00:38:24] Orna: That's fantastic. That's really, really, really nice. And I know what you mean about introducing errors. I'm terrible. If I crack open that file again, I'm off again because I actually love editing. That's the part of writing that I enjoy the most. And yeah, introduce a whole new error, then I need a whole new proofread. Don't do what I do.
[00:38:48] Matty: So the last thing I wanted to ask about with regard to editorial is that the "150 Self-publishing Questions Answered" has some great suggestions about how you can gain distance from your work. How do you gain that kind of distance, and at what point do you recommend doing that?
[00:39:07] Orna: Obviously, there's just leaving time, which we discussed earlier. There is the text to speech function, which you can play and hear. I think that's probably one of the most useful, when you get this mechanical auto robotic voice reading the text and it picks up on your mistakes. That's a really good one.
[00:39:29] Matty: Another one was the idea of editing actually in a different location.
[00:39:35] Orna: Yes. Michael does that, I think. He has a writing place and an editing place. Yeah. Any trick you can think of. Who was telling me they read backwards when it comes to proofreading? Yeah. They go backwards through the sentences, so they're just reading words, not meaning.
[00:39:51] Matty: That sounds awful. More power to them if they can do it.
[00:39:57] Orna: All of this is awful. And one of the things I really liked for me, I only did it briefly and I won't do it ongoing for other reasons, I just find it exhausting and it's not the best use of my time, but I did find narrating my own audio was fantastic in terms of picking up the errors. So I think definitely getting it into a different format is great.
[00:40:23] Another thing is to really pump up the text size so that you're looking at it in 24 point or something. Anything where you just break that habit of the brain, which is to skim right over the mistakes. It'll be interesting. I'm sure your listeners will probably have other ideas.
[00:40:43] Matty: I have a friend who uploads her books to KDP Print and then gets a print proof. And not just for the final proofread either, but she can read through that and then she says she can pick up plot issues and things like that that you would never otherwise, because she is being able to read it as a reader.
[00:41:02] Orna: I always do my editing on hardcopy. I think that's just my age. I grew up with typewriters and cut and paste meaning actually cutting the pages up and sticking them back together. So I always do my editing and I look forward to printing it off. And since we've had POD, it's just been fantastic to actually get it looking like a book rather than it typewritten form.
[00:41:27] Matty: And that's probably cheaper. I'm guessing that ordering an author proof of a book from KDP, for example, maybe the same as true on IngramSpark, is cheaper than the toner you'd spend.
[00:41:40] Orna: It probably is. It's certainly there's little or no difference. It's just that experience of reading it as a book really helps to for the stuff to jump out.
[00:41:56] Matty: I did hear an author interview, and I'm not sure I'm getting this right, so I won't say who the author was just in case I'm conveying this incorrectly, but she either retyped or rewrote, hand wrote her book. Like when she thought she was done, she reentered it or rewrote it. And she said, yeah, I'd never do that again. But it did help her. I think she was just assessing the cost / benefit ratio and decided it didn't help her that much. But she said she did catch things that she fixed in the final manuscript.
[00:42:28] Orna: Did she have a print version beside her, and then she was retyping it?
[00:42:32] Matty: I believe so. Yeah.
[00:42:34] Orna: Yeah. Yeah, we can do these things. With all this technology that helps us to go faster, faster, faster. But the thing about editing is it's slower, slower, slower. And I think that's the thing, is to edit well, you've got to change your pace and you've got to change your push. And in the good old days, the bad old days that I was talking about a minute ago, that's what you have to do. You cut it up. You changed it. You did your corrections in pen, and then you typed it up again and then you did it again and again, until you were happy with it. And that's how loads of people wrote loads of books back in the day.
[00:43:15] So it can be done. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is whatever gets you to pay the right level of attention and to slow down and really see the thing as a separate thing from the original creation, then just do it.
[00:43:33] Matty: Yep. Well, I think that's a great note to wrap up our conversation about editorial on Please let the listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and ALLi online.
[00:43:44] Orna: Sure. I'm Orna Ross at OrnaRoss.com and I write fiction and nonfiction and poetry. And I cover all my doings, my personal, doing some writings over there. And I'm director at The Alliance of Independent Authors, the professional organization for self-publishing authors, and we're at AllianceIndependentAuthors.org.
