When Should You Work With an Editor? (It's Earlier Than You Think)

What if you've already done enough to work with an editor—right now?

You’ve been working on your novel for so long. Not just months—years, maybe even decades.

And yet you have a long way still to go. The day when you have a polished manuscript you’re proud to pitch or publish feels so far away, and you're starting to wonder if you're missing something crucial.

And in the back of your mind, you might be wondering:

When should you work with an editor?

How much more should you do before you start looking? How many drafts should you finish before you reach out? When is your story finally ready for an editor’s feedback?

That’s the question I’m answering in this episode—and the answer might surprise you.

You’ll learn:

• The one simple question that tells you it’s time for editorial help
• Why "finished" isn't a prerequisite for working with an editor
• The landscape of editorial support available at every stage (from idea to publication)
• How to find the right type of editor for where you are in your process
• The difference between "editor" and "book coach" and what each term suggests

Here's what I've discovered: most writers desperately want editorial support—they just don't know it exists at their stage of the process.

So in this episode, I’ll give you a simple metric to evaluate when you are ready for an editor, and show you what to look for when you are.

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Work with me in Next Right Step: alicesudlow.com/nrs 

Transcript

0:00

You have been working on your book for so long, you've spent months outlining, developing, drafting years, revising and revising and revising, or maybe you've spent those years planning and plotting and researching, and one day, pretty soon you'll probably be ready to write the first word, and all this time in the back of your mind, you're wondering. When should you work with an editor? After all you like to plan, you want to know where in your process you should expect to invest in editing. Also, if you're honest with yourself, you're secretly kind of miserable. You've been struggling with your story for ages. All that revising is starting to feel like spinning your wheels on story problems that you should be able to solve, but just can't crack. But you're afraid of reaching out too early with half-baked ideas, an unfinished manuscript or a draft five that's riddled with problems that you already know you need to solve. After all editors need a manuscript to edit, right? And if you already know the problems are there, you should just fix them, not pay someone else just to tell you, yes, you were right. Your story has problems. So. When exactly is the right time to work with an editor? That's the question I'm tackling today. And if everything I just described sounded way too painfully relatable, my answer might surprise you. Here's a hint, it's earlier than you think, and that's a wonderful thing. Welcome to your next draft. Today I'm going to answer one of my favorite questions. When should you work with an editor? This is such a good question because most writers do not know about all the support available to you or when you can seek it out. And if you've been here for a while, you know that I am passionate about equipping you with the knowledge of the publishing industry that will empower you to get all the support you need exactly when you need it, and not get taken advantage of along the way. It's kind of the wild west out here in the publishing world. There are a lot of opportunities around you and a lot of pitfalls, and until you're pretty deep in it, most people really don't know what's out there. So today I'm going to equip you with my best advice on when you should bring an editor into your process. And I'm going to share a low key, high impact way that you can start working with an editor, even if you're not quite sure you're ready yet. That's coming at the very end. Now, when should you work with an editor? Here's my short answer. I recommend that you work with an editor when you are stuck. This is my favorite metric for determining when it's time to work with an editor. Are you flowing? Do you have clarity about what you're writing? Do you feel confident about what to do next? Do you have a process that's working for you? Are you making progress? That feels good. if that sounds like you, great. Fantastic. Keep doing what you're doing. You have everything that you need right now, and your writing is bringing you creative fulfillment and joy. There's no need to make a change or bring in an editor. Right now, there's not a problem, so we don't have to solve anything. Now, are you stuck? Is your story muddled and you don't know how to solve it? Do you feel like you're banging your head against a wall? Like you have a thousand ideas, but you don't know what to do with any of them? Do you feel totally overwhelmed, lost and confused about what to do next? Is your process not working or you don't have a process at all? Do you feel stalled and unable to make progress? If that sounds like you, this is a great time to bring in an editor. You have taken your writing as far as you can easily go alone. Yes, you can make more progress on your own, but it's going to be slow and painful and full of second guessing yourself. An editor can help with all of this with un muddling your story, helping you choose between all your ideas and strategize how to implement them with building a process that works for you with marking the progress you've made so far, and setting expectations and goals for the progress that you'll make next. Now, you'll