Practical arrangements with an editor

What do I want this pass to achieve?

An answer of make it better cannot be planned against. Useful answers name a state the manuscript should be in afterward: ready to send to agents, ready to typeset, consistent enough to hand to a proofreader, or clear enough for a general reader.

The answer determines the level as much as the manuscript does. A book being sent to agents needs its opening chapters to work and its errors gone. A book going to typesetting needs consistency and a style sheet. Those are different passes over the same pages.

Where an author cannot answer, an editor can propose an answer after reading a sample and check it before starting. What should not happen is an edit conducted toward a goal neither party ever stated.

Is there anything I already know is broken?

Saying so saves money and it does not lower an editor's opinion of the book. An author who already knows the middle sags, the ending was rushed, or chapter nine was never properly rewritten is supplying information an editor would otherwise spend hours reaching.

It also prevents a particular waste. An editor who does not know a chapter is a placeholder will edit it properly, and the author will delete it.

The disclosure changes the report rather than the price. An editor told about a known problem will say whether it is the problem they would have named first, and the answer is frequently the more useful finding. Where the two do not match, the author learns something a clean read would not have shown.

Is there anything I do not want touched?

Naming it is legitimate and specific. Dialogue in a particular character's voice, a passage quoted from a family document, a section written in another language, and deliberately broken grammar are all common examples.

The instruction works when it names what is protected and why. Do not change anything is not scope, it is a refusal of the service. Leave the letters as written, including the spelling, is scope, and an editor can work to it exactly.

Where a protected passage contains an outright error, an editor should flag it without changing it and leave the decision with the author. That is what the instruction implies, and it is worth stating explicitly so nobody is surprised on delivery.

Protected passages should be marked in the file rather than described in an email. A description gets misread, and a highlighted block does not.

Are there passages I am unsure about and want flagged?

Few instructions are more useful than this one, and few are given less often. An editor reading with a list of the author's own doubts will report on each of them specifically. Without the list, the author is left inferring an opinion from silence.

Silence is the problem it solves. A passage an author worried about, which the editor left alone, might have been fine or might have been overlooked, and the author cannot tell which.

Flagging works in both directions. An author can also mark passages they are confident about and do not want discussed, which keeps the letter focused on what is genuinely open. Doing that on a first book is unusual and on a fifth is common.

Should an editor accept a manuscript whose author says one part is off limits?

Usually yes, and the answer turns on what is being protected. A passage held back for reasons of voice, family sensitivity, or legal advice is a scope restriction, and the standards treat working within an agreed scope as ordinary practice.¹

The case where an editor should decline is narrower. Where the protected part is the source of the problem the author is paying to have fixed, the edit cannot succeed, and saying so before taking the money is the honest course.

A middle position often works. The editor reads the protected section without editing it, so the report can account for the whole book, and returns those pages unmarked. That way the restriction limits what is changed rather than what is understood.

Who else needs to see the edited file?

Listing them early prevents the file traveling in ways nobody planned. Co-authors, a publisher's production department, a translator, a beta reader, and a lawyer are all possibilities. Each of them changes what the file has to look like when it leaves the editor.

A file going to a publisher usually needs its tracked changes accepted and its comments removed. A file going to a co-author needs them left in. Producing both is easy at the point of delivery and irritating a week later.

Confidentiality is also affected. An editor should know who is authorized to receive the work. Every document a client sends us is treated in confidence, and that includes not sending it anywhere the author has not named.

Who has final approval?

The author, unless somebody else is paying for the work. Where a publisher, an institution, a company, or a family estate has commissioned it, approval may sit with them instead. An editor caught between two authorities without being told about the second will satisfy neither of them.

The question matters most where two authorities disagree. A house style that overrides an author's preference is a decision the publisher has already made, and an editor applying it is not taking a side in the argument.

Where several people can comment, one of them needs to be able to decide. Editing by committee produces contradictory instructions, and reconciling them is billable time spent on nothing. Naming that person in the agreement costs a sentence.

Is there a contract already, and does it specify anything about the text?

A signed contract often specifies more about the manuscript than authors remember. Length, delivery date, format, permissions clearance, and the standard the manuscript must meet on delivery can all appear, and an edit conducted in ignorance of them can miss a requirement.

The warranty clauses matter as much as the specifications. The Authors Guild describes standard warranties in which the author promises that the work does not infringe copyright, does not invade privacy, and is not libelous. The indemnity that follows applies whether or not a claim turns out to be valid.² An editor who knows those clauses exist will flag the passages that engage them.

We are editors and not attorneys. What an editor does with a contract is read the specifications that describe the text, not advise on the terms.

What is the budget and the schedule?

Both, together, because each constrains the other. A fixed budget with a flexible date can buy a deeper pass. A fixed date with a flexible budget can buy speed, and the EFA's guide notes that rush work commands higher rates.³

The standards ask editors to consider the implications of time and cost when suggesting changes, which is only possible if the editor knows what they are.¹ An editor working blind will propose a structural rebuild to an author with three weeks.

Naming a real budget is not a weak negotiating position. It lets an editor say what that money buys, which is more useful than a quote for work the author was never going to commission. It also makes a partial arrangement possible, such as a full structural read with a copyedit on the opening chapters only.

How do I want to be contacted, and how often?

Practice varies more than authors expect, from a single delivery with no contact in between to weekly updates and a running conversation. Neither is better, and the mismatch is what causes trouble.

Query handling is the part worth specifying. Queries batched and sent at the end suit an author who wants to work through them in one sitting. Queries sent as they arise suit a book where an early answer changes how the rest is edited, which is most books with a continuity problem.

Response time runs in both directions. An author who takes three weeks to answer a query has added three weeks to the schedule. Saying in advance how quickly answers will come is as useful as asking how quickly the edit will arrive.