Why You Should Hire An Editor

Writers – no matter how good they are or how long they’ve been writing for – need editors. It may be a simple statement, but it’s an important one. There are only so many times you can read over your own work before you lose all sense of how your words will actually be read by others. Even well established writers who are perfectly capable of editing their own text – to conform to industry standards, for example – eventually need to get help from an outside source; someone who doesn’t know the manuscript back to front and inside out, someone who can cast fresh eyes onto your beloved piece of work and who can be objective about your beautifully crafted words.

For these kinds of experienced writers, they may wait until the very end of the writing process before hiring an editor to go over the finished manuscript. This isn’t, however, always the best way to get the most out of your work. Technically, you can get an editor in at any stage of your writing – whether you’ve written twenty chapters or just one. Especially if you’re new to writing or new to the particular genre you’re working with, it may be helpful to get an editor in at the earliest possible opportunity in order to set you on the right track. Any mistakes you make in chapter one are likely to be repeated in chapters two, three and four – if you aren’t made aware of it by an editor – and therefore having someone working with you right from the start can save you a lot of time.

The services provided by professional editors are wide ranging; you can hire them to tidy up simple spelling mistakes and inconsistencies in grammar or you can get them in to do a complete overhaul of the manuscript – making sure the plot works, ensuring the dialogue is believable, and, in general, creating the best possible version of your text. If you get them in from the start (or whenever you first run into a problem with your work), then you will save yourself a lot of time and stress later on, leaving more time to get going on your next project.