Most projects clients bring me into start with a variety of editorial work before we get to what’s usually understood as editing—fine-tuning the written form. Before we address the text we address the story: the people, the events that build the plot, structure, and untapped possibilities these suggest. Nonfiction tends to benefit from this work on the architecture and engineering of content no less than does with fiction.
This is where the most vital thinking happens. And it’s the most fun. Here we’re engaged hands-on with the work the audience comes to with the most basic questions: what’s this about? what’s the story? Form matters, but what readers come for is the content.
The aim is to advance the project—article, book, script, proposal—to the point it’s text-edit ready. When we get there, we move to editing on the page. The focus shifts to the text, but we bear in mind that the text’s job is to serve the story. The author can choose to be involved in this to whatever degree suits.
Technologies that have emerged while I’ve been developing my methods enable real-time collaboration that until a generation ago was unfeasible. Joint editing, with the author fully onboard, gets dramatically better results.
The same goes for the next phase, though it’s optional: enlisting beta readers. Here, too, technologies provide range and flexibility that enable authors to hear from an audience before the work goes out to the public. Beta readers’ observations virtually always deliver valuable questions and ideas.
In all this, the author, the editor and the beta readers are working for the same people: those in the story, and those in the audience for the story. That noted, the final word on content stays with the author.
My first job, discounting washing dishes and busing tables, was projecting old movies. For me at 16, $15 per night seemed good pay. The compensation was that Friday night, in a barn repurposed as a revival house, I’d screen a Hollywood classic. Saturday night, I’d show it again. Friday, I followed the story. Saturday, I watched how the story was built.
My first year out of college, no clue about publishing, a friend asked me to read a novel he’d started. Then to edit it with him. It took us a number of drafts and years, but eventually, one of the big-name New York City publishers launched that book.
In the intervening time, I got a masters in English and Comparative Literature. The comparative aspect of my study was the different methods written narratives and movies use to tell stories.
Following school, I did a decade as a literary agent. A century-old agency with roots in England provided my start, then I moved to at a brash, young agency that was 100% Hollywood. Of numerous memorable projects two stand out for me, in part because both inspired Oscar-winning movies: Peter Hedges’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Rex Picket’s Sideways.
Mid-career, I moved to the work that draws on the full range of my experience, providing working with writers in all espects of developing their projects, editing them and taking them out to the market.
Writers I’m working with right now live and work in Brazil, Kenya, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, India, Costa Rica, Greece, Italy, Ecuador, Norway, Australia, the UK and the US.
Their books, articles and scripts present stories set in:
(nonfiction) the 17th-century Duchy of Naxos, contemporary East Africa, Iraq during the war and occupation, the entire run of human evolution, Los Angeles of the first world war, the world of metabolic health, living with and learning to manage an autoimmune condition;
(fiction) the Galápagos islands, Delhi, coastal Nigeria and the Nigerian diaspora in London, Rio de Janeiro in the ’90s, an imaginary Russia of the ’20s, the American West during the Sagebrush Rebellion, early, medieval and modern China, the labyrinths and alleys of New Orleans voodoo, Regency England, pandemic-era New York and the future of quantum engineering.
For the first phase of work, reading a work in progress and providing my thinking on editorial direction and how to direct the work to the market, discussing these with author, and advancing to a proposed editorial plan:
US$750.00
If and when we decide to proceed with the book’s development and editing:
US$90.00/hr
This onward work we break down into task sets and phases. Story editing and structure, for example, come before text edits, and it’s good to keep the two separate.
The hands-on phase with a manuscript of 400 pages generally runs 40 to 60 hours. We map out runs of work, and I budget for it. While I may put in more time than first budgeted, the payment for a given run of work is locked in. Any overruns or changes of plan are subject to the author’s OK. The same applies to any expenses I incur, and on most projects I incur none.
We work on the basis of short-form deal memo, in plain language, which I encourage clients to review with an attorney, agent or other qualified person.
With projects destined for book publication or other distribution that provides the author a revenue stream based on performance, my agreements with clients provide for contingent compensation to me. The upside of this for the author is that I have a compelling incentive to see the work succeed, and not to encourage writers to pursue projects I don’t see as having potential. The figure varies, but we commonly agree on 5% of gross revenues (equal to an attorney’s standard percentage compensation; to one-third of agency commission). My contingent compensation only pays out once the author has recouped the full investment in my services, plus a contingency (usually 50% of the total).
For projects that have a shorter lifespan, such as journalism, blogs and podcasts, we agree on a flat hourly rate. I provide reduced rates for projects that are pro bono or not-for-profit.
revizion (since 1999)
Endeavor – literary and talent agency – Beverly Hills/New York (1997-1999)
Curtis Brown, Ltd. – literary agency – New York (1989-1997)
Columbia University – MA – 1987 – English & Comparative Literature
Harvard University – AB – 1983 – English & American Literature