[00:44:11] Matty: Great, well, Orna, thank you so much. And next up is going to be design, so people will want to listen to the second of the seven processes in the next episode.
[00:44:20] Orna: Fantastic. Thanks so much, Matty.
[00:02:55] And the deepening draft is an elaboration. The first draft is for you to see what's there, explain it to yourself. The second, the deepening draft is about explaining it to everybody else. And so you identify gaps. And I think the most useful thing to do in this draft is to look at bits that you really like, pick out their shining qualities and then try to bring those qualities to the bits that you're not so happy with. So it's an elevation process, really.
[00:03:22] And so I always recommend that people go through, they begin after the first draft, after they rested the first draft, they begin by picking out the bits you like. Our inner critic is so alive that the first thing we want to do is correct, but actually strengthening your strengths is better, is equally important, but I actually think it's more important. You could argue that it's equally important, but for me, I think it's more important to recognize your strengths and to develop those and augment the awesome. This is how I like to think of it.
[00:03:56] And then the next draft is clearing the crap, so the correction draft then comes afterwards, the fixing up. And there's a lot of information and advice there about the correction, but not so much about strengthening what's good. And all of us as writers, we have strengths and weaknesses, and it really does help us to develop our craft and to recognize which aspects we are good at and which ones we need more support in. So the deepening draft, then the editing, the self-editing and clarification draft, and then there's all the finishing actions that we need to take to wrap it up as it were.
[00:04:39] And then I think the other thing that really is good to do before it goes to a professional editor is to get some form of beta reading done, whereby you send it out to some trusted people who know what they're talking about. You could give it to your family and friends, and you will get feedback there, that's fine, if you want to, if you have kind of family and friends that want to read it or will finish it or whatever. I don't. But if you do, great.
[00:05:05] I know that for a lot of people, they have family members kind of the first reader and their ideal reader. That's great if you have that. But go beyond that. Go to people who actually have some expertise, either who read a lot in your genre, or who actually are writers themselves in your genre or have worked as editors. The more they know about your specific kind of book, the more useful their feedback can be.
[00:05:30] So, send it out to I would say at least five trusted others and get some feedback. And as always with feedback, read it, absorb it, and see what makes sense to you. If a few people are saying the same thing, it's usually something to take note of and make some changes accordingly.
[00:05:49] They may suggest ideas for what you should do. You may accept that idea straight up, but more often what you'll do is say, I don't love the solution, but I do see the problem and then get stuck in there and solving it in your own way. And then you should be ready for a professional edit.
[00:06:08] Matty: I felt that one thing that I've learned over time is among my pool of people, my pre edit readers, my beta readers, I've started to realize what their focus is, what the focus of each of them is. So I have one beta reader who is great at the big picture, who can step back and say, I really felt like about a third of the way through there needed to be something else big that happened in order to sustain me through the following chapters. And so I'm always sure to give that person an early copy.
[00:06:40] And then I had the reader that's, more, I found a typo on page 75, and so I give that person later. So I think it's also important to adjust when you involve each of the readers at the point when their strengths and reading are going to do you the most good. Because it doesn't really help me to find the typos when I'm still trying to figure out the plot. And it doesn't really help me to find out a great plot idea when I'm at the end and it would be harder to adjust.
[00:07:05] Orna: Terrific tip. Yeah, really good. And I mean, this is great when you establish a team, when you've done more than one book, when you have a few books under your belt, and you get used to working with the same people. Yeah, it's fantastic when that happens, and you have dedicated readers. Because the relationship improves on their ability to read your work and to understand what you're trying to do, all of that improves as the relationship becomes more long-term so, yeah, that's really great.
[00:07:34] Matty: I always think it's interesting to hear people talk about writing because I'm almost always astounded, I'll hear authors whose work I love talk about it, and I just want to say, seriously, you can create a book doing that? I mean, the thing that strikes me every time is, I've interviewed a lot of crime fiction and thriller authors on the podcast and almost all of them are of the, and that I was so surprised when I found out who the murderer was family. And I think how can you possibly do that?
[00:08:03] And for me, I've always found that doing this full-time now and needing to be as efficient as I can, the more I outlined ahead of time, the fewer unproductive paths I went through, and that worked pretty well until the book that I'm trying to finish for the editor now. And so this is my, I guess, eighth or ninth novel. And I felt like it was getting more and more efficient by sort of going through and doing a very high level, you know, the whole story in 10,000 words, and then fleshing it out a little more. Now it's the whole story in 30,000 words and doing passes through it.
