Editors

Today's post is by regular contributor Peter Selgin, the award-winning author of Your First Page. He offers first-page critiques to show just how much useful critical commentary and helpful feedback can be extracted from a single page-the first page-of a work-in-progress.

In the mid 1990s, the headquarters of Bantam Doubleday Dell publishers resembled a space-ship docked on a dark star. As a new editorial assistant, drowning in manuscripts, I'd come in weekends to catch up on submissions. The low intergalactic air conditioner hum made it a great place to read.  Read more

Indie authors all agree: hiring an editor to work on your manuscript is one of the best and most necessary investments an author can make. Editing takes both time and money and can encompass anything from a substantiative (i.e.  Read more

"Mistakes are reminders that books are made by humans and not gods," a publisher once told me when I was a relatively new editor, bemoaning a typo that had managed to slip through. Those words brought me some comfort at the time. And now, all these years later, in my role as publisher of two imprints, those words come to mind often-because where there are books, there are errors.  Read more

In 2018, I was fortunate to work with three novelists who transformed their thrillers through remarkably inspired revisions. As is often the case, I learned more than I contributed while working on these exceptional books. Here, I'll share a few of my takeaways.  Read more