How do you know what type of editor you need? Since hiring an editor can be a significant investment, you want to make sure you hire the right kind of editor.
At the very least, you should hire a copy editor. They are the ones that will find all of the typos and mistakes. Even if you are confident in your writing ability and had an excellent English teacher, hire a copy editor. The last thing you want to do is receive a bunch of corrections from your readers or, even worse yet, have a review that mentions grammar problems. A good copyeditor will also query (point out) anything that jumps out at them in the storyline.
With that said, every manuscript can benefit from the eyes of a skilled substantive editor. A substantive editor looks at the substance of the manuscript. They will look at the flow, logic, organization, storyline, plot, character development, etc. Hiring a substantive/line editor can be expensive, but the returns on that investment can be significant.
What do you do if you can’t afford a substantive editor?
I always suggest that my authors have a manuscript evaluation / critique done first before signing an editing contract. (You can read more about the details of a manuscript critique here and here.) Even when authors come to me for copyediting, I still suggest a manuscript critique first, especially if I’m the first editor looking at the manuscript. Why? The last thing you want to do as an author is spend money on a copy edit only to find out that portions of the manuscript need to be rewritten.
The cost for an critique is significantly less than a full-blown edit, and the critique gives the author an idea of what the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses are. It also gives suggestions for ways to fix the weaknesses. The majority of the feedback received in a critique points out areas a substantive editor would work on with the author to fix if they were hired. The difference is that now the author knows what to fix and the responsibility for fixing falls on their shoulders and not the editor’s.
Sidenote – Some editors, myself included, offer payment plans for the more expensive types of editing. If you find an editor you would like to work with but the cost is prohibitive, ask if they offer payment plans. For those that do, we work on the manuscript as the payments are made.
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