[00:08:41] But this time I feel like I stretched it out too long and now I'm really struggling to retain my interest in what is probably the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, I don't even know any more, pass through it. So I think it's just something that people have to keep an eye on and not get locked in and realize that something might've worked for three books and maybe not so much anymore and it's time to rethink.
[00:09:04] Orna: It's funny, isn't it? The way writing goes like that, and I think that kind of thing happens before leveling up. So usually a change in your process, a change in your way of doing things is a breakthrough at the craft level. It's usually my experience there's something there that's about to change and be different. So it's actually quite an exciting time. But finding your way through to a whole new way of doing things, it can feel quite painful actually, because you can feel a bit lost and confused until it rights itself.
[00:09:38] Matty: And I think the beta readers can play a great role in that, especially if they're trusted colleagues, but also generally fans of your work, because you can get done with the almost final draft and think, oh my God, this is so boring, who would want to read it? And then give it to people, and you can, it's very therapeutic to hear, as you said, you know, what you're good at.
[00:10:00] Orna: Yeah, and they see things you didn't see. And Michael La Ronn, I think I may have said this the last time I was on your podcast, but it really struck me and I'm always quoting him. Michael La Ronn is one of the ALLi team here. Novelist and nonfiction writer and poetry, he writes across the three genres, and he has a saying that the worst judge of a book is its author.
[00:10:24] Just forget it. If you're bored it does not mean somebody else is bored, if you think it's fantastic, it does not mean somebody else, or even you tomorrow, are going to think it's fantastic. Your opinion really isn't important at all. Just keep on moving through the process.
[00:10:41] Matty: Yeah. It's what the readers think that really counts in the end.
[00:10:45] Orna: Sure. And even then, what's it going to be? Some of them are going to like it and some of them aren't going to like it, and what do you even do with that except do the next book? So it is constantly that kind of keeping your eye on what needs to be done next rather than getting too lost. And I see this with new writers, I suppose I'm speaking particularly to people who may be listening who are on their first book, because I do see this a lot with people who are starting out. But there's great energy for the first draft and even a second or third pass through. But then there could be a reluctance to finish and get on with it, as it were, and you can get stuck in the writing and rewriting.
[00:11:30] And I'm not suggesting that's what's happening here with you at all because you're very experienced, that's different. But there can be a fear about putting your book out for the first time and you can get caught in a perfectionism that's not really improving it very much. You're just going round and round in circles really, and anything, any major improvements you're going to make has been done. There's nothing else for you to do. And the most useful thing for you as a writer is actually to get it up, get it out there, publish it, get some readers, get their feedback, get going on book number two. It's going to be much better for your development as a writer than doing another pass.
[00:12:07] Matty: Yeah. And I also liked the advice about letting it sit for a while because you can, if you're just slogging away, slogging away, slogging away, at some point, you're not going to have any new ideas. And I know you and Michael, although I think you have different recommendations for the duration of time to let it sit, but both have that common recommendation about letting it sit for some time.
[00:12:27] Orna: Yes. I suggest much longer than he does. You know, he had a heart attack when I was saying, if you can, leave it for a year and we'll go away and work on something else. But of course, Michael doesn't take Michael anything like that, it takes me a year to put a book together. It doesn't take him anything like that. So, I do think it's very useful to go away and work on something else and come back because we get so closed to the work, particularly, if we've been drafting and redrafting and you just don't see it clearly. And working on something else actually improves you craft a little bit, so when you come back, you're a bit better than you were when you were there previously. But it's really, you want enough distance to approach it like a reader rather than the person who authored it.
[00:13:17] Matty: It is fun sometimes, and I think I had this conversation with someone on the podcast fairly recently about going back. Of course, if you ever reread something you've put out before, like if you're preparing for a reading or something like that, and of course you're going to see things you want to fix, but then every once in a while, you do come across the things that are like, whoa, that's pretty good. I'm pretty proud of it. So that's fun too.
[00:13:44] So let's assume we've taken all these steps, we're at the point where it's as good as we and our beta readers can make it, and now we're looking at the professional edit. So talk a little bit about the different types of professional edits that are out there and what the differences are among them.
[00:13:59] Orna: Yeah. So, I mean, I think we touched on it a little bit already. I think of them as three. People break them down in different ways. So the way in which we break them down is threefold.
