Holly Atkinson is a freelance editor, and her company is called Evil Eye Editing. She was gracious enough to do a last-minute interview with me at the end of the writing conference, and I am truly grateful. She had some good insight for authors on editing. She is also an author, which we didn’t talk about in the interview, so be sure to check out her romance books as well. Here is a quick bio before the interview.
Bio
In 2008, Holly graduated from Missouri State University with a Bachelor’s in English and an emphasis in Creative Writing. In 2012, she was hired by Samhain Publishing as an acquiring developmental editor, and she remained with the company until it closed in 2016. The same year, Holly launched Evil Eye Editing, which has kept her much busier than she anticipated.
On the writing side of things, Holly is an award-winning romance author of more than twenty books, publishing under the name Rosalie Stanton. Holly lives in Missouri with her husband, with whom she shares many wacky adventures, none of which keep them out past 9 o’clock at night. Above all, Holly loves losing herself in vast, fictional worlds so she makes a point to do so whenever she can.
Interview
What are the various types of editing, and is there one more important than the others if an author wants to indie publish?
There’s developmental content editing, line editing, copyediting, and proofreading. They are all equally valuable. So, it’s really hard for me to say which one is most important. It depends on the author’s grasp of story and structure. If they are a component storyteller and they don’t need a lot of help developing the narrative, then I would stick to line editing. If they need help developing the narrative, content developmental editing.
Content developmental is what I do, but I end up doing a bit of both regardless. It depends on the authors proficiency at what they are doing at that moment. There are two different types of new authors. The ones who think they already know everything, and those are the ones who need developmental editors the most because they don’t think they have anything to learn. The second is those who are very nervous about it and know they have more to learn. I tend to trust them more because they are self-aware.
So, you do content developmental editing. What do you look for when deciding if you are going to take a project on or not?
I look to see how competent the author is. If they are really rough. If they are just starting out and they don’t know how to do dialogue tags. If they are putting way too much info dumping in the beginning. If I can tell they are so new that they are several years away from actually telling a competent story, even if it is edited, then I will step back and say this is not a project for me.
A lot of the authors that will do that, especially if they are just starting out, think it’s simple to write a book. The people who think it is easy are the ones going to be a nightmare to work with because it’s going to be way too much time on my end. I have a flat rate that I do by word count. If I have two manuscripts and one is 90,000 words and the other’s 90,000 words and one is a competent story and the other one is a hot mess, I’m going to get paid the same either way. I will go with the one that’s going to require less work on my end.
Once you take on a project, what is the standard turnaround time for edits? How many rounds of edits do authors typically go through?
The turnaround time will depend on the length of the project. It’ll depend on the type of project it is. A lot of mine are usually turned in within two weeks once I start working on it. Editors right now are going to book out way in advance. I’m booked out now for several weeks. If you sent me a manuscript now, I would hold on to it, but I wouldn’t get started for maybe a month. Then, from that point, depending on how difficult of an edit it is, it might be more than two weeks. If it’s a really clean edit, it will fly by. So, I’d say two to three weeks is probably standard once you get into the actual manuscript itself.
For rounds of edits, I don’t know if this is standard, but this is the approach I’ve always taken. I would do two rounds of developmental. There is one round where we do the bulk of the work, and then the second round is where you really dive into it. First of all, did the changes that the author did make sense? Did they enhance the story the way it was intended? Also, did I miss anything? Especially in a heavy edit where you’re focusing on so many different things, it’s really easy to miss something that seems really obvious. So, two rounds with a developmental editor is my recommendation, and then one round, at least, of line edits to follow that up.
What’s something that you wish authors knew going into the editing process that most don’t know?
Every author is different. There are all types of authors who will go in and think it’s going to be really simple, and it’s not. Or that our job is to really boost your ego, and that’s not what you are paying us to do. It’s a business transaction. So, I would keep that in mind. I’ve worked with so many different types of authors, and they all have different areas where they need attention and need to be built up. Have realistic expectations. Know what those expectations are.
I do sample edits with every author that I work with upon request. Some of them do sight unseen, which I don’t love, but, if they’re going to hire me without it, that’s fine. I like sample edits because it allows me to see what the skill level of the author is and it allows them to get an idea of how mean I am. How harsh I am, and I’m midlevel mean. I know there are meaner editors than me, and I also know that there are editors that will let you get away with a bunch of stuff that they shouldn’t let you get away with.
I like doing samples because I have had people who submitted manuscripts that really needed a lot of work, and I made a lot of suggestions to it. They said, “Oh no, you’re changing my voice too much.” I’m like, “Well, your voice is bad writing.” If that’s the kind of conversation we are going to have, if that’s the relationship, if you are that adverse to having any of your words changed, then I’m not your person. I don’t want to work with you, and you don’t want to work with me.
What’s one simple mistake authors do that they can correct before they give you their manuscript?
Dangling modifiers. Those drive me nuts. When I was younger, and I’ve had this happen to a lot of authors, we were told not to start every sentence with a subject. That is good advice. The problem is that whoever told you that didn’t tell you the other half of it, which is you’re making awkward sentences by trying to not do that. Those can be repetitive too.
The reason you don’t start every sentence with a subject is because the sentence structure becomes so repetitive that it’s not immersive. It becomes more like a broken record on the ears, and a lot of times in trying to fix that they don’t understand why that’s a bad approach. Starting a sentence with a subject is perfectly fine, if you do it in moderation. But, trying to avoid it to the extent that you are essentially turning every sentence into an internal echo of itself is bad. I see that a lot, and it drives me nuts.
You have given a lot of great advice. I just have one more question. If you could give aspiring authors one piece of advice, what would it be?
Ask yourself what you want out of publishing. Are you doing this because you want to build a career? Or are you doing this because you love telling stories? That is a different trajectory of where you want your career to go. If you’re doing this because you want to build a career, then you have to look at your books as a business. If you’re doing this because you tell stories, then there is more freedom and you can be a bit more selective in how you approach it.
Final Thoughts
I am so glad I caught Holly before the conference ended. I love her no-nonsense approach, and I think this is great insight for how authors should prepare to work with editors. Know what you want out of it, be open to suggestions, and don’t be overly sensitive. The editor is there to help you improve your manuscript, not attack you personally. I truly appreciate honest and direct feedback, and Holly seems like she has the skills and mindset to do just that. After all, no author can improve if someone isn’t there to point out what is wrong, and we should always be improving.
Thanks for reading!
Write a tale
Leave a trail
0 Comments