You’ve Written a Book! Now What? : The Ins-and-Outs of Hiring an Editor

by Shanan Winters

There’s a moment in time when an author puts the final punctuation on the last sentence of a manuscript.In that brief second, the writer feels elation, excitement, a touch of fear, and maybe even some twinges of sadness. She breathes a huge sigh of relief, and in the next moment, she inhales reality.

The show is far from over.

Just because a manuscript is finished, it’s far from being done. As an author, you would never take a first draft and push it out to the publishing channels.

My husband worked with a woman who used to talk about projects in terms of “doneness.”There’s done – meaning that the bulk of the work is fleshed out. In writing terms, this would be first draft complete.

Then there is done-done. This second stage…