[00:14:09] So you've got the big picture and editor who looks at the work as a whole. And there's all sorts of names for these different editors, so it can be a bit confusing at first when you come to it, because the UK terms and the US terms can be a bit different and then the people have different terms for it. But essentially, we're looking at the development of the novel. So, the book could be nonfiction book either that we're talking about or poetry books.
[00:14:35] So we're looking at the book as a whole, its structure and if it is fiction, whether the characterization is consistent, consistency generally, repetition. Repetition of effect at this level, at the developmental level, so you have, a tendency for revelations to come in the same sort of way each time it happens, for example. And we all have favorite tics and things, that we don't even know that we have.
[00:15:04] This is the big picture person. And, really, really, the most important editing for a first book, for new writers who are publishing for the first time. It's expensive and a lot of writers resist actually forking out for this kind of work, but I can't stress how important it is and how much to view it not just as a publishing expense, which it is, but to view it as an investment in your writing craft.
[00:15:39] So lots of authors go off and do MFAs, MAs in creative writing. Honestly, the investment in a good developmental edit of a book that you've already done is a better investment in terms of learning what you need to learn to progress you to the next level. I'm not saying you shouldn't do MFAs or MAs, but I'm just saying if you have to choose between one or the other, I know which one I think is more important. It's just so important to begin to understand a book at that level, at that big picture level, it really develops your craft as a writer.
[00:16:17] The next level then I think of as being on the kind of the paragraph and sentence level. It's called copy editing, and again, there are lots of different terms for it. But the editor here is looking more at the actual structure of your sentences and your paragraphs, your chapters, but particularly how you use words, making sure that grammar is okay, again, calling repetitions, smaller kinds of repetitions, the repetitions of words or phrases that you tend to overuse, all that kind of thing.
[00:16:52] And then the third and final stage is proofreading and that's at the word level where things are being corrected, proofreading, typos, and again, grammatical infelicities or misspellings or all of that.
[00:17:08] So I think the overall thing to say about the three kinds of editing is language is a very complex substance. If you're an artist who is working with mud or something, it's different. Language is very, very complex and it's very detailed, and we need professional help to see how we're using it. Our brain when we look at our own work goes into a sort of a blur zone. Working with editorial professionals really helps us to sharpen our awareness of language and how we use it generally, as well as obviously specifically improving that particular book so the reader can enjoy it. So all of this is about making what was in your head as clear, as crystal clear as possible for the reader to understand it.
[00:18:00] Matty: I had a question, this is going to be a little selfish because this is the situation, I find myself in now, but I think this is probably a scenario that other people share as well. But basically, I'm budgeting for one edit, and I have an editor that I've worked with on several books and in general, the copy-editing aspect isn't that intensive. And in fact, in some cases I've just told him it's generally cases where I'm trying to favor grammatical correctness over ease of reading in a genre type fiction book. And, I've even said to him, just highlight the parts that I need to work on because I can fix that myself. What I need is more of the big picture, more of the developmental edit.
[00:18:40] And so, as an example, in one of the books that he edited, there was a storyline that I had wrapped up at the end, but he was saying, this is supposed to be more of a thriller. You've wrapped it up, but it could be wrapped up much more excitingly. And so we had a conversation about sort of weighing adding some excitement with plausibility and how to balance that, so it was satisfying but also plausible. And so that's always what I'm looking for from my editor. And then for the proofread, I have some beta readers who are excellent proofreaders. So I generally just give them the final copy to get the proofread done.
[00:19:16] But the situation I'm in now is that my book is eventually going to be, let's say, 80, 85,000 words. And I probably have about 70,000 words of fairly final copy. So in a way, I want to give it to him as-is because if he says, oh, this whole subplot is just not working at all. I don't really want to have polished it up, taking the time to polish it up before I give it to him. So there's always this balance between giving them as much as possible so you get that professional perspective, but not so much that you've overworked something. Do you have any advice on that front?
[00:19:54] Orna: Yeah, I do. I know exactly what you're talking about because you can waste our other, as well as money, you can waste our most valuable resource, which is time. And if you're going to lose big chunks, particularly in the developmental process, you don't want to have polished it too finely. And this is what I find again happens a lot with beginner writers and stuff, they can spend a lot of time polishing the small stuff way too soon, long before the other stuff has been organized.
