Find Your Team

A question I get asked a lot is what my process looks like, and I love this question because it’s different for every single person—and sometimes for every single project.

So if you’re starting out and you're not sure what kind of team you need to look at building, here’s a quick and easy guide of the various levels of editors/readers.

I’ve put the levels I use in bold so you can get an example of one type of team you can have:

Developmental Editor: These guys are the heavy lifters. They look at the big picture and help you on a whole-story level. The structure, the characters development, the plot. Making sure the storytelling is top notch

Alpha reader/critique partner: If you’re short on budget or have an incredibly skilled person in your life, this can stand in for a dev editor. For me, my critique partner looks at things at the story level, poking holes in what I have, asking questions, flagging areas where character development is shaky/non-existent/inconsistent.

Line Editor: Once your story foundations are solid, this is when you start to focus on the writing itself. Line editors help you polish character voice, descriptions, emotions on a scene level, making sure that all the work you put it on the structural level are on full display

Copy Editor: These guys give your writing a thorough scrub. They make sure you’re adhering to a consistent style guide, that all your descriptions and timelines are consistent, that you’ve used to proper words when you mean to. They make your writing squeaky clean.

Beta Readers: This is where I bring in my beta readers, after everything is as polished as it can be but I still have my final clean-up to do. But people use their beta readers for all kinds of things. Some people combine their crit partner/beta readers to do everything at once, or they rely on them for more of those “did I introduce any errors/inconsistencies during editing” issues. Beta readers are perfect for testing the water to make sure everything you did in the earlier stages hit the way you wanted it to. Are the correct emotions evoked and how strongly? Was anything unclear? Did you get bored at any point? Did you believe the timeline/development was believable? Any concerns or questions left unanswered?

Proofreader: The last safety net before you’re ready to hit the go button on the book. In traditional settings, proofreaders are way more than last-minute typo-hunters. They’ll make sure all your formatting is correct on the page, check for extra spaces, etc., but minimum, they’re the final eyes to try to catch the most stubborn errors.

ARC (Advance Review/Reader Copy) Readers: I often see online that there’s some question about what this group does, and the simple answer is that they are voluntary members of your marketing team. They receive a complimentary copy of your book for review consideration. Not a guarantee that they’ll leave one, but ideally they’ll like the book enough that they will want to help you hype it. They can also be a great secondary safety net for minor errors if they so choose. It’s not an expectation that an ARC reader will act as an editor, just a helpful bonus if they feel like it. Versions that go to your ARC readers should be near-final so they’re reviewing the story as it will be published (I usually send my ARCs out before the final proofread, and I say that in my email so they know if they do notice any last typos, they likely won’t be in the published edition).

This is a lot, and you don’t need all of them, but the more you have, the more you’ll learn about your strengths and weaknesses as a writer, the faster you’ll develop your voice and improve your writing style.

But this can be daunting for both the ego and the wallet!

For the first: you’re allowed to be picky about who you work with, and you’re allowed to remove people from your team. I’ve worked with editors I didn’t connect well with, and I didn’t work with them going forward. I’ve worked with editors I’ve adored who’ve then had to move on to other careers (LOOKING AT YOU, SUE). I’ve had beta readers that I’ve only worked with once because the quality of their feedback didn’t fit what I was looking for.

None of these layers of editors/readers should make you feel bad about yourself.

Like, look, it’s never fun to be told that your story sucks and needs to be rewritten almost from the bare bones, but that’s part of the job. When people say you need a thick skin to be in the arts, they’re right. While I have curled up in a ball and sobbed over so much feedback, after stuffing my face with chocolate, I do brush myself off and get back to it.

BUT

(big but)

There’s a difference between thorough ego-slamming critique and BAD, hurtful critique.

The ideal is to find team members who try to see what you were aiming for. The ones who are like “Okay, I think you were trying to do this. It didn’t quite land, here are some suggestions on how to get it to the point you want it to be.” This is a person who wants to work with you to help you make your book the best it possibly can be (even if it can be frustrating and discouraging and chocolate-eating-inducing).

The people who say “This is cringe, you should get rid of it”? Unless you’re okay with that, that’s not the kind of feedback that’s going to help you.

As for the other, wallet-based issue: Yes, a lot of these services can be expensive (I don’t pay for beta readers; I have an amazing reader circle), but there are ways around that without cutting out the steps.

Find people to skill-share with.

Are you really good at graphics? Trade some marketing work for a critiquing pass.

Know a different language? Offer a translation in exchange for a copy edit.

We all bring something to do the table, so why not make use of that to lift everyone up? Collaboration is the heart of the arts. Only by working together can we take over the world.