Look at the shape of the graph – editors are clearly invested!

The emotional investment finding

No editor scored below 4 out of 10 for ‘How emotionally invested do you typically feel in the projects you edit?’

And 90% of editors scored over 7.

Look at the shape of the graph – editors are clearly invested!

This covered fiction and non-fiction editors. And those who edit both.

Respondents varied from a few who’d been editing for less than a year and more than a third who’d been editing for more than fifteen years.

Given all the split pie charts in the data, I’ve looked for high-level messages that can support authors and editors.

➡️Authors: editing is constantly evolving. Terminology changes and different editors may use different names for the same service.

It’s why you’ll often hear me say, you need to find an editor who suits you.

Misconceptions about editing all over the place

Only 2.4% of respondents have *never* had to correct a misunderstanding about what editing is.

➡️Authors: editing is constantly evolving. Terminology changes and different editors may use different names for the same service.

It’s why you’ll often hear me say, you need to find an editor who suits you.

➡️Editors: the message is clear. You must set expectations. And this includes expectations to protect your mental well-being. 

It could be on your website, in person, in a blog, or on a social media post. Get the information out there early so authors know where they stand before they start a conversation!

You need to frame yourself!

This is something my mum used to say when I was flapping about or dragging my heels when I was a kid. It’s Yorkshire shorthand for: Sort yourself out. Make sure you know what you’re doing. Stop faffing and get on with it.

These days it’s become my business mantra. It’s in my head whenever I’m thinking about a tricky task, putting off something scary, or procrastinating for a bit too long.

Frame yourself! Make your service and your expectations clear.

An editor’s choice

When asked the question ‘Do you consider how a book may make you feel as part of deciding whether to accept an edit?’, answers ranged from ‘Absolutely’ through ‘Somewhat yes’ to ‘Not consciously’.

One editor put it clearly: ‘Yes, I have specific caveats on my website of what I will and will not work with mostly to protect my mental well being.’

This is a fantastic example of setting expectations.

And it demonstrates how editors need to their mental well-being.

➡️Authors: this is worth knowing. You and your potential editor need to suit each other to get the best out of the author–editor relationship.

The key thing about this pie chart is that *every* editor thinks about the project outside working hours. 

What does emotional investment mean for an editor?

The key thing about this pie chart is that *every* editor thinks about the project outside working hours. 

And every editor thinks rapport with an author is important to their emotional experience of a project. This varied from 80% who thought it was important or very important to 20% who thought it was ‘Somewhat important’.

There was no one who thought rapport with an author wasn’t important at all!

When I asked ‘How much does the way the author communicates with you affect your emotional energy?’, I received one of those split pie charts. ‘A great deal’ and ‘Quite a lot’ got 83% of the vote though.

‘Part of my role as their editor is to help them grow in confidence and support their growth as a writer.’ 

Emotional support

There were fascinating answers to the question about whether editors felt they provided emotional support to an author, as well as editorial support. Caveat: this provided many ‘it depends’ answers.

‘Part of my role as their editor is to help them grow in confidence and support their growth as a writer.’

‘I’m aware that I’m handling something very important to an author: their hopes, dreams, ambitions, and/or something they’ve perhaps spent years working on.’

Boundaries and emotional labour

Split pie charts were in evidence for a lot of questions about boundaries and emotional labour.

➡️Authors: Editors’ feedback is not given lightly.

➡️Authors: Editors’ feedback is not given lightly.

Every editor worries about how an author will feel when reading their comments, varying from 22% who ‘Almost always’ worried to 41.5% who worry ‘Sometimes’.

No one said they ‘Never’ worried.

The due diligence question

I finished the questionnaire by asking: What would you like authors and publishers to understand about the emotional side of editing?

I learned about due diligence questions in my previous career (accountancy) – always provide an open question so the other person has a chance to answer the questions you didn’t ask. This is how you pick up thoughts and information you might otherwise have missed.

‘I like to think of editors as cheerleaders of the writing world. They understand that receiving feedback can be hard (even when delivered with love), but they want authors to succeed. All that scary tracking on the page sometimes disguises this.’

Here are some thoughts that editors shared:

‘I'd like them to know that, for so many of us, we're in the work with them. I'd like them to know that we're not robots, and that we're in this profession out of a desire to truly make work better so it can be presented to the world in the best possible way.’

‘Editing a book is an emotional investment for the editor as much as it is for the client. We spend hours upon hours staring at, thinking about, and dreaming about the books we work with, and it’s difficult to separate ourselves from them.’

‘I like to think of editors as cheerleaders of the writing world. They understand that receiving feedback can be hard (even when delivered with love), but they want authors to succeed. All that scary tracking on the page sometimes disguises this.’

‘That as their (probably) most intensive readers, we will be engaging deeply with their text on a human level; that we are trying to engage with them, the authors, on a similarly human level when we do our work. We don't want to upset them, we do want to help them – and we are affected by their responses to our work.’

Authors need to know that editors are on their side!

Where do we go from here? The key takeaways.

What an author needs to know

Editors are an engaged part of your book team rather than being a transactional, unemotional part of the publication process. Editors are on your side.

What an editor can do to support authors

Editors need to let authors know where they stand by setting clear expectations. Make it clear what you offer. And this includes setting expectations to protect your mental well-being.

(Though I’m sure this won’t come as news to my colleagues, it’s worth thinking about in the emotional investment context!)

Framing myself

I still feel like I’m scratching the surface of the emotional investment in editing and its impact on the author–editor relationship.

So I’m writing a book about it.

Authors need to know that editors are on their side!

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed to the survey – I appreciate you sharing your time and your energy!

I’m going to set up an email list to keep people informed about the book. Client deadlines are more important though, so I’ll sort this out once deadlines have been met!

If you just can’t wait, drop me a line now.