[00:20:24] So, yeah, I mean, the other thing that your question really highlights, and I think it's so important to say this is, this is not linear, and this is never straightforward. So it's always a little bit messy and it's always a balancing of different needs and we don't have infinite resources, time or money, for this edit, and so we're always balancing. And so, yes, I think if what we're asking for is a developmental edit, then there's not a lot of point in getting very stuck in certainly at the proofreading level.
[00:20:57] The problem with not doing it well enough at the copy edit level is that there can be a lack of clarity. So sometimes if the words are loose it's because something else is loose. And so while we do want to protect our time and protect our money and so on, sometimes it's nothing for it except to get stuck in. And I know this is a really unsatisfactory answer because the answer is, as it so often is with publishing and indeed with writing, is it depends.
[00:21:28] And really you are the best judge. If you feel that giving it to him as it is, you have the skills to do the copyedit when the time is right and that it is written well enough for him to be clear about what happens there, because sometimes if we haven't done, if we haven't gotten in there at the paragraph level, it's blurry. It's not clear what you're trying to achieve. It's not clear what you're saying, for example, about a character. Or your setup might be very clear in your own mind, but because you haven't done the work at word level, it's not actually that clear to the reader what's going on there.
[00:22:07] So as long as you don't have that kind of thing happening, as long as there's clarity there, then particularly if you feel there will be recommendations about, you know, that needs to be more exciting and you’re going to have to add in text, remove bodies of text, then yes, I think you could go ahead and give it in what might be a rawer state than you ever have before.
[00:22:33] Matty: It's interesting too, that you had mentioned earlier that even the terminology that's used for these different kinds of edits is different, and so when people are going out to look for an editor, there's not a guarantee that their expectation when they say "developmental edit" or "copy edit" or well, I think "proofread" people probably have a common understanding, but developmental editor, copy editor, other terms for that, that the terminology they're using is the same as the professional they're speaking with. Are there any recommendations you have for people to make sure that the author and the editor have a common understanding of what the expectation is?
[00:23:07] Orna: Yes. You're absolutely right and the other thing that comes in here that also adds to this challenge for the author who's seeking the best possible professional, is that some editors offer different kinds of editing, but they really are best at one type than they are they're better at than. Sometimes the testimonials on their website are general sorts of glowing testimonials, but you're not necessarily getting the full picture because obviously their website is there to sell their services and that's 100% the way it should be from their perspective.
[00:23:42] So I recommend to treat the hiring of an editor like you treat taking on a spouse for life. You know, it's a really huge decision. Do not rush it. Really do your research. So when you get to the point, first of all, have a look around and create a list of possible editors for your work. And then when you're seriously considering somebody, really investigate that person, first of all, in dialogue with them, so ask lots of questions and see what kind of answers you get. If there's somebody that does samples, get a sample, so you see what's there. Some editors don't do that. Lots do.
[00:24:27] And even if you feel this is the right editor for me, go through that process, do take your time. Look at the testimonials on their website. And then contact the authors. Ask the author what kind of edit they did, what they most valued about it, ask them about their weaker points. You know, we feel very grateful to our editors because they really do improve our books. They are the great unsung heroes of the publishing industry. They are just amazing, and I love the fact that indy authors now are really bringing their editors to the forefront, foregrounding them in their acknowledgements and so on, which didn't always happen in the past, they were very invisible. So I think that this is all marvelous.
[00:25:09] But having said that, every professional is good at some things and not so good at others. So have that discussion with the authors on the website, or if you come across an editor who's tying in to an author's book and you think they would be right for you. So in other words, do your research. Really don't take somebody on until you've answered a lot of questions up front because by the time you get the service, it is too late.
[00:25:37] And also recognize that even with all of that, it may be that you'll end up with an editor that isn't perfectly right for you. And also that sometimes they're right for the first book and the second book, but then not so much after that. So don't be afraid to change your editor, and if you are changing, you'll probably go through the same process again.
[00:25:59] Don't take your friend's recommendation, my editor is great. Sure, they probably are great for them, and they might be great for you, but do not take that for granted. They may not be at all.
[00:26:14] Ideally, you should be working with an editor who's experienced in your genre. There are trope and particularly some genres have very strong tropes that you need to be following and your editor can really help you with that kind of thing if they're experienced in that genre. If they're not, they can't, they won't know, so that's important.
