So I was speaking to someone in the publishing industry about my unpublished Urban Fantasy novel, and how my agent and I are preparing to shop it. “So what’s your next step?” they asked. I told them that I was torn between taking time to gather some good beta readers or just waiting and letting an editor get their hands on the book. “Which way are you leaning?” they asked.
This was more difficult to answer.
I totally respect beta readers, especially when they 1.) Are familiar with the genre, 2.) Take their task seriously (as opposed to just wanting to get a “sneak peek” at an unpublished novel, and 3.) Are willing to make honest observations (as opposed to just lather the author with praise). Good beta readers can do wonders for an author and a book.
On the other hand, I feel like this project is tight enough to pass up beta readers and go straight to a professional. In fact, I said something like, “I’d love to have a professional editor dig into this story.” Hopefully, those words don’t come back to bite me.
Anyway, I turned the question around and asked this individual what they thought. The answer they gave me was a bit of a surprise.
“From my experience, a good editor will catch a lot more things and have far more insight into improving a novel than beta readers will.”
This surprised me, not because it could appear like a diss of beta readers, but because it jibed with how I feel.
A good editor is worth their weight in gold.
I’m one of those oddballs who still respects the “old school” editor. Sure, they’ve taken some heat as of late. What with self-publishing being all the rage, many authors have seemed to rely less on the industry professional, and more on readers’ perspective. After all, your book should appeal to readers more than simply survive some editorial checklist. As a result, the beta reader has replaced the editor in many authors’ minds.
Perhaps it comes down to experience. Thus far, my experience with editors have been great. They have definitely improved my stories and made catches that were sorely needed. On the other hand are writing friends who have horror stories about working with unrelenting editors who required huge, unrealistic changes to the story. So maybe it comes down to ones personal experience.
All that to say, this individual’s opinion about editors catching a lot more than beta readers really resonated. Sure, at certain stages in a book’s life, beta readers may be valuable. But I can’t imagine anyone being as important to the production of a good story than a professional editor.
Your thoughts?
I’d like to say that I’m one of the rare (I’ve been told) beta readers with editing experience who can actually do both if I’m asked to.
We’re out there. The problem is that we have so many requests to beta that it can sometimes take awhile to work through the stacks.
I think a major factor is in how the individual writer reacts to what beta readers have to say, and on how difficult it is to find the right sort of beta readers in the first place. And also on what each individual writer wants from the beta reader.
My own impulse is that I’d rather be judged by an editor who is actually in the business. For me, sending a work out to beta readers would be more about me seeking validation and hoping someone might tell me my work isn’t dreck— which I know very well for myself, but because of low self esteem can’t believe.
On the other hand, if I wrote something that touched on aspects of life I didn’t know well— like handling guns in a military or police setting— I’d love to find a beta reader who could catch specific mistakes.
I’m putting this in a separate comment because I think it may be a separate topic altogether.
But there’s a real problem I’ve been running across with “professional” editors. There are an awful lot of people who have written a book or two–often not a very good book at that–who are also trying to pad out their income stream by offering services as “professional editors”.
I’ve had friends employ these people and then given me the manuscript to read once it’s been “professionally edited”. The “professional” misses basic grammar issues but also overlooks continuity errors and errors in plotting. (“How can he have the wrench to beat the mummy into submission when he clearly left the wrench in the trunk 8 pages previously?”)
So if you do decide to skip the beta reader and go straight into pro edits…make sure your editor is ACTUALLY a pro.
I agree, Katherine. I consider myself fairly savvy when it comes to grammar, but the true professional is going to catch even the tiniest of errors–the types of errors that readers might not even care about, but they’re still *errors*. Catching those takes painstaking effort, which is why a professional editor can charge the big bucks. And that’s also one of the reasons I never pursued proofreading or copy editing. I much prefer having a compiler spit out my errors for me. It’s quite nice.
Just realized I’m delving more into the realm of “Proofreader” in the above comment, but then again, I think an editor should be able to do both. Perhaps I’m asking too much of one individual.
