Hiring an editor is easy. It’s hiring the right editor that’s hard.
You probably have a list of boxes you want the perfect editor to tick: good reviews or testimonials, professional training, affordability, availability, perhaps even a referral from a trusted writer friend.
We’re often told that an editor should have experience in your genre too. So, what if you find the perfect person, and the only catch is that they’re never edited a book like yours? Can you trust a romance editor with your fantasy novel? Can a horror specialist edit historical fiction?
Read on to find out…
Does your editor need experience in your genre?
The short answer is: It depends.
The longer answer is: It depends on the type of editing you’re looking for and what you’re comfortable with.
There are several stages to editing a book – developmental edits, line and copy edits, and a final proofread. Each of them has a different focus and requires a different skill set. And genre expertise is more useful at some stages than others.
Developmental editing and editorial assessments
Developmental editing and editorial assessments involve an editor giving feedback on the bigger pictures aspects of your manuscript – things like plot, characters, pacing, themes, and suitability for your target audience.
If you’re looking for a developmental editor, genre experience is essential.
Only someone who reads widely in your genre will understand the type of book you want to write, recognise common tropes and quirks, and know what readers expect when they pick up your book.
They know what makes a great epic fantasy, or ghost story, or cozy fantasy, and they can apply all that experience to help make your book the best it can be.
An editor without experience in your genre doesn’t have any of that knowledge. At best, they might miss things a genre expert would see straight away, and at worst, they might make suggestions that turn your book into something they would read, rather than the books loved by readers in your genre.
Line editing and copyediting
Line editing and copyediting take place after the bigger picture aspects of your story have been pinned down. This is where an editor gets into the sentence-level detail, helping make sure the prose is engaging and impactful, and that it’s also clear, consistent, and correct. (You can see an example of what line and copyedited text looks like on my service page here.)
If you’re looking for a line editor or copyeditor, genre experience isn’t essential, but it helps.
A line editor will know how make a scene feel more tense, or give readers more space to feel the impact of a tragic event, regardless of genre. But some knowledge of conventions in your genre will be helpful here. An editor who specialises in historical fiction, for example, might be better equipped to check for historical inaccuracies than an editor who specialises in fantasy and doesn’t have to worry about that kind of accuracy every day! Equally, a fantasy editor will have plenty of experience with words and concepts you’ve made up completely, and things like how to format a telepathic conversation – which doesn’t come up much outside of fantasy settings!
Most editors with professional training will be able to copyedit in any genre, but an expert in your genre may bring additional skills and experience that enhance the edit even further. And, of course, they may be able to offer further feedback on any developmental issues that arise in the course of their work.
Proofreading
Proofreading is the final stage of editing before a book is published. It’s going over your manuscript with a fine-toothed comb, finding any lingering typos or formatting problems. (You can see an example of what proofread text looks like on my service page here.)
By this point, the content of your manuscript should be fixed, so there’s less wiggle room for a proofreader to make interventions that rely on knowledge of your genre rather than spelling, grammar, and punctuation. And any qualified editor who ticks the rest of your boxes should have no problem finding misspelled words or a chapter number that’s missing.
If you’re looking for a proofreader, genre experience is probably less important.
That said, you might still decide that you want your proofreader to understand the type of book you’ve written. And your editor or proofreader may only take work in their specialist genres anyway. It really comes down to what you and your editor prefer.
In conclusion…
Any professional editor should be able to fix typos, or layout issues, or notice that there’s a full stop/period missing, no matter what type of books they usually work on. But if you’re looking for feedback on the bigger picture – plot and characters and suitability for your audience – or someone well versed in issues unique to the type of books you write, they absolutely need to have read and worked on other books in your genre.
Your editor doesn’t always need to be a genre specialist, but it definitely helps.
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