[00:26:35] Matty: I can speak to that from an editorial point of view because I made a brief foray into providing editing services. And the manuscript that was brought to me was a fantasy book, which I not only don't write, but I don't read. And I wasn't sure about it. So we did a sample edit, and in this case, I charged, it was like $50 for 5,000 words or something like that. And I made some comments, and I stand by the comments I made, but I didn't have that pool of knowledge to be able to say, if you think about how so-and-so handled it in such and such, whereas in more like the crime, fiction, mystery, suspense genre, if I were having that conversation, I could have a conversation that would be meaningful for the client. So we both agreed that we weren't going to go ahead. We were both happy with the decision not to go ahead with that. But it did make me realize the importance of having someone who's familiar with your genre, so you're all speaking the same language. Also the idea of paying for a sample edit I think is well worth it.
[00:27:36] Orna: I do too, because even though you guys didn't decide to go ahead, I'm sure she got value from that experience. And you did too. So, I think that's the thing about writing and editing and the relationship and the relationships indeed, because over time you will have had relationships with lots of different editors, is that it is an unfolding and that is a learning. And every single book, every project is an opportunity, is a learning opportunity and I think that is the way to approach the editing process, to open yourself wide up as an author to this being a learning process.
[00:28:12] And, again, I know after you've done it a few times, this becomes much easier. At the beginning, our very first book, our baby, which has been pulled up from the bowels of our toes. Bad biology there, but you know what I mean? And we're so emotionally attached, and it can be difficult to get any sort of editorial response. It can be difficult to take it in the right way.
[00:28:41] So a lot of self-care, I think, when you're going into your first dealings with a professional editor. Again, depending on the editor, some are super sensitive and say all the right things, and some writers say, I don't need you to say all that, give me the hard stuff, you know. And then other writers, particularly at the beginning, no matter how sensitively it's couched, it hurts at some level. And you’ve got to know yourself and if you are that kind of person, you have to take time and care of yourself in that process, or you won't get beyond it.
[00:29:16] And you can trust that after you've done this once or twice, it stops hurting, actually. And you get to the point, you cannot wait for your editor's feedback, and you want it to be as tough, for them to really go there, that's what you actually want. That can be impossible to imagine when you're starting out, but it totally does get to that. So yeah, look after yourself in the editing process, if you're a sensitive and particularly if it's your first book.
[00:30:15] Matty: There's a great episode I'd like to refer people to, which is Episode 88, which was "How to Receive and Give Critique with Tiffany Yates Martin." And one of the things we talked about was the idea that an editor, or a reader for that matter, their comments are about their reaction to your book, not about you. And so if you can look at an editor's input and say, oh, it's interesting that they thought this character wasn't well-developed when I felt he was a fully fleshed out person. Not, I can't believe that they didn't think I did a good job developing this character. If you can think of it as almost like market research. It's a professional market research of your book on what their experience was while they were reading it. That could help soothe the sting a little bit.
[00:30:57] Orna: Yeah. Any tricks, anything you can do that helps you through that at the beginning, especially. And for me it is wearing that learner's hat and really trying to open your heart as well as your mind to what's being said. Because the editors sometimes may slightly miss the mark. But the fact that they've raised something nearly always means it's worth your attention, to turn your attention to whatever it is they've raised.
[00:31:28] And sometimes we take the editorial report, take it away and don't go back to the editor. But most editors will be very open to you saying, I saw it this way. You see it that way. Could we go a little bit more deeply into this? I mean, they won't do that if you're doing it for 25 things, but if you've got a genuine query about something and you don't quite get what they're saying, or you really feel they got it wrong and you'd like to tease it out with them a little bit, most editors are very open to that.
[00:32:05] Matty: I had an example of that with Ann Kinnear 4, which was "A Furnace for Your Foe," and it takes place on Mount Desert Island. And my editor was questioning, he was saying, it's quite a coincidence that this group of people just happens to already know this group of people. And my position was, it's a small community, especially off season, the population is like 10,000 and these are both people who are running in the fancy upper echelons of that society. So it would be actually weird if they didn't know each other. But what I took from that is I haven't set up the context for people to understand that it's a small, insular community. You know, it wasn't that that was the wrong decision for me to make. It was that I hadn't set it up effectively for the reader. So I think that's a good example of what you're talking about.
