What kind of editor do you need?

I blew $1,500 on a copy editor to help me make Succubus the best novel I could produce, only to realize I needed a different kind of edit altogether. 

Independent authors hire professional editors

When you map out the professional process it takes to produce high-quality, long-form fiction or non-fiction, there comes a point where you need someone other than yourself to edit your work. A professional editor can catch errors, check for consistency and readability, provide direction, and highlight ares of the work that need improvement; find the grammatical and spelling errors that would distract a reader from the message of your work.

In the traditional publishing world (where you are awarded a contract business who will publish your work), that editing is a service provided by your publisher. For my two non-fiction books, my publisher provided a full-service edit when I turned in the manuscript. I received feedback and had approval over the final changes, but the task of choosing and working with the editor was my publisher's responsibility.

A typical workflow for authors working independently (where you put your work directly into publishing marketplaces like Kindle and Kobo), is to hire a freelance editor ahead of publication. For my novel Succubus, which I published to Kindle, I hired an editor directly. It worked like this: After I completed what I considered my very best draft (multiple revisions), I went online and searched for recommendations. I selected three potential editors, submitted pages for a sample edit, made my final choice, and booked into their schedule. The total cost was about $1,500 and two three weeks from time I submitted my draft.

The money I spent was an investment. I made it in the hope that it would help me write a better book. I intended to use what I learned to grow as a writer as well, to look for repeated corrections that show me what fundamental flaws I have in my writing style.

When I reviewed my edited manuscript, every page had suggestions. She caught grammatical errors, corrected some formatting issues she found, spotted duplicate words, etc. It felt like a thorough run-through. I was happy to see that she did the work. But, ultimately, I felt like I didn't get what I expected and I was disappointed.

What I didn't get (and what I really wanted) was any kind of global feedback on the story itself. What did the editor think worked about the story. What didn't work. Did she think I should add or change anything? Were the characters believable? Should I work on my dialogue? Description? Narration?

Choose the right kind of editor to move your writing forward

To edit Succubus, I had hired a copy editor. I didn't know that there were distinctly different kinds of edits I should have considered, and I had chosen the wrong one. In broad strokes, there are four different kinds of edit you could hire for book projects. Each one provides a different review of your work. Each one provides unique benefits. When you seek a partnership with an editor, it is essential to be clear on what kind of edit you're looking for.

• Developmental edit - a broad review of your manuscript by a professional editor. Expect a developmental edit to provide feedback on your story structure, adherence to genre, include comments on tone, setting, dialog, etc. A developmental edit is intended to provide you with professional guidance on how the book is shaping up, and to give you actionable course-corrections to take into your next revision.
• Copy edit - A more thorough review of the story than the developmental edit, a copy edit will focus on language and story flow. This kind of edit will include grammatical and other usage corrections. You might get elemental questions on your settings and dialog. You might see changes to the order of paragraphs or chapters intended to make the story stronger. You may also received notes and comments on sections to cut or that need to be fleshed out.
• Line edit - an intense, line-by-line copy edit focused on sentence-by-sentence wording. The line edit will be the most thorough run-through of the manuscript. It will include grammar, spelling and usage corrections. A full line edit will likely not include notes on story or structure, but focus specifically on the mechanics of your writing.
• Proofreading - even if you have revised your manuscript several times and paid for a professional edit, the last step before hitting the publish button is making dead sure there are no errors left for the reader to discover. Proofreading is the editorial step where someone clears the book of lingering typos or grammatical and  punctuation mistakes. This edit is not intended to introduce new ideas or corrections, just to read through the final, printable project and make sure it's as perfect as it can be before the rest of the world gets their hands on it.

My $1,500 investment in Succubus was not completely wasted. Even though what I needed when I hired a copy editor was a developmental edit first, I learned the valuable lesson to clearly define what kind of edit to pay for as I work on my next fiction project. I hope learning from my mistake helps you when it's time to get editorial help for your book-length project.

Stop being a chicken and be a writer

I have dreamed of being a writer my whole life. Clouded by fear, I put all kinds barriers in the way of that dream. To get through my fear and actually start putting my writing out into the world, I only needed to embrace the barriers I had put in place to stop me. 

