The 5 Book Professionals Every Author Needs

(Originally published on Wordrobe Media, modified.)

People, we’ve been believing a lie.

Many of us were introduced to authorship with images of Thoreau tucked away in the woods, Hemingway holed up in a Parisian attic, or Emily Dickinson doing Emily Dickinson things. Writing was presented as a noble, individual pursuit.

But the truth is that writing a book—especially today—requires creating an entire ecosystem around your message. Otherwise, your manuscript remains a few bytes on a hard drive/the cloud—and I’ve yet to see one of those produce real results.

If you want results from your book, you need professionals around you. No matter what route of publishing you’re taking, you need at least these 5 professionals.

Pro 1: Developmental Editor

Every week, I see a debate erupt in an online writer’s group I am a hesitant member of. Inevitably, someone will ask, “Do I need to have my manuscript edited before I send it off to query?”

Let’s cut to the chase. Yeah. You do.

Some in the group will say, “No, don’t waste your money. If the agent likes your book and sells it to a publisher, they’ll hire an editor to work with you.”

Now, that second half is true. A traditional publisher will hire an editor to work with you on brushing up the MS for publication.

The first half is misguided. An acquisitions editor has a slightly different focus than a developmental editor. And if it means landing a 6-figure advance with a Big 5 Publisher, is investing in your book truly a waste?

I’ve heard from multiple agents that they want to see a manuscript that is “shelf ready.” Will it need more work? Of course. But you’re unlikely to land that big deal if your MS still reads like a second-and-a-half draft.

(And that doesn’t mean typo free, either. Agents/publishers are less worries about typos and more worried about the content itself—does the story/message resonate with them? And more importantly—can they sell it?)

So let’s break this down:

Traditional: Your best shot at landing an agent/publisher is having a developmental edit done.

Hybrid: Make sure they are using a human editor, not just running your MS through an editing program.

Self: In a crowded self-pub market, you cannot go without a Dev Editor.

Pro 2: Copy Editor (or Copyeditor)

Wait, didn’t you just talk about a book editor?

Yes, I did. But book editing has layers, like an onion. (shout. out, Shrek.)

Copy editing (or copyediting - that space is a whole debate, guys) is a highly technical skill, and especially if you’re writing nonfiction, you should not go without one. They will:

• Catch embarrassing typos, like misspelled words, poor grammar, pesky punctuation problems, and incomplete sentences. (guilty)
• Get your citations/sources up to professional style guide standards.
• Clean up any unintentional errors from the dev edit/revisions process.

Great copy editors are also paying attention to your voice and message along the way to make sure that words aren’t just spelled correctly but are the right word. For instance, let’s say you’re writing a book about the insurance industry:

Unedited: Your goal is not to just insure your property or family, but insure your peace of mind.

An editing program might miss that second “insure” because it’s technically spelled correctly. But a savvy copy editor will spot it and ask: “Dear Author, did you mean to say ‘insuring peace of mind’ for wordplay? Or did you mean ‘ensure’ since that would be the grammatically correct version here?”

If the author says they meant a play on words, then the copy editor might do the edit like this:

Wordplay edit: Your goal is not to just insure your property or family, but “insure” your peace of mind.

If the author says “Oops, my bad, please use the grammatically correct version.,” then the copyeditor might do this:

Grammar edit: Your goal is not to just insure your property or family, but ensure your peace of mind.

Even with fiction, a copyeditor comes in handy for catching inconsistencies in character descriptions, noticing when an author uses the same word twice in a sentence (easily happens in dev edit revisions), or again, catch those pesky half-sentences.

Traditional: Publisher will hire a copy editor to scrutinize the text before sending it off to design.

Hybrid: Same. But again, make sure they use humans, not just programs.

Self: A must for nonfiction, highly recommended for fiction, too.

Pro 3: Designer(s)

Everyone judges books by their covers. And if they don’t, then they’ll judge your book by the layout.

The reader experience is about so much more than just the words on the page, but also how those words are presented.

