Lessons from an Editor

1. Double and triple-check the manuscript trim size and book cover parameters. 
2. If an author says they’ve been working on a manuscript for years (three or more years), proceed with caution and be extremely careful with how you phrase or present commentary.
3. Continuous breaks in manuscripts mess everything up—always.
4. When dealing with dialects or accents in creative writing, maintain an up-to-date style sheet.
5. Because authors are often intimately intertwined with their respective works, it’s important to give them compliment sandwiches in which you layer a critique between two fluffy compliments. Be direct but gentle with your wording.
6. You actually do need to see those hidden formatting symbols in a document.
7. “Mirror tabs” should never be selected.
8. The author gets the final say, even if they’re wrong.
9. Check the pagination. Oh, you already did that? Do it again.
10. If while you go about your daily routine (e.g., doing dishes or laundry, or driving to appointments) you are thinking about an author’s book, its content holds merit. It’s good writing.
11. Calibre is the worst.
12. Contracts protect both parties and establish expectations. It’s okay to update your contract of services as you come across problems you’ve not experienced before. Protect yourself and your authors with a robust contract.
13. Sometimes authors need an advocate, a cheerleader, in their corner to encourage them to keep going. Be that little voice of inspiration!
14. The find shortcuts in MS Word are so, so vital to locating errant spacing, tabs, graphics, mischaracterized fonts, and mistakes.
15. You can always go back and fix something. Just realized you made a ridiculously obvious formatting error on a manuscript published a year ago? Eat some humble pie, reach out to the author, and offer to fix it free of charge. Clear your conscience.
16. Do not believe everything that Grammarly says! One out of every four recommendations by the program are not correct. Its punctuation suggestions are only half accurate. It is good, however, at catching verbs that are misspelled or in the wrong tense.
17. If an author can’t speak without yelling or insulting you, it’s time to void the contract.
18. If an author is publishing on both Amazon KDP and IngramSpark, do not select “expanded distribution” on KDP’s platform as this will cause the two bitter rivals to start war anew.
19. Sometimes authors become dear long-distance friends. It happens.
20. You the editor make mistakes; you can inadvertently overlook errors. You are human. 

​Can you think of any others?