Learn to be the writer in all areas of your life

Writers sometimes hear a Universal whisper that says that that there is no time to write because we have to work (or errands, or chores, or endless-list-of-anything-but-writing). And when we don’t make time to write, the voice says we’re never going to get anywhere with our writing. And when we do write, the voice calls us an imposter and says the work is not good enough.

The voice can be overwhelming. It can get in the way of progress. It can bring whole projects to a grinding halt. The temptation when when the voice overwhelms all progress is to blame all the things the Universe puts in our way. Blame the job, blame the family, blame politics, blame Facebook.

Or maybe we try to ignore the voice. Neither of those things work. The only way to defeat the voice is to create a new voice. Instead of a hiss sniping away at your dream, learn to turn on a voice that is constantly asking the question in all aspects of your life of how you can be the writer right now, in this moment.

Panic attack in a room full of successful people

A few weeks ago, I attended an interesting conference for work. I found great value in the seminars and educational sessions. I made connections that were important to the work I do in the communications-technology space. But I felt a bit disconnected, a feeling I couldn’t at first, put my finger on.

The day opened with a general presentation in a large meeting space. The audience numbered a thousand or more. There was a main stage with three jumbo screens. There were videos, lighting, and professional sound.

Presentations by the host company spoke to their growth and success. A half-dozen speakers opined on the future trajectory of the industry, and about how we should engage in conversations with customers about Customer Experience as a means to connect with them around the technologies we sell.

The audience was into it. The speakers, one after the other, seemed genuine and proud and intelligent and focused. I was absorbing it all. Then one of the speakers opened his talk with a profession of ‘love’ for this business. “I love this business,” he said with reverent enthusiasm. “Don’t you love it?” The affluent and successful crowd cheered and clapped. I looked around. My colleagues eyes were bright, their smiles broad, their attention(the ones not tapping away on their smartphones that is) were connected with the speaker. I panicked.

I feel good about the work I do in this industry, but the word ‘love’ was threw me. I don’t ‘love’ the business. I bring value to the company I work for in this business. I apply one-hundred percent of my energy and effort to the work. When I am engaged with a customer, I bring integrity and skill and value to the relationship. But I do all that for money. For security. Because they pay me.

Not for love.

That panic didn’t come up in me because I couldn’t believe that someone could truly and honestly dedicate their precious lifetime to the sale and support of communications technology. The panic was cynicism was at myself for making the compromise to occupying a seat within a community that is not, on its surface, the one I want to make my life from.

How to survive a relationship when you don’t love the same things

The industry I work in is not at fault here. I admire the people I encounter there. There are a lot of driven, independent, successful people in the communications-service business, men and women who’ve enjoy great comfort and pleasure in life because of the work they do. Allowing me to participate and take a slice of the pie is a gift and lets me exchange my talents and time in exchange for the money they control.

The role I play (as a consultant) is that of product-knowledge specialist, sales engineer, and a member of the marketing team. It’s a custom-designed job. They use for me for the things I am best suited for. And I appreciate them for it.

The role though, is the compromise I make with myself. I sold myself into this amalgamation of responsibilities, exchanging my precious time and life energy in exchange for money. And when boiled down to its essence like that, I am not entirely proud of myself. Because...

… I want to make something of my life with writing. I want to Be a writer. But I make these choices about life that, I sometimes feel, box me out of the pursuit of writing as my life’s work. If I get self-critical about it, I take these jobs (and take on debt and other barriers to the pursuit of writing) as a way to put a wall between me and the risk of actually pushing through on that dream. The voice in my head also ways that being a writer means being a fiction writer. And being a fiction writer is only valuable if your fiction is commercially or critical successful.

So there I am, at this conference, conflicted because the job I had sold myself into put me in a place which did not align with my greatest ambitions. How do I turn this around? How do I live the life I’m living, honor the obligations I have now, and be a writer? I said, out loud (in my head) that I was so grateful to be where I was, but I was open to how I could live my life as a writer first.

