Podcasts › Fiction Writing Made Easy with Savannah Gilbo
#241. Do You Really Need to Hire a Book Editor Before You Query?
What's in this episode
Discover why the answer to hiring a book editor before querying isn’t a simple yes or no—and how to make the right call for your manuscript. If you've finished your draft and you're thinking about querying literary agents, you've probably seen this advice: don't hire an editor before you query. And while that's not wrong, it's also not the full picture. Because the real issue isn't whether you hire an editor. It's whether you're solving the right problem in your manuscript. In this episode, I'm breaking down what industry professionals actually mean when they give this advice, the different types of editing (and what each one really does), and how to tell whether your story is truly ready to query (or still needs deeper development). We'll also talk about why so many writers get stuck in revision, what it looks like to revise with a clear plan instead of guessing, and how to tell if you're improving your sentences… or fixing your story. This is what I talk about: [00:47] Why the advice around hiring a book editor before querying is often misunderstood, and how it leads writers to focus on the wrong kind of editing. [02:33] What literary agents are really evaluating when they read y