notice that I didn't say you should reach out to an editor after you've hit a specific milestone, like after you've finished your first draft or your second, or the one that you're hoping is your final draft. The amount that you have accomplished is not the measurement that I use to determine when you should reach out for an editor's. That's because the landscape of author support is enormous. It is so much greater than most writers realize. There is always, always, always someone who can help you with exactly what you're struggling with right now. If you're struggling to wrap your head around the first spark of an idea, there's someone who can help. If you've spent months or years planning and researching, and you're wondering whether you have enough to start writing or you need to keep preparing, there's someone who can help. If you're trying to write your first draft, but you can't figure out how to fit writing into your life or make it work with your brain, there's someone who can help. If you stalled out halfway through that draft and you have no idea what happens next in your story, there's someone who can help. If you finished your first draft and now you feel like you fell off the map and you have no idea what to do next, there's someone who can help. If you have revised three drafts and now you've lost all objectivity and you can't see the forest for the trees, there's someone who can help. If you think you're finally done and you want to start pitching your manuscript to agents, but you're worried you might be missing something, there's someone who can help. If you have pitched agents and you're getting rejections and you don't know what's wrong or what to do with them, there's someone who can help. If you've pitched agents successfully and you've gotten book deals and you've written books that you're proud of, and now you want to level up, there's someone who can help. You get the picture. If you are at literally any stage of the entire process from idea generation to marketing your book after publication, there is always someone who can help. And so the question is not, have you made enough progress to be ready for an editor? A much better question is, are you stuck? If so, there's someone who can help. Now the trick, of course, is finding the right person to help with the specific things you need at the specific points of the process where you're stuck. The internet is vast and there are so many author service providers out there, but knowing how to find them, what search terms to Google or how to vet people's websites to determine whether they're the person you need, well, that can get tricky. So let me give you some language to watch for and explain what that language might tell you. There are two main roles to watch for editor, or more specifically developmental editor and book coach. There's a lot of overlap between those roles, but they're not exactly the same. Many editors consider themselves book coaches as well, and many book coaches consider themselves editors as well. I personally am both. I'm certified in Story Grid as a developmental editor, and I'm certified in Author Accelerator as a book coach. I think of myself as a heavily editorial book coach or a developmental editor who conveys feedback via coaching, but there are also many people who consider themselves one or the other, but not both. There are book coaches who do not consider themselves editors, and there are editors who do not consider themselves book coaches. We could get into all of the nitty gritty nuances between those two roles. And believe me, I'm tempted. It is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about, but for the purposes of answering our question, when should you work with an editor? There's just one difference. I want to make sure that you're aware of. The role of Editor has traditionally involved giving feedback on a completed manuscript. Someone who leads with editor as their role is more likely to want you to have a completed manuscript before they work with you. The role of book coach encompasses writer support at every part of the writing, editing, and publishing process. From idea generation, all the way to pitching, publication, and even after someone who leads with book Coach as their role may be open to working with you before you've written a single word. Now these are loose general guidelines, not hard and fast rules. For every service provider you find, you'll want to investigate to see what they specialize in. Do they prefer to work with new writers, beginning to plan their first ever novel? I know of several author accelerator book coaches who love this stage. My friends and colleague Savannah Gibo built a fantastic course and membership group that's perfect For writers who are stuck here, Does the editor or book coach that you found prefer to work with writers who have been wrestling with one story idea for a long time and who do have a lot of content drafted, but they're struggling to get the plot to work? My friend and colleague, Kim Kessler is brilliant at this stage and I send writers her way all the time. does the person you found prefer to work with writers? Several drafts in after the big picture? Plot problems are all solved to refine and polish the scenes and pages and lines. This is my specialty. I love this stage and I can help writers so much more here than at any of the previous stages. All three of us are editors, all three of us are book coaches, and all three of us specialize in different stages of the writing, editing, and publishing process. So to some degree, I suppose that defining editor versus book coach isn't a huge