Hmmm.
Nope. I’m not.
I’m biased, let me say this up front. I’m an editor. I work with editors, some of the best in the business. I troll for good fiction editors, who are RARE and worth their weight in gold. A good nonfiction editors does NOT necessarily make a good fiction editor without training. It’s a different skill set.
That said, I’m also a writer, and at one point, at my publishing house editor’s insistence, I striped out MY ENTIRE PLOT. I kept only setting and characters and dropped them into a new adventure (which comes out in March and got 4.5 stars from RT; so she was right).
I hear “horror stories” all the time, and they usually boil down to either a) an editor who’s not really a good fiction editor in that genre (never give a romance novel to an SF editor and vice versa) or b) the author doesn’t realize that the book really does have that many problems, or c) a personality conflict. I recently had to separate and author and editor for that very reason; they had a conflict and different goals for the book.
Yes, the goal is to please readers. But one of a writer’s goals should always be to tell the best story they can. To be the best WRITER they can. A good editor should be a coach and guide, never EVER implanting their own voice. If that’s happening, run. If there’s a personality or book-goal conflict, run. Otherwise, listen and decide.
I love my beta readers, but they would never give me a thorough edit. Nor would I expect them to. For me, their goal is an overall opinion of quality. Not an edit.
Ramona–
I feel like maybe you’ve heard my horror stories, even without having heard my horror stories!
I’ve had a couple of editors who were very serious about my work not sounding very good at all until it sounded like their own work. Even down to changing characters’ names, occupations and locations. (“This would work better if he were in New Orleans instead of Chicago”–never mind that half the story is about the city of Chicago itself and that I hate New Orleans with a passion.)
I would say it depends on the beta reader, the editor, and the author.
If an author has honest beta readers who understand how to give useful feedback, and the author is willing to take their advice, beta readers can be indispensable. On the other hand, editors are getting paid to know what they’re doing and tell the author what a book needs, so the likelihood of getting good advice that actually gets followed goes up.
That said, I’ve read plenty of traditionally published, presumably professionally edited books that were slow, confusing, and riddled with internal story errors and typos. Having a professional editor is no guarantee.
At this point, I have a cynical viewpoint that professional editors are like the coaches/judges of American Idol. They don’t spot talent or improve quality so much as they create generically polished marketability. I know this isn’t 100% because there are good books being published that still retain a certain level of raw artistic mastery, but artistry is becoming rare, and it’s especially rare in Christian circles. It has occurred to me that Christians are afraid of the idolatry they see in artistic passion–I don’t know. Or they may just eschew subtlety because they believe the gospel message is too important to cloak in veiled language. Going back to the mainstream market, I do wonder if the excessive rule-following one does to get published or graduate with an MFA may be the biggest killer of artistry, yet I still believe some of it comes down to professional editors. Sure, they catch a lot of “errors”, but at what cost?
Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
Flannery O’Connor
Read more
Jill–
That’s what I’ve been running into with a few of my professional editor friends. Granted, they don’t edit literature but instead edit genre fiction (romance, mystery-suspense, Christian fiction). They’re being told that their job isn’t to make any book the best version of itself that it can be. The job of the editor now seems to be “we publish This Type Of Book. When people buy a book from X publisher they expect these types of things.” So their job is to make every Romance novel from Kissypoo, Inc. sound the same. The women all have to meet the man by page 20. The man has to work in one of 5 selected professions, etc.
The worst problem is that a couple of them have told me that the new mandate–well, new to me, but it’s been around awhile–is that books have to read like film or tv scripts. Old fashioned novel pacing is out the window. The long, detailed descriptions I love–the Dickens-level writing–is dead. It’s now all “show, don’t tell, get in, get it done, get out again.” One friend bemoaned having to turn what was a really excellent novel–albeit a NOVEL–into what read like the novelisation of a movie script.
Yet another reason why I’m glad that Self Publishing is growing in such a way as to provide earnest pushback to that garbage.