Being the writer in all areas of your life

Then one of the speakers put three book covers on the screen. He said “These are the thought leaders in our industry.” He said that these books, all business books making the argument that improving Customer Experience was the best way for the industry to focus its technology, was the aspirational knowledge we all needed to gain. Writers were setting the pace and tone of the future. Writers were the gifted and celebrated leaders in our space. In my space. Right up there on screen. In front of the entire audience. Writer’s efforts being held up as the highest work in the industry.

Click. I got it, the reason I was there, how I fit into the world, how I could serve this community.

My problem was not that I have created a world where I don’t get to be a writer because of my obligations and my choices. My problem is that I am not waking up in the morning and looking at the world I operate in and saying “How can I be the writer in this space.”

Looking at the communications-technology community and saying “I am the writer here” opens up ideas about content to create (I am writing an essay on Customer Experience already) and stories to tell (company stories, personal journeys, long-form explorations into the concepts that this community wants to work in). It makes me think of copywriting and ghostwriting. It makes me think of writing for the trade publications, of creating white papers and eBooks. It makes me think that by getting known as the writer in this community, that I can help leading-edge thinkers get their innovations across. It makes me want to be open to how this community could use a writer, rather than being a frustrated writer feeling outside of this community.

The result of the epiphany is that I found a space of acceptance. To be a writer means to Be a writer in all areas of your life. Unbox that one-dimensional idea you have about what a ‘writer’ is. Shake the idea that ‘writer’ means only a certain thing and just start being a ‘writer’ at every opportunity, in every space. Write and share. Write and share. Do it well. Get known for it. Whatever comes of it will follow.

What writing journey are you on?

Why we need reporters like Seymour M. Hersh

Reporter: A Memoir by Seymour M. Hersh

I just finished an amazing book, Reporter: A Memoir, by Seymour M. Hersh and if you are a writer or a student or fan of journalism, I recommend it highly.

I really had no idea who Mr. Hersh was, but the jacket said the book was the memoir of a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist who had worked for the Associated Press, the New York Times, and the New Yorker, who had covered some of American History’s biggest recent moments and people. Hersh’s reporting on the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the major events under every president from Lyndon Johnson to Obama, earned him numerous prizes and awards. The book promised an inside look at experiences of a veteran reporter, the real kind, the kind that dug for the truth behind stories most reporters would only scratch the surface on. The book promised to share the life of a true Fourth Estate writer, a journalist who believed he had a purpose in life to get at and expose the truth of big issues facing us as a country.

The book was interesting to me because I am working to find my own true voice as a writer. I hoped to learn from it, to be inspired by it. I wanted to connect with Hersh as a person and try to take something from his story that I could carry into my own writing. I enjoyed the book not only because it delivered on its promises, but also because of the riveting detail Hersh included about the major stories he’s worked on during his career.

A lifetime of major journalistic accomplishments

The book opens by taking us through Hersh’s decision to pursue journalism. Starting with his first at the City News Bureau of Chicago, Hersh does a great job of explaining the mechanics of news reporting and distribution. We get to see how regional wire service worked by fielding local reporters to cover issues and produce work they could sell to other news organizations. He takes us along on his first real, out-in-the-field assignments. He shares his insights into how he managed to earn freelance assignments for national papers and magazines. He does all this in an easy reading style, with quotes, context, and sourcing to move the story along quickly.

Once Hersh sunk his teeth into the job of reporting, he learned that he had an instinct for big stories. He trusted himself to chase leads that many other reporters were ignoring. He learned to work behind the scenes to build his story, to unearth inside information, to get to sources who knew the real truth, all in secret until he was ready to publish. An example: Hersh learned, as did many other reporters, about a mass-death of sheep near an American military testing facility. Most reporters accepted the official story - an illness or a localized contamination I believe. Hersh dug into the story and exposed the fact that the US Military, along with numerous Universities around the country, were developing, testing, and stockpiling all kinds of apocalyptic chemical and biological agents. The sheep kill was a result of an intentional release, a test, that grew out of control.

Hersh’s reporting led to public pressure for the US, and the rest of the cooperating world to agree that chemical and biological weapons were too dangerous to pursue. In 1975 the US Government entered into treaty with a number of prominent nations to end development and stockpile of chemical and biological weapons.