differentiator, at least in our case. But I still want you to know what those terms mean, especially so that when you see them on their own, someone who's an editor but not a book coach, or someone who's a book coach, but not an editor, you know what that might suggest? Hopefully by now you're starting to see what most writers don't realize when they're just getting started. There really is someone who can help you at any and every stage of your process. That means that the amount you've accomplished in your book simply is not a limiting factor. There is no right amount to have done before you reach out for help. You have accomplished enough simply by deciding to write a book. That's it. That's all you need to do before you reach out for support. The limiting factor is also not do you want to get an editor's help. In my experience, most writers do, especially once they've gotten a taste of just how powerful it can be. My clients regularly tell me that our calls are their favorite hour of their week, and they wish that they could have this level of support for every book they write. So if it's not how much you've accomplished, and it's not whether you'd like it or not, what is the limiting factor? You can probably guess it's a limiting factor in most areas of our lives. It's budget. Does your budget allow for it? That's the one factor that can make it a good idea to wait rather than calling in support early and often. In a perfect world where every writer had infinite funds to invest in their writing, I'd encourage you to bring in an editor or book coach as early as possible and work with them as often as possible. But since that's not the world we live in, I recommend this Instead, bring in an editor or book coach when you are stuck, no matter what part of the writing, editing, or publishing process you're in. And if you're not stuck, but you still want support, bring in an editor or book coach when you want to level up. A great editor or book coach will be able to see opportunities in your writing that you haven't seen before, and they'll help you hone your skills and your story to make the most of them. That means we are the people you want in your process When you're stuck and you don't know how to solve the problems you're facing or when you're flowing, but you can see that there's potential left on the table and you know you need help to reach it. The bottom line is this, there is always, always, always a service provider out there who can help you with exactly what you're struggling with. The world is big. The internet is vast, and there are trustworthy professionals who are experts in exactly where you're stuck. So don't feel like you need to do more before you've earned the right to work with an editor. Don't feel like you need to make more progress before you could benefit from an editor's feedback. Don't tell yourself that you need to solve all of your problems before you bring an editor in. Our job is solving problems and we can help you find the root of what's really getting you stuck so that you can move forward with confidence and know that you're working on what matters most in your story. Now, if you do have a draft of your novel and you're feeling editor curious, I have the perfect starter package for you. It's called Next Right Step, and it's a one day manuscript intensive where I will show you your best next step to revise your manuscript. Here's how it works. I'll send you a worksheet to fill out to tell me about your story. You'll send me your materials, your manuscript, your seamless, and your completed worksheet. Then I'll spend the day devoted just to you and your story. I'll dig into your materials and identify exactly what's working, what's not, and what you should focus on next. At the end of the day, we'll have a call where I'll share what I found. I'll point you to your next right step, and we'll start exploring what it looks like to solve the most important challenges in your manuscript. I'll have suggestions for how to do that with more editor support or on your own. It's all designed to help you get unstuck and create a clear, actionable revision plan, custom built for you and your story, whether that's with an editor or on your own. And of course, it's designed to give you a taste of what it's like to work with an editor in general, and me specifically, in order to make the most of next right step, you'll need a completed manuscript. Remember, I'm a developmental editor who specializes in the stage after you finished your manuscript. That manuscript could be a first draft or a 10th draft or the draft that you've submitted to agents, but you aren't getting any bites on if you have a draft and you're feeling unsure what it needs next. Right Step is a great fit Right now, as of the moment that this episode airs in September of 2025. I have about four spots available for new next right step clients. If you'd like to be one of them, go to alice sulo.com/nrs and fill out the form there to tell me about your story. That's alice sulo.com/nrs, and that link is in the show notes as well. And remember, there is always, always, always a qualified, trustworthy professional out there who specializes in helping writers like you solve the exact problems you're facing right now. If you're feeling stuck, there's no need to struggle alone. You have already done more than enough to qualify you to work with an editor or book coach. So look around, reach out and find the people that you need to be on your team. And if I'm the person that you like on your team, go to alice sudler.com/nrs and let's connect. You've got this and you never have to go it alone. Happy editing.