What does an editor need to do?

[Shreyas Sampat]

Um... the topic basically says it.  What kinds of things is an editor expected to accomplish, and what sort of procedures are edotirs expected to follow doing so?

[Valamir]

This is a good thread to check out:

How does one find and make use of a good editor?

[Jonathan Walton]

Now, I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but what I've gotten from most threads about editing is that it varies all over the place.  Depending on who you get, what their expectations are, and what exactly you ask them to do, it could be anything from correcting your misspellings to revising the entire text.  So your best bet might be finding someone that you can communicate really well with, to make sure that you get editing that fulfills your needs, even if there are some needs that you didn't know you had before talking with the editor.

And like someone said in the thread that Ralph linked: documentation is everything.  You're going to have to know who-changed-what-when if you want to end up with a consistent document.  Terminology may change, certain metaphors could change, entire mechanics may change, and you're going to want to make the final document look like you wrote it all in the single sitting.  Maintaining a consistent voice is a big problem in any large document, but hopefully you can get an editor to help you with that too.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

What Jonathan said, and for golly gosh' sakes, pay strict attention to what's called version control. It means there should only be one version currently subjected to edits by anyone at any one time. Sticking to this rule saves untold headaches.

Best,
Ron

[Clay]

Version control is important to any project with multiple people on it. If you're working with text documents (or formats like WordPerfect that are formatted text files) there are several good tools available to automate version control. These get really useful if your document consists of multiple smaller documents.

[HinterWelt]

Specific recommendation:
Jessica Breed
cochinealblaze@hotmail.com

An exceptional editor, high school english teacher and good friend. She works fast, accurately and will do as little or as much as you want. We have used her on our last two projects (Another Man's Treasure and Shades of Earth).  She has reasonable industry rates. She does have some seasonal constraints (school makes it tough in the fall and spring) but we will see how that progresses.

Don't know if this is what you were looking for but I thought it might be helpful.

Bill

[Matt Machell]

What you get depends on what you want. In general there are two jobs - editor and proof-reader - that often seem to get merged into one. Here's my opinions, based on my own experience in technical publishing:

An editor looks at the document as a whole, makes sure it flows well, makes sense to unfamiliar readers, keeps within specification, and has a consistent voice. To make their job easier, have a solid specification for what you want produced, and they can help make sure that the content provided matches up.

A proof-reader is solely concerned with grammar, spelling, and consistent use of terms. A briefing document providing all non standard spellings used in the text is useful for them (are you using roleplaying or role-playing, for example).

Hope that's useful.

-Matt