Hersh’s most famous early-career accomplishment came through his investigative reporting into the Vietnam War. Information coming from Vietnam accused American soldiers of committing atrocities against the North Vietnamese. Murder of innocents. Rape. Torture. Cruelty against civilians.

Hersh picked up on an account of a soldier being court martialed for killing 109 civilians in a village of My Lai 4. The official story being that this one lone soldier had gone crazy and committed an atrocity. Hersh hunted down the accused killer, who was being hidden away at a US base waiting for his trial. who said he’d participated in a sanctioned act alongside his comrades. Hersh was able to chase responsibility and knowledge (and cover up) of this, and attacks like it, across the Vietnam battlefield, all the way up the chain of command.

Hersh exposed that this captain was being setup to take the fall for something that was the American Military’s standard operating procedure. Top-level Pentagon officials knew of the on-the-ground evil being played out in Vietnam, even encouraged (or at the least allowed) it to happen. Hersh’s reporting exposed that the war was a rotten effort, that it corrupted young men, that it put our child soldiers into an impossible position that had lasting, negative mental impact on many (if not most) of them. And that the US, in the name of democracy and righteousness, were committing war crimes against innocents.

The story was picked up nationally and internationally. In 1970, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for breaking and pursuing the story. He later published a book summarizing his reporting. That led to a job at the New Yorker and, his stated ultimate goal, as a staff reporter for the New York Times.

Over his career, Hersh has been enmeshed in every major American new story and it is fascinating to see them develop from inside his narrative. Watergate, Henry Kissinger’s influence on world politics, the Gulf war, 9/11, the killing of Osama bin Laden, he wrote about them all. And not always without controversy.

Irascible at times - he speaks of editors and officials he ran contrary to, who apply pressure for him to drop stories and or change tone - he remained true to his core mission to dig for the un-pursued and important stories. Sometimes, when his current editor would not get behind a story he developed and believed in, he would sell it to another publication.

He has also been widely criticized widely for using anonymous sources, and his too-close-for-comfort reporting on issues government officials would rather remain secret was also often called into question by critics and competitors. But throughout the book, Hersh explains who the sources actually were (whenever he is able) and tells us how he determined what to pursue and map with him to the conclusions he came to. Hersh had an internal sense of integrity and compass that led him to do the right thing, as best as he could.

A masterclass in journalistic integrity

I loved this book because besides being entertaining as hell, I was able to take away a couple of major observations that, I think, will help me as I work on my own writing.

First, his sense of purpose as a writer is inspiring. Once he found journalism, he accepted it as a calling. He dedicated himself to being good at it, to standing out, to looking for ways to pursue stories that other reporters were ignoring. When his colleagues would rush pieces into print on only the perspective and assurance of the authorities in command, he would question. Does it smell right? What is the total truth? The killing of Bin Laden is a great example of this.

The official story of the killing of Osama bin Laden is that the US Government, acting on intelligence gathered by following known Bin Laden couriers, discovered him hiding in a compound in Pakistan. Then, without tipping the Pakistani military, raided the compound and killed him. Seal team Six then buried his body, within 24 hours in keeping with Muslim tradition, at sea to not give our enemies a worshipable grave. Hersh reported that the Pakistani military essentially and knowingly held Bin Laden prisoner in the compound for six years. Someone with knowledge of the arrangement tipped us off in exchange for a cash reward. Hersh writes that the team that executed Bin Laden tore his body to pieces with rifle fire and tossed some body parts out of the helicopter to scatter him over desolate mountain terrain. All a narrative of luck and unflattering brutality that runs counter to the official story.

I was also taken by how apologetically in control of his writing choices Hersh was. He executed to his own vision of what stories to chase and what conclusions to draw from his reporting. If he chose a story to write, he would write it. Which makes Hersh an admirable example for anyone pursuing journalism as a career.

Reporter: A Memoir by Seymour M. Hersh, was published by Knopf this year. I highly recommend it for any writer, fan of journalism, or for anyone who wants to learn from someone who is self-determined and accomplished at the thing they chose to do with their life.