One of my most successful clients said he wanted his book to “make reading a business book fun again.” So the designers helped him create a layout and flow that would be visually engaging, plus graphics throughout the book to add visual appeal.

When I first started out, I did everything for my clients, from editing, to layout and design, to helping them upload the final version onto Amazon. So I have massive respect for designers—both layout/formatting designers and cover designers.

Some professionals do both—cover and layout. Others only do one or the other, so you need to make sure you ask, not assume.

Traditional: Will supply you with cover designer and layout designer. Depending on your contract, you may or may not have much say on the cover or layout.

Hybrid: Most hybrids include design in their packages, but once again, make sure they are using humans and that you’ll be able to have some involvement in the process vs. them just following some standard template that will make your book look like 1,000,000.5 other books out there.

Self: You’ll want to find a designer who understands your book’s market expectations. Provide them with examples of other great covers in your niche/genre so they have some direction, and make sure they also have any brand specific info you might want them to incorporate, like specific hues.

Since you can’t pay me enough money to do layout design anymore, I’m always happy to refer to others like Toni Serofin .

Pro 4: Proofreader(s)

“Whoa, hold up,” you say. “Didn’t I already have a copyeditor??? Why do I also need a proofreader?”

So glad you asked.

What many first-time authors don’t realize is that you need a proofread before the book releases, but after the design process. It’s really easy for text to get messed up during the layout process and then not be noticed until—oops—someone buys a copy.

Stuff always gets missed. I find mistakes in traditionally published books all the time. But much less is missed when you have a proofreader go in after the layout and design is finished.

I like to think I’m pretty thorough, but last year when I edited one book, the proofreader still found about 20 mistakes after the layout/design. Honestly, I was stoked it was that few. I don’t proofread on a regular basis but I’ve been known to find 100+ mistakes after the book has been through a dev edit, copy edit, and design.

So yeah, get that proofreader. They will save you some embarrassment and from having to immediately upload a new version of the book tomorrow.

Traditional: Provides the proofreading, usually more than one pass.

Hybrid: Provides the proofreading (if they’re legit), but usually only one pass unless you pay for more.

Self: You’ll be tempted to ask your mom. Nothing against your mom, but you’ll be better off with someone who actually loves proofreading. Give a new freelancer a chance to shine!

Pro 5: Book Marketers

A bit of advice I have often repeated for the past couple of years has been “Don’t think of publishing as the finish line. Think of it as the start line.”

Many new authors are shocked when they release their book to the world and realize not even one of the 532 Facebook friends care. They then unhappily discover the difficulty of marketing their book and all too often, give up.

While I’m not book marketing expert, I make it a point to follow a few online so that I can learn from them. But let’s get to the breakdown first:

Traditional: This one’s tricky. If you’re a debut fiction novelist, there’s a good chance your publisher will give you a PR person to help with publicity and arrange some marketing events for you. You still need to get out there and do the work of posting online, showing up for podcasts, book signing, etc. But you’ll have some support.

Not so if you’re a nonfiction author. Trad publishers expect you to come with your own platform and audience already built. In fact, this is a major factor an agent will consider before signing you: Do you have the means to get. your book in front of a lot of people? (Social following, conventions, conferences, media appearances/mentions, etc.) So don’t expect a ton of marketing support from the publisher.

Hybrid: Some hybrids offer marketing services too, but usually as an add-on service you pay for. So you just need to plan ahead with a budget whether you’ll hire their team or go find your own people.

Self: All on you, baby. But certainly you can build a strategy for yourself or hire some help, including using tools like Publisher Rocket to figure out keywords and ad strategy for Amazon.

Some book/author marketing people to know about:

Hussein Al-Baiaty (author websites and book positioning)

Aryn Van Dyke (book marketing strategy)

Smith Publicity, Inc. (PR and marketing firm)

Renée Puvvada (book marketing strategy)

Though I myself provide some of the services listed above, I'm not the right fit for everyone. So if you’re looking for additional guidance on professionals or the steps for publishing, then book a free 20-minute Q&A and let’s chat about it.

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