Katherine–this is sad news. The quashing of creativity and truly unique and forward-thinking books is NOT going to push the Christian book industry forward. I still can’t figure out why married heroes/heroines aren’t as exciting as non-married. Marriage brings a whole NEW set of adventures, I’d say.
Classics…how I bemoan thy passing. Oh, for some modern-day classics, especially in the Christian book industry. Something I can sink my teeth into, a book whose characters become a part of my life forever.
I can’t stand books that read like movie scripts. Page-turners, some people call them. They aren’t worth my time or money.
I’ve been thinking about this topic lately (wrote an upcoming blogpost on crit readers/betas).
I have a beta whose input is completely NECESSARY and spot-on. She represents my target audience AND she can tell me if she sees plot twists coming a mile away (I wrote suspense this time, and I want unforeseeable twists). It’s crucial for this genre. If my beta tells me something doesn’t work, I KNOW it doesn’t work. She is definitely a God-send in my life.
But I also have an editor who is basically, to put it in a non-Christian fashion, the “yin” to my writing “yang.” He represents the top of his field. It was a miracle of God that I stumbled into him–and he’s my agent. He’s basically poured his time into perfecting my writing style. Worth his weight in gold? You’d better believe it. And so is my spot-on beta reader.
So I’ve been really blessed both ways. I’ve had several betas on this book, and I value each and every thing they tell me, though I might not integrate every single suggestion. I love seeing my book through the READER’S eyes. And, as I’ve said, landing that editor that GETS your writing is an amazing experience.
I don’t see it as an either/or proposition. Editors are needed and should do a better job at editing than beta readers do. But I’m getting so many submissions that will never get to an editor’s desk because the authors are sending them before they have been critiqued.
I understand that published authors who have a relationship with an editor may be writing too fast to have the work critiqued and may have their editor as their only reader prior to publication. But I think most authors, published or not, ought to have their work critiqued by someone–a friend, an agent, other writers–before they go out on submission.
At least for myself I can say I’d die without my crit partners. I miss so much in my own work. It’s all in my head. I can see it perfectly. And I simply don’t notice when I’ve forgotten to transfer several important details from my head to my manuscript page.
Well-said, Sally. We see the things in our heads, and we can re-read them when we write them, but there could still be things we’ve failed to elaborate on enough, etc. And that is SUCH a key piece of advice for newbie writers–get your stuff looked at by crit partners BEFORE sending it out on queries. I know I didn’t do that the first time I queried. I did get an agent, but my writing was NOT ready to roll at that point.
I’ve had the (perhaps false) assumption that the whole idea of “beta readers” grew out of the explosion of self publishing, because people who are publishing their own book can’t afford to shell out the big bucks for an experienced editor. So, the editor is still the ideal, but unfortunately the really good ones seem to cost an arm and a leg.
I think it grew out of the changes in traditional publishing before self- publishing exploded. For years now most traditional publishers aren’t providing editors they way they used to.
When most writers think of “professional editors” they think of someone who is like the stories of old time editors that nurse the writer and the book from a glimmer of hope into a sales powerhouse. They remember stories like that of Harper Lee, whose famous _To Kill A Mockingbird_ spent a year going through serious edits with Lee’s editors and publishers.
Editors nowadays at most publishers are an expense they’ve largely done away with. Publishing houses will provide someone (dirt cheap) who does a basic proofread for glaring errors in spelling and grammar and also a legal review. (Do you mention any brand names that we could charge for product placement? Do you steal any obviously copywrited content like song lyrics?) But the traditional role of story tightening, pacing, plotting isn’t around for most second- and third- tier publications, and hasn’t been since about 1998.
Hence the Beta Reader.
This comment, as well as the comment you made above about each novel having to be cookie cutter = very sad. 🙁
I have had the same editor for both of my novels, and he was outstanding. Both are better books because of the work he did.
