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We wanted to get to know Amy Waters Yarsinske (NAIWE’s Nonfiction Expert) better, so last month we sat down with her. Here are some thoughts she shared with us.

Is it considered professional for an editor to start a conversation with, “since I have not seen the manuscript, the price I am quoting is based on a manuscript in good condition”?

Absolutely yes. This is the way to professionally preface any conversation with someone who might want an editor’s services.

 

How often have you had a manuscript portrayed in better condition than it is?

Almost always. Whether I take the project as a professional courtesy or from an unsolicited query normally couched as “could you take a look?” the condition is relatively lower quality or just very bad. The services of a book doctor would be unnecessary if such manuscripts were in fair to good shape. Publishers’ in-house editors can handle those (in most cases, although publishers are increasingly kicking some of those to outside resources such as firms offering ghost/by-line writers to clean up a promising project).

 

Before accepting a project, do you advise that editors ask if the manuscript has been looked at by anyone else?

Yes, and when one of my publishers asks me to look at another writer’s work, it indicates they have had in-house editorial review at least once and attempted an edit to great frustration. Once such an in-house review rejects that editorial process, and if the publisher still wants the work, they either recommend the submitting author(s) engage a book doctor at their own expense or the publisher engages the same, as was the case more recently with me, to do an overhaul of the work. There are very few publishers who would pay for a book doctor on their own dime.

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A funny thing happened on the way to editing a large manuscript . . . A case of first impressions – not good ones – ended the editing effort before the end of the first chapter . . . section . . . it was hard to tell. The submission had come from someone who was not a writer but the publisher was anxious to acquire the subject matter for publication. This meant, for me, a book doctoring job more than an edit but it was proposed as a straight edit, oh, and sight unseen. But the manuscript was in bad shape on arrival and impossible to follow. When it takes months to plow through one “chapter” of a book of undefined scope, it is not an editing gig. This book forced me to wear two hats: developmental and copy editor – in basic terms – a book doctor with a patient on life support. Let’s talk about it.

You can join in this conversation on August 21 at 2:00 pm eastern, when NAIWE will host a discussion on self-editing for your editor. The cost for NAIWE members is only $10! Nonmembers can join for $30. Register today!

 

Amy Waters Yarsinske is the author of several best-selling, award-winning nonfiction books, published regionally, nationally, and internationally. Amy’s proposal technique was featured in literary agent/author Peter Rubie’s Telling the Story: How to Write and Sell Narrative Nonfiction; she also did a National Press Club panel with Rubie during the No One Left Behind press tour. She has been a regular contributor with international, national, and regional media, to include continued guest spots on national radio. An American in the Basement: The Betrayal of Captain Scott Speicher and the Cover-up of His Death won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for General Non-fiction in 2014, and No One Left Behind: The Lt. Comdr. Michael Scott Speicher Story earned her literary awards, an incredible press tour, and national/international recognition. With over 30 years in the publishing industry, Amy has published over 85 nonfiction books, most of them spotlighting current affairs, the military, history and the environment with a few biographies and corporate histories interspersed. Amy graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia, where she earned her bachelor of arts in English and economics and the University of Virginia School of Architecture, where she earned her Master of Planning and was a DuPont Fellow and Lawn/Range resident.