How to Snag the Best Freelance Editor for Your Novel

 

How to Snag the Best Freelance Editor for Your Writing Project

by Jodie Renner

With so many authors self-publishing these days, the best freelance editors are in high demand. So if you’re looking for a knowledgeable, experienced professional editor to help you make your manuscript the best it can be – and improve your overall writing skills in the process – be sure to take some care with how you seek out and approach them.

Due to the high volume of requests, sought-after freelance editors turn down many more writer clients than they can accept. So it’s important to make a good first impression.

Don’t Send a Rough Draft to a Freelance Editor

First, make sure your manuscript isn’t still in rough draft. Try to find time to hone your craft by reading writing advice by experts such as James Scott Bell, Donald Maass, and Elizabeth Lyon. (Also check out my three award-winning fiction-writing guides on Amazon.)

Then go over the manuscript several times, looking for issues you read about and those listed below.

Use Beta Readers First

Enlist 3-5 voluntary beta readers who read in your genre to give you feedback on what excited, confused, or bored them. Also ask where plot points, dialogue, or character reactions didn’t ring true or make sense for them. Here are 15 questions for your beta readers.

If grammar and sentence structure aren’t your strong suit, make the first volunteer you send your manuscript to someone who excels at English. It helps if they are willing to proofread it for typos and grammatical and spelling errors.

That way your other beta readers won’t be distracted by those kinds of errors and can get right into the story. ...

For the rest of this post, go to Anne R Allen's blog at:

https://annerallen.com/2021/09/how-to-snag-best-freelance-editor/

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized and edited two anthologies. Website: https://www.jodierenner.com/, Facebook, Amazon Author Page.