Dear Editor
I love you
I do, I really do. My editor is a truly amazing woman who does everything she can to ensure that when you pick up one of my books, you don’t only pick up a book as grammatically correct and lacking in spelling errors as it is humanly possible to make them, but also that they come to you finished to the highest standard of which I am capable.
Yes, she pushes me hard. She sends back comments that just say: ‘You can do better’, and she makes me (think whip in hand) write them again and again until they are right – until they really are the best I can do. I love that I am pushed to always improve. To do my best. To work hard. It’s like having my own personal trainer. “Another set, you can do it, one, two, three…”.
So now you get the picture, so why am I going on about it?
Because with the release of The Gods of Vice just around the corner, it occurs to me that my editor, and editors in general, don’t get enough credit for the work they do. When I was working on the front matter (copyright, dedication page etc.) for The Gods of Vice, my editor asked me, rather shyly for her, whether it would be ok to put her name on the copyright page credits (with the artist and the typesetter…). I immediately said yes, and wondered why it hadn’t been there on The Blood of Whisperers. It hadn’t been there, because in copying the traditional publishing industry standard, the people who work on each book are pretty much invisible. Authors name, publishing house. That’s it. Sometimes they mention the artist, the typesetter and rarely the printer, but the editor is never there. The publishing house is the editor.
Editors are important. I talk about it a lot. If you want to be the best writer you can be, then you need one. If you plan on publishing anything at all, then you need one. If you’re a writer and you don’t have one, then go get one!Go and take the single most important step toward publication (whether indie or traditional) that you can possibly take. They are easy to find, but like with everything, you can get good editors and bad editors, expensive editors, and cheap editors, and the editor that is good for me might not work well with you. I know some other great editors, but I couldn’t work as well with them as I do with mine. (Look at that ownership… she’s mine, I tell you *hiss* back off!) Don’t be satisfied with the first one you find unless they are ‘the one’ .. yes, it is as hard as finding a life partner.
Do you have an editor you couldn’t live without? If you do, appreciate them. Love them, because they are almost as important to a book as the author. I sure as hell couldn’t do this without you, Amanda 🙂