[00:32:51] Orna: It's a really good example. And it's those things we don't know we don't know. We take it for granted that it's there because it's so much in our head, we don't realize that we failed to mention it or failed to develop it enough. Brilliant example.
[00:33:06] Matty: I did have a question. Earlier you were saying that sometimes the person who is an editor for a couple of books becomes not the right editor for subsequent books. And if you're in a situation where you're writing a series and you've decided to switch editors, what's the best way to ensure that the new editor is sufficiently familiar with the previous books that they can make the transition and not have the effect be jarring? You know, you want it to be a seamless transition for you and your readers. How can you enable an editor to do that?
[00:33:36] Orna: Yes. A series, it's tricky. So I will preface it by saying that ideally, same editor from beginning to end of series. That is the ideal and that happens most of the time. But there are all sorts of reasons why that might not happen, and it doesn't happen sometimes. So it might be that the relationship just deteriorates. It might be that your editor decides to stop editing and wants to become a skydiver. There are all sorts of reasons. So the thing is, if you are asking somebody to pick up books three or four or five of the series, then they need to read book 1, 2, 3, and 4. And that may very well end up costing you money. Because ideally, they should have a good lead in and full understanding. And the best way for them to have full understanding is to read the full books.
[00:34:30] And some authors think that if they want the business, they should read the books. Well, the better the editor is, the less likely that's going to happen. So it's going to cost you, probably to switch editor mid run. You can brief them very well, and probably both is ideal. You should give them a good indication of where everything came from before the book that they're receiving now and where you intended to go if you know that, which you probably do, where things are going to go in subsequent books.
[00:35:01] So in short, it's a headache. It's a headache to switch mid series. And if you have to do it, it's like everything in life, preparation cuts out lots of problems down the road. So the more you can actually give your editor to prepare them for the job of it, picking up the series, the better. Yeah, so there isn't really an easy answer for that.
[00:35:27] Matty: One idea I thought was good, and I think this came from the "150 Self-Publishing Questions Answered," was basically hiring them as if they were doing a proofread. You know, if you have to come up with a way to quantify the value of them reading through a series, that that would be one approach. I mean, hopefully they don't actually find a bunch of typos, but I would think they would be sort of reading at a speed and depth that would be equivalent to proofreading, because proofreaders probably aren't assessing plot structure. They're breezing along looking for the missing comma. And that's what you need your editor to do. Is that something that seems like a reasonable way if you do find you need to pay for a read of those earlier books?
[00:36:12] Orna: Absolutely. I mean, you're not paying for them to developmentally edit those books. Absolutely not. And you may find that they may not even charge you the full cost of a proofread for all of those.
[00:36:24] You might want to get them to do a proofread while they're there, because every book, you can find millions of typos. No book can be over edited, really. Books just stop because everybody has had enough of them and doesn't want to invest any more time and energy into them. And it's time to move on to the next one. But every book's improvable no matter how good it is. So, yeah, it's a good way to approach this.
[00:36:49] Matty: One thing I have found is that there are two times when I want my book to be proofread. One is right before I upload it to the platforms. And one way I've done that, and I think an economical way, is to send a note out to writers' groups I belong to and say, for the first one or two people who get in touch with me, I will give you a pre-publication copy of the book, ebook or PDF or whatever, and I'll pay you a $5 bounty per typo up to $50. And there's always a couple of people who are interested in doing that and I always pay them $50. Don't tell, but I always pay them $50 regardless of how many typos they find.
[00:37:28] And then the other time I really want somebody to take another look at it is if I ever have my book open in Vellum, for example, when I was proofing, proof listening, I guess you'd call it, the audio book I had Vellum open and every once in a while, I'd see a missing comma or I'd see I use the word evidently too many times or whatever, and I could just make it right there in Vellum. So it was ready to generate an updated version. But my fear is always that I do something in the process, I do an unintentional cut and paste or something like that. And so after I've done that kind of work, I send a note out to a private Facebook group and say, I'll give a free copy of the book and all you have to do is read it and tell me if there's like an inexplicably chunk of text right in the middle of a chapter that makes no sense with the surrounding texts. And so those are some economical ways people can get some editorial help, right at the end when it's just the tiny cleanup.
[00:38:24] Orna: That's fantastic. That's really, really, really nice. And I know what you mean about introducing errors. I'm terrible. If I crack open that file again, I'm off again because I actually love editing. That's the part of writing that I enjoy the most. And yeah, introduce a whole new error, then I need a whole new proofread. Don't do what I do.