In my experience, a really good editor will definitely give you the kinds of notes that few if any beta readers, even the best, can. Editors tend to be much better at seeing the whole picture and recommending large-scale changes when necessary. While beta readers tend to be friends or at least good acquaintances, who feel a certain obligation to be gentle with you and thus may say a little less than they’re thinking.
That being said, if you have an editor who edits lightly or not at all, your beta readers can be the only thing standing between you and what you know is going to be a bad book, and that’s when it’s a good idea to search out (or recruit) the toughest beta reader you know. And if you get the right one, they can do a much better job than your editor had the time or inclination to do. So it very much depends on the individual editor you’re dealing with, and the quality of the betas you recruit.
Interesting question, Mike, and you can see that there are a myriad of responses and opinions. I’m yet “officially” published, and financially challenged enough that paying for editing services is more than I can do at this point, so my perspective is a little different. I NEED my beta-readers, but they all have different “roles.” I have a school-teacher mom who reads my work with a red pen. She usually focuses on grammar and spelling and punctuation. Then I have my few and trusted crit partners who tell me that the story works or it doesn’t, the MC’s personality changes too dramatically or unrealistically, the hero talks like the heroine, etc., and the wrench was left in the trunk back in Chapter 8. My husband is included in that group, and he lets me know when the hero behaves too much like a woman…. Ha! Then…I fix and redo and rewrite, and send it out. I read what Sally A wrote above and it is so true – if I’d sent in my work BEFORE my beta readers got a hold of it, no one would even consider it. Now, I feel like it’s good enough to send in to an editor!
On the flip side, I used to take VERY SERIOUSLY the star-ratings and reviews of books by readers…. Now I’m finding tooooooooo many books (both trad published and self-published) that are poorly edited with great ratings. I don’t get it and I’m beginning to blame it on this whole system of advanced readers copies, a whole DIFFERENT set of “beta” readers. As advanced readers, we are supposed to help market and publicize these books, but the ARC copies we get aren’t ready for publication. I hate giving a good rating to something that is full of grammatical and continuity and sometimes even plotting errors, but it apparently happens all the time.
Apparently the system is broken in several places…so how do we address the problem?
Hmmm…maybe we writers should just write better, for starters.
Blessings,
Becky
I recently had an ARC that was full of factual errors, as well as having several AUTHOR – CAN WE ADD XX HERE comments which made it painfully obvious that this was the unfinished version.
I emailed a list of issues to the publisher… who promptly and politely emailed back, thanking me and assuring me that those kind of errors will have been picked up in the final editing and proofreading stages. Well, the comments to the author were, but the rest all appeared in the final Kindle version. All of them.
The book got a 1-star review and rating for me. My obligation as an ARC reviewer is to provide honest feedback for potential purchasers. In this case, I really think the publisher did the author and readers a huge disservice, not just by providing the unfinished copy for review, but by letting the errors stand in the final version.
Iola, you may think you’re doing purchasers a service by giving the book a 1-star rating, but you’re really punishing the author. 1 star is interpreted by most readers to mean that the book is badly written, whereas what you mean is that the book is badly formatted and poorly proofed. Unless the actual story and writing is also poor enough to deserve a 1-star rating, it would be more fair to the author to talk about the positives and negatives of the story as they wrote it, rate the book on that basis, and then mention the bad formatting and other errors as a caveat at the end of the review.
I apologize if it sounds like I’m taking you to task — I’m sure you did this in good faith and with good intentions. But I’ve seen too many fine authors and excellent books suffer from 1-star ratings for issues that were completely beyond their control. And I’ve been also stung by those kinds of 1-star reviews myself, so it’s a concern to me.
I vote editor in an editorial role (as do most of those writers who aren’t so new and naive as to throw their work out on Amazon, unedited, to “let the masses be the judge”) and beta readers in the beta role.
Field testing audience reactions is an important adjunct to editorial feedback. It’s not the same thing as getting an edit, and it’s not supposed to be.
