The Value Of An Editor

Last week I wrote a blog post about an interview I recently did with Kelley Armstrong. During the interview, Kelley talked about the great relationship she has with her editor at Random House and how, though when she gets back work with edits there is a slight disappointed that her writing isn't perfect yet, there's also a good feeling to know that it's all part of the process to make her writing, her story even better.

Seeing how flat the publishing world is becoming (and even being a partipant in some of that with the Espresso Book Machine I operate at Titles Bookstore), I think it bears pausing yet again to look at the value an editor plays. I can talk, endlessly, about how often, as a writer, my own work had been made better whenever paired up with a decent editor, but I'd rather look at what some others have recently said about the value of an editor.

The Cite blog recently talked about the value of editors in which they mention an IBM study that showed a 30% marked improvement on a specific call to action related to clickable web links when edited pages were compared to non-edited pages. Dr. Mark Nelson's blog post on this topic suggests that while it's difficult to measure and analyse the value of the editorial process, publishers should contemplate how to present the pivital part they play in the industry much more prominently.

Digital Book World also had an interesting article about How to Measure the Value of Editors. They mention that even if editors don't make changes, just having that second set of eyes being able to offer a different perspective allows writers to relax and create better work. They also go into detail about the same IBM study that attempts to actually measure the value of an editor

But alas, the value of an editor is not something that is easily measured when it comes to something like fiction writing. Perhaps those who recognize the benefit that a good editor can have on their writing should sing their editor's praises, the way Kelley Armstrong does.