[00:38:48] Matty: So the last thing I wanted to ask about with regard to editorial is that the "150 Self-publishing Questions Answered" has some great suggestions about how you can gain distance from your work. How do you gain that kind of distance, and at what point do you recommend doing that?
[00:39:07] Orna: Obviously, there's just leaving time, which we discussed earlier. There is the text to speech function, which you can play and hear. I think that's probably one of the most useful, when you get this mechanical auto robotic voice reading the text and it picks up on your mistakes. That's a really good one.
[00:39:29] Matty: Another one was the idea of editing actually in a different location.
[00:39:35] Orna: Yes. Michael does that, I think. He has a writing place and an editing place. Yeah. Any trick you can think of. Who was telling me they read backwards when it comes to proofreading? Yeah. They go backwards through the sentences, so they're just reading words, not meaning.
[00:39:51] Matty: That sounds awful. More power to them if they can do it.
[00:39:57] Orna: All of this is awful. And one of the things I really liked for me, I only did it briefly and I won't do it ongoing for other reasons, I just find it exhausting and it's not the best use of my time, but I did find narrating my own audio was fantastic in terms of picking up the errors. So I think definitely getting it into a different format is great.
[00:40:23] Another thing is to really pump up the text size so that you're looking at it in 24 point or something. Anything where you just break that habit of the brain, which is to skim right over the mistakes. It'll be interesting. I'm sure your listeners will probably have other ideas.
[00:40:43] Matty: I have a friend who uploads her books to KDP Print and then gets a print proof. And not just for the final proofread either, but she can read through that and then she says she can pick up plot issues and things like that that you would never otherwise, because she is being able to read it as a reader.
[00:41:02] Orna: I always do my editing on hardcopy. I think that's just my age. I grew up with typewriters and cut and paste meaning actually cutting the pages up and sticking them back together. So I always do my editing and I look forward to printing it off. And since we've had POD, it's just been fantastic to actually get it looking like a book rather than it typewritten form.
[00:41:27] Matty: And that's probably cheaper. I'm guessing that ordering an author proof of a book from KDP, for example, maybe the same as true on IngramSpark, is cheaper than the toner you'd spend.
[00:41:40] Orna: It probably is. It's certainly there's little or no difference. It's just that experience of reading it as a book really helps to for the stuff to jump out.
[00:41:56] Matty: I did hear an author interview, and I'm not sure I'm getting this right, so I won't say who the author was just in case I'm conveying this incorrectly, but she either retyped or rewrote, hand wrote her book. Like when she thought she was done, she reentered it or rewrote it. And she said, yeah, I'd never do that again. But it did help her. I think she was just assessing the cost / benefit ratio and decided it didn't help her that much. But she said she did catch things that she fixed in the final manuscript.
[00:42:28] Orna: Did she have a print version beside her, and then she was retyping it?
[00:42:32] Matty: I believe so. Yeah.
[00:42:34] Orna: Yeah. Yeah, we can do these things. With all this technology that helps us to go faster, faster, faster. But the thing about editing is it's slower, slower, slower. And I think that's the thing, is to edit well, you've got to change your pace and you've got to change your push. And in the good old days, the bad old days that I was talking about a minute ago, that's what you have to do. You cut it up. You changed it. You did your corrections in pen, and then you typed it up again and then you did it again and again, until you were happy with it. And that's how loads of people wrote loads of books back in the day.
[00:43:15] So it can be done. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is whatever gets you to pay the right level of attention and to slow down and really see the thing as a separate thing from the original creation, then just do it.
[00:43:33] Matty: Yep. Well, I think that's a great note to wrap up our conversation about editorial on Please let the listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and ALLi online.
[00:43:44] Orna: Sure. I'm Orna Ross at OrnaRoss.com and I write fiction and nonfiction and poetry. And I cover all my doings, my personal, doing some writings over there. And I'm director at The Alliance of Independent Authors, the professional organization for self-publishing authors, and we're at AllianceIndependentAuthors.org.
[00:44:11] Matty: Great, well, Orna, thank you so much. And next up is going to be design, so people will want to listen to the second of the seven processes in the next episode.
[00:44:20] Orna: Fantastic. Thanks so much, Matty.
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