Allow Me to Introduce Myself
A new resource for people interested in nonfiction book editing.
Hello, and welcome to Quasi-Confessions of a Freelance Book Editor.1 So nice to have you here.
The goal of this newsletter is to provide a glimpse into the highs, lows, and creamy middles2 of life as a full-time nonfiction book editor (and occasional writer). Despite being an avid Substack consumer, I haven’t come across any newsletters focused on freelance book editing, particularly nonfiction, so this is my modest attempt to offer one. Along the way I’ll also riff on publishing, writing, and other related topics. (For a more specific list, see the next section.)
My assumption is that this newsletter’s primary audience will be other editors or aspiring editors. But I’m hopeful anyone interested in the world of nonfiction publishing will find it worth a read. Perhaps that’s you?
What do you mean by book editor?
First, a point of clarification: when I say I’m a “freelance book editor,” I’m not referring to someone who does copyediting—i.e., revising text to adhere to a style guide, ensuring consistency, and checking grammar and punctuation. In my experience, this is what most people seem to think of when they hear “editor.”
My focus is developmental editing and line editing. Their definitions can blur together, even within the editing world, but here’s how I define them:
Developmental editing looks at the “big picture” of a work: structure, organization, tone, theme, promise to the reader (whether or not it has been met), reasoning, and chapter coherence—all of the elements that determine how a reader experiences a book and whether it accomplishes what it set out to do. Developmental editors ensure that the content of a work not only fits but exemplifies the form (or, in some cases, cleverly breaks it).
Line editing occupies that hazy, often ill-defined space between developmental editing and copyediting. The term is somewhat controversial, as far as controversy goes in the editing community. Some editors call it “heavy copyediting” or “substantive editing,” while others don’t acknowledge its existence, arguing that developmental editing or copyediting are descriptive enough. For me, line editing consists of revising text to provide greater clarity; ensure formal and thematic alignment with a paragraph or chapter; and make it more coherent, professional, and true to the author’s voice. It involves flagging non-sequiturs, gaps in logic, sentences that are off-tone, awkward, or out of sync with the rest of the book—and, where appropriate, revising them directly in the text. It’s developmental editing without concern for structure, copyediting without concern for consistency. It’s playing around in the muck. It’s revising for rhythm and flow. It’s the polish that makes a work more readable, clear, and engaging.
At the beginning of my freelancing career, when I was desperate eager to take whatever book-related editing work I could get, I mostly did copyediting.
I eventually learned three things:
I wasn’t that good at it. Including the index, the 17th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style is 1,144 pages. (Though when I was starting out as freelancer, we were still using the 16th.) Yes, there are vast swathes of the CMOS that aren’t relevant to a basic book or article copyediting job, and the Chicago website is very user-friendly and easily searchable. But a) all those minutes I spent looking up rules I wasn’t sure about started to add up and b) my long digressions into rule-checking would derail my momentum enough that I’d inevitably overlook some other issue in the text.
The reality is that there are many others, some of them with certifications and who know Chicago practically by heart, who are better trained and better suited to copyediting work. I just never got that excited over jokes about the vocative case and misapplied en-dashes.The market for copyeditors and proofreaders is very crowded. Unsurprisingly, fees for copyediting services reflect this. I also think as media jobs continue to dry up and AI tools continue to improve, there will be even more downward pressure on pricing. Software such as PerfectIt already does a very good job of automating many copyediting tasks. More on this in a future post.
I’m better at developmental editing and line editing. People hire to me to help them with the conceptual stuff, like solving how a manuscript could be restructured to better align with its promise to the reader or reworking a narrative to be more gripping. I’m also good at interpreting what an author is trying to say, even if it comes off awkwardly or unclearly in their manuscript, and then revising the text to say it while still preserving their voice. And I enjoy critiquing gaps in logic and flow and pointing out sections of a manuscript that feel underdeveloped or, alternatively, beyond the scope.