With publication quality, I think it’s only fair to point out that production timeline can seriously affect the finished work. I can recall one much-anticipated book from a favourite publisher where the last third was clearly yanked from the copyeditor’s hands and rushed to press–knowing the internals, probably because the content edits were running behind schedule due to understaffing. Sometimes stuff just happens. It shouldn’t, ideally, and yet it does.
Ramona said: “never give a romance novel to an SF editor and vice versa.” Amen to that! I’ve heard a few stories about that particular mismatch, and it sounded painful…
And, as Katherine mentioned…yeah. I’ve had the client come to me saying, “I met someone at a writing conference, and they said they’d do a thorough edit, but all I got back was a copyedit. They said the book’s ready to be published now, but I’m pretty sure the structure’s still got problems.”
And, yes, even as a beginner, the writer knew enough to be right about that. Just not how to fix it. Why on earth the so-called “editor” didn’t is a disturbing question. Background checks…always check the resume and ask others clients’ opinions before hiring a freelancer (says the freelance editor…truth is truth).
You need both.
I’m not saying you need 20 beta readers. But one or two people you trust and that understand the novel is a good way to make the story better, tighten it, ask the tough questions about motive, or address the lack of plot or details. Or to simply say, the book is ready.
Then it’s time for an editor, and worth the cost.
JQ
Timing is interesting, just this week I was thinking about getting an editor for manuscript I think is ready.
I can see that my opinion will not be particularly popular here, but I want to add an odd voice to the discussion. Virtually everyone has made good points but no one has noted that the Beta readers don’t countersign contracts; editors do.
Beta readers read for themselves, to be helpful, to serve God; editors read for the publisher who will foot the bill to publish the book.
Realistically, whose edit carries the most weight? Realistically, who should be editing? Please note: I am NOT saying dash off a MS as fast as you can on coffee shop napkins, stuff it in an envelope and throw it at the editor ’cause “it’s their job to fix it”. I am assuming you have done a creditable job of self-editing and have done the requisite drafts and polishing. I am ASSUMING you will send the editor the best piece of work you can produce.
Are you talking about proofing-for-spelling-errors editing or “continuity” editing?
It is the continuity errors that truly bug me. Like I once read a book where a character was described as wearing one type of hat, but then a page or so later was described as suddenly wearing another type of hat for no reason (he was out and about following the trail of a mystery, and didn’t have a chance to change hats). It was as if someone is described as entering a car to go to work wearing one outfit, they are described as driving to work, and then they suddenly exit the car dressed completely different. It made no sense.
Which reminds me … it’s been a while since I read “The Telling”, but I still am not sure as to a little of what happened. Were the demons first possessing some of the people (both in the past legend and in the present story) and then, once they had been in the person’s body awhile, they were able to learn how to replicate the DNA to a certain extent, and so they killed their hosts (leaving the pile of skins and all those dead bodies) and then made new bodies and took their places? But if Zeph hadn’t been possessed by a demon, where did the body that resembled him come from?
(Hope this isn’t too spoilery for some of the commenters, but I am assuming that most of the people commenting here have read your books.)
* * SPOILERS * *
Jodie, the dark angels would mimic their potential hosts. However, once summoned through the Rift, they could not fully migrate over until they “ate the soul” (sucked the “breath” and “life essence”) of their double. They were very fragile in this intermediary state. Which is why Fergus kept his double — the angel that looked like him, who he’d shot — hanging in his trailer. It’s also why Zeph’s double appears more than once in the story. They were never able to “possess” him. Once a victim encountered their “double” and their soul was “swapped,” the dark angel would be “complete,” and the victim’s body would simply die. Which is why human bodies kept showing up throughout the story. They were “leftovers.”
Thank you!
I’m self-published and I’m all for professional editors… Providing they’re professional. Someone who is experienced, sympathetic to the genre, with an eye not simply for line editing but overall substance, is absolutely essential. My goal is to improve as a writer, and that requires outside, objective criticism.
