What I Learned Working with a Professional Editor

As a first-time publisher, taking in all the initial feedback from my book—good and bad—was challenging. Trying to sort through what is genuinely helpful and what is a matter of taste is hard. After all, people’s preferences vary greatly! I was happy for the compliments and the positive reviews, and happy for the critics, as well. It made me realize that a “neutral 3rd party” could lend a hand!

So this past month, I had the opportunity to work with a former editor at Penguin Publishing. Using the Reedsy app, it’s surprisingly easy to find someone with the professional expertise to take a manuscript to the next level. And honestly, it wasn’t as expensive as I thought it would be!

With Matt’s help, I’ve been able to improve the flow of my “self-help plus” book, “A Cynic’s Guide to Middle Age.” He identified areas where my readers might be dropping off and how I could improve them, as well as areas where I could reorder them in a more logical way.

What was most encouraging was this comment:

“In a lot of Editorial Assessments, I’m correcting grammar or helping to ideate on specific chapters or topics to help get the manuscript into a workable place; that’s definitely not the case here! This is very well
written, and you already have a great balance between your life stories and the topics you cover.”

It’s one thing to hear this from a friend, but coming from an editor in the publishing world, it was truly affirming! What I liked about Matt was that, unlike some other editors I spoke to on the app, he was not trying to upsell me or feed my ego. He was very matter-of-fact and spoke to his understanding of the market for this type of book. I gained important marketing insights as well as editorial.

The updated version of my book is now available on Amazon (Kindle and paperback). Most of the content is the same, but the flow is much better. Admittedly, I reworked the weakest chapter—on back bain—almost entirely! Well, no one is perfect ;). If you are also a writer and want to know more about my experience with Reedsy or Matt, the editor, let me know.

PS. If you already have it on your Kindle, it’s easy to update to the latest version. Just remove it from your library and re-download it.