Joelle Steele Enterprises

Olympia, Washington

United States of America

WHY IS EDITING SO EXPENSIVE?

by Joelle Steele

I retired from book editing as of October 2005 (I only do small jobs these days), but people continue to ask me questions about the editing process and, in particular, why it is so expensive. Well, professional editing is expensive, make no mistake about it. A thorough edit (not proofing) of a 400-page manuscript (double-spaced) can run $1,000 or more, depending on the condition of the manuscript. Editing is a necessary investment in the successful completion of your work, especially in this day and age when so few publishers provide this service. Here's why it costs so much.

Editors are highly skilled wordsmiths who charge by the page or by the hour, and it takes them a long time to do a top-notch editing job. Editors do not merely skim through your manuscript, noting grammatical errors along the way. If anyone is ever going to hang on your every word, that person will be an editor! An editor carefully pores over your words and looks at grammar, syntax, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary. But much more importantly, an editor looks at dialogue and dialect, semantics, character and plot development, how plot lines wrap up, descriptive techniques, inconsistencies, duplications, overstatements, (non)sexist writing, inaccuracies in content (to the extent that they are able), overall organization of the work, appropriateness of extraneous matter (photos, illustrations, tables, graphs, poems, quotations, glossaries, bibliographies, and other appendices), and anything that might impact positively or negatively on the ultimate marketability of your work. After all, an editor's sole job is to make you look good in print.

A good editor will give you more than just a bunch of pages filled with red ink; he or she will advise you to make possible changes and/or enhancements; to correct any problems encountered in the edit, such as a weakness in a character or plot line, or an inconsistency you may have missed when wrapping up your story. Whether you decide to take an editor's advice is entirely up to you.

To prevent your editing costs from escalating beyond what is already a considerable amount of money, you must edit your own work to the very best of your ability before you turn it over to a professional editor. Editing -- or rewriting -- your own work is a necessary part of the writing process anyway, and you will inevitably edit your work several times before it ever goes to an editor. And when it does, it should be thoroughly spell-checked, properly punctuated, and printed out on white paper (20 lb minimum) in proper editing format: 1" margins all around, double-spaced (not one-and-half-spaced -- give your editor room to write because you will eventually have to read what they wrote!), ragged right margin (not full justified), and Arial or Times Roman font in 12 point.

Once you have made the editor's corrections, you must carefully proof the manuscript yourself, and then have it professionally proofed (at a considerably lower cost than editing) before it is submitted to your publisher.