I am on my third novel, and after the first two were a bit rushed, (in hindsight) i’m doing this one right. I decided on 5 beta-readers, but all of whom I did not know very well so that they would feel less obliged to lather me with soapy praise. Of course, I wanted to know if the piece was worth reading (heck yeah it is) but mostly wanted plot holes, implausibilities, and ‘no way does that happen’ kind of feedback. So far, it’s been incredible, (they noticed a pop-tart that mysteriously vanished, and a vegan who later ate organic meat, plus a cheap hotel with nice robes in the closet) Next up is the editor.
As someone who has read some extremely bad books that needed an editor, I root for the editor. Nothing reads better and adds the experience more than a well-edited manuscript. Us readers would thank you. LOL.
Beta-Readers are my user focus group; whereas the Editor is my technical shake-down engineer.
1. Beta-Readers can identify a story’s weaknesses, such as when:
– A character does not quite rise to the occasion,
– An issue is left unresolved,
– An emotional episode is not fully developed or described,
– Something is misunderstood by the reader,
– Something is left unexplained to the reader,
– The story-line digresses, and
– Points intended by the author are left unmade.
2. The right set of Beta-Readers can find deficiencies in a story’s descriptions of technologies and environment. Example: a scene in my book is set in a salt mine; coincidentally, one of my readers, a geologist, happened to have worked in a salt mine and was able to verify and enhance my descriptions.
3. Beta-Readers, if representing a book’s target demographic, can provide a gauge of likely reader “buzz.” Further, they will get to know you, the author, a bit more intimately–know your way of thinking–and offer suggestions about characterization and any given character’s thought process that may have eluded you.
With Beta-Readers, my assumptions about readers have been both shattered and expanded; they see both more and less than I might otherwise expect. I’ll keep them on my team.
I’m a freelance copy editor/proofreader and author of short stories and novels. Beta readers and people in general read differently. Some people are “passive readers” who want everything shown or told to them; other people “read into the story” and like to think as they absorb what’s happening. Kind of like Virginia Woolf readers versus Stephen King readers. If you read Woolf, you really have to slow down and be thoughtful to get all her imagery, and she writes in very long sentences. With King, you can sail along with explicit details, quirky fragments at every turn, and it’s great fun. So finding the right beta reader for your type of writing or story is critical.
I wouldn’t dream of putting my work out there without an editor. But there are different kinds of editors too. Story content and development editors will evaluate the story, plot, and characters, and even marketability. A copy editor will read for grammar, sentence structure, word choice, accuracy, and clarity, and do some fact checking if needed. A proofreader will catch all the typos, errors, and style inconsistencies. No one editor can do all these effectively because they are very different editorial skills.
When I wrote my novel Night Sea Journey, I had 3 editors. And I still did my own proofing in the end because they can’t catch everything either. And yes, I found some things they missed. In the old days (before on-screen reading/editing), we’d read the final hard copy manuscript, line by line, with a white ruler! And then we’d read it backwards, line by line, from the bottom of the page up with the white ruler. Tedious? Absolutely. The result was a clean MS. When I read what’s out there today, even from the big name publishers, I find errors; so it goes to show that they are not proofing effectively. Today’s on-screen editing is faulty because your eye tends to slip on the text. This is because we are reading light not hard printed copy. That’s why the “white ruler read” on a print out is so important to achieve a professional finish.
Paula Cappa
Satan has deceived the whole world until the woman of Rev 12 delivers the true word of God Rev 12:5. She is not a church, she is not Israel, and she is not Mary. She is the prophet like unto Moses and Elijah Matt 17:3, Acts 3:21-23, Luke 1:17 delivering the true word John 1:1 from the wilderness Rev 12:6 to prepare a people for the Lord’s return. God our Father will not put any child of his into a hell fire no matter what their sins. It never entered the heart or mind of God to ever do such a thing Jer7:31, Jer 19:5. Turn your heart to the children of God. A gift is now delivered and proven to the whole world as a witness Matt 24:14. http://thegoodtale.wordpress.com. A righteous judge gathers ALL evidence before making a judgment. If you are called to know the true word- Prove all things. God chose a woman.