It took some trial and error and a bit of time to start landing this type of work. For one, in my experience, most freelance book editing jobs that are advertised are really just for copyediting or proofreading. (Though lots of self-publishing authors who believe they “just need some light copyediting” actually need developmental editing and line editing. Another topic for a future post!) It took a combination of networking, building up my website to improve my Google Search rankings, joining editor-author matchmaking sites such as Reedsy, and that old standby, luck, to start getting developmental editing and line editing jobs.
Topics I hope to cover here include but are not limited to:
The market for freelance editors
How to get started in freelance editing (and how to suck at it)
Project fees vs. hourly fees
The dark, elusive art of juggling multiple projects at once without getting overwhelmed (still working on this, alas)
The impact of Google Search’s enshittification on business visibility and viability
Reedsy
The ROI of editing association memberships
The craft of developmental editing and line editing
How reading fiction makes you a better at editing and writing nonfiction
Editing and AI
Tips for finding a “good” book editor3
What you can/should realistically expect to get from working with an editor
Trends in nonfiction publishing and their impact on aspiring authors
Pros and cons of traditional publishing and self-publishing
Why so many business and leadership books sound alike
The uselessness of One Weird Trick-type writing improvement posts on Twitter and LinkedIn
The most common issues I see in nonfiction manuscripts
Why endlessly reading and talking about writing won’t make you a better writer (as opposed to actually writing, even if you suck at first)
About me
FYI, roughly 85 percent of this section has been copied and pasted from my website. Hope that’s okay.
I’ve been working on the editorial side of print and digital publishing since 2008. I spend most of my time editing nonfiction books and the rest of it writing articles and essays for print and online publications. My book clients are both traditionally published authors and self-published authors. Since 2016, when I started freelancing full-time, I’ve edited more than 60 books and half a dozen proposals.
Titles I’ve worked on have received mentions in the New York Times; earned starred reviews in Library Journal; and reviews in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and general news outlets. Others have hundreds of (mostly positive) reviews on Amazon. A 2021 title I edited, To be Honest: Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice and Purpose by Ron Carucci, was named one of Bloomberg’s Best Books of the year.
In 2022, I edited, produced, and contributed to an essay collection about the cult film The Room, You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!: The Year's Work on The Room, the Worst Movie Ever Made, for Indiana University Press.
Before I became a freelancer I was an editor and course designer at Soomo Learning, an online academic publisher in Asheville, where I live. From 2012 to August 2016, I created and managed interactive digital anthologies in world literature and international development. I was previously an associate editor at Oxford University Press in New York City, where I helped manage three of OUP’s flagship online references: Oxford Biblical Studies Online, Oxford Islamic Studies Online, and the Oxford African American Studies Center, a collaboration with Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute. Before that, I was an editorial assistant at the Collins nonfiction imprint at HarperCollins, and before that, an intern/lackey at the Onion. I also worked in real news, as a reporting intern at the Baltimore Sun.
I’m also a freelance writer and occasional book ghostwriter. I’ve contributed to the Wall Street Journal, TheAtlantic.com, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Wilson Quarterly, Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, the Awl, Literary Hub, JSTOR Daily, Tablet Magazine, the Baltimore Sun, Mountain Xpress (Asheville’s alt-weekly), Zócalo Public Square, the Forward, the Onion, OUPblog, the Brooklyn Paper, and many other print and online outlets. In 2020 and 2021 I authored a three-part series on farming in Appalachia for 100 Days in Appalachia, a news nonprofit established by West Virginia Public Radio and West Virginia University.
Book it
Appreciate you making it this far. Let’s get to it, shall we?
My confessions [Usher voice] will be “quasi” to ensure client confidentiality. Freelancer tip #1: ensure client confidentiality!
Yes, that was a Simpsons reference. If you can’t abide them, this may be a difficult Substack to get through. My apologies in advance; they’re the best tool I have for communicating complex ideas.
“Good” is in quotes because it’s so subjective. When it comes to author-editor fit, there are many factors in play. One author’s amazing editor may be another’s hack. Subscribe to hear more about this topic at a future date!