Why I Won’t Edit Your Book

If authors ask me why I suggest we find a copy editor to work on their manuscript, I tell them this story.

Some decades ago, when I was a junior subeditor in the Time-Life Books copy room in London, I was called in by the editorial director. She chewed me out because I'd missed out a hyphen in an adjectival phrase in two advertising spreads, maybe 700 words of copy.

That was quite an introduction to the importance of accuracy.

Since then, I've been a subeditor, a copy editor, a project editor, a managing editor, and a writer. In terms of my ability, I’ve been respectively average, average, good, very good, and outstanding.

I've learned that:
✅ I'm very good at organizing information
✅ I'm very good at choosing stories to make points
✅ I’m very good at explaining complex ideas in a way that’s easy to read
❎ I'm hopeless at checking that the same word is spelled exactly the same throughout a book. (I once worked with an editor who spelled the same place in France three different ways on the same *page*: in the text, in a picture caption, and in a label on a map.)

As a rule, no writer should edit their own material. If they've made a mistake in the first place, the chances are they won't notice it the second time.

More specifically, don't ask me to be the last eyes on your book before it goes to print. It's just not what I do.