199: A Book Editor's Take on A BookTok Controversy

 

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A Book Editor's Take on A BookTok Controversy

 

Hi friends, welcome to Your Big Creative Life podcast. recording on the floor today and then home and excited because we're approaching our 200th episode, which is absolutely insane. I mean, intellectually, I know that I've been doing this podcast for like a few years now, but to see, I think this is going to be episode 199 and then our Q&A episode for September will be the 200th episode, which is wild. If you are an OG, I want to say thank you, especially if you've been listening for a while, even like pre Your Big Creative Life days. This podcast used to be called Blank Page to Book. So if you've been listening since Blank Page to Book. Thank you. I really, really appreciate y'all listening and leaving reviews and sharing the podcast on Instagram and just letting me know your thoughts. It really means a lot to me. And if you're new listening to the podcast, thank you for checking it out and welcome.

Okay, this episode is something that I've been mulling over for a little while and I don't get into BookTok controversy. I don't get into drama. It's just not my lane. I'm not a book account. I'm not posting reviews and like sharing about books that I'm reading because that's not my lane. I share writing tips. Of course, there's a ton of overlap between the writing community and the book community. But I've always thought I'm a professional editor. That's like, that's like, I'm sharing writing tips and it's my business account. And also eventually, hopefully soon, I would like to be a published author. And so that feels dicey to be sharing book reviews and talking about what I'm reading, but then also be entering space as an author as well. So I've always been very clear about my lane and staying in that. I might mention a book occasionally if I'm reading it and really enjoying it, but that's pretty much it. And I don't wade into drama or controversy on BookTok, but what we're going to talk about in this episode, it feels worthy of discussion and it feels worthy of discussion for me to weigh on specifically because there's been a lot of conversation around the role of a book editor in this particular instance, but then also generally. And I think there's a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about this. And if you're a new author especially, and you know that you want to be self-publishing, you could be looking at what's going on and be concerned and like just think that things work a certain way and they don't.

So we're going to talk about that in this episode... I'm talking about an author who has been getting a lot of hate and a lot of, so just backlash on BookTok. Audra, I just Googled it because I honestly couldn't remember if it was Audra Winter or Winters. Audra Winter, I think. Yeah, Audra Winter and her book is The Age of Scorpius. We are not going to get super deep into details about this because I don't want this episode to be gossipy. I don't want this to be just tearing her to shreds or like talking about a lot about this specific case. But I just want to give you a cliff notes, cliff notes kind of overview of this in case you're not on book talk or you're not familiar with what is going on. So Audra Winter is a 22-year-old author who published her fantasy novel a couple of months ago after a lot of buzz on TikTok. The marketing was very good. People noticed. She got a lot of pre-orders for this fantasy novel that she's been working on since she was 12. So there was some buzz around it. And the book was released a few months ago and immediately people started just posting about how the writing was not very good, the story was not really up to par, it didn't meet their expectations, especially for someone who had really hyped up the writing and hyped up the book because the author had been working on this for 10 years. And what was interesting in this as well is this author shared about the team that she had behind her, which that alone isn't that alarming. I have a couple of clients who refer to me as being part of their team and that's totally fine.

But what was unique in this situation is this author has a team of illustrators and artists and multiple editors who are like creating this whole world around this fantasy world that she created in her novel. So I have not read the book. That's not what we're going to be talking about here because it's not, again, it's not my lane. I haven't read it. I'm not here to critique an author's writing. But once there was a lot of backlash and people were upset about the quality of writing, this author decided to pull the book and work on improving it and hire a different editor. And where I saw an opportunity for me to kind of step in is this author, well, okay, first of all, let me say, I cannot imagine being a debut author and seeing my name be just absolutely torn to shreds on BookTok. I cannot imagine what she's going through. And my heart is with her for that reason. Like, no matter what she's done, no matter how poorly she might have handled this whole thing, it still sucks to have the internet kind of like coming after you. And I just, that sucks. And I don't, like seeing the dog piling. But that being said, her response has not been great to all of this. And there was a, she hired a new editor after hyping up her previous editor. Her previous editor, she said, had worked on really big name books, was amazing.

Then this new editor steps in and did a Q&A with Audra's following, which was odd. And then also basically through the previous editor or editors, I can't remember if there were one or multiple under the bus saying negative things about the quality of work that was done. And that is wild to me. I have never seen that. is an extremely poor taste, in my opinion, for a book editor to say anything negative about the work that a previous book editor did and I just don't love that… does not sit well with me. I have had clients who have hired me after working with another editor before me and I got the manuscript, it was like, oh boy, this editor just did not do a great job, but I would never publicly blast that editor. And also I looked at the Q&A that Audra Winter put out and the way that the editor was talking about editing, I think, would lead some new writers to believe that an editor has more say than they do.

So this is step one of what I want to get into in this episode is to talk about the role of a developmental type of editor specifically. So developmental editing, manuscript evaluation, manuscript assessment, however you want to talk about it what this is, an editor is going in, reading the manuscript, and giving the author feedback. They're leaving comments, they're writing an editorial letter. The actual deliverable is going to vary depending on the editor and the package, but there's some form of suggestions, right, around plot, characters, pacing, conflict, world building, et cetera. That editor is not going in to make any actual changes to the book. They are just presenting suggestions and opportunities for improvement, maybe even doing a bit of brainstorming and saying, hey, if you were to do this, maybe you could do this. That's fine, but they're not actually writing anything. If you want someone to make changes to the book for you, and actually rewrite things, that is a different service entirely. You were looking for like a ghostwriter or a co-author at that point, not an editor.

So already there's some, I think, a misconception about that. So that's what an editor does. In addition, when the author gets the deliverable, the comments, the editorial letter, whatever it is, they have the final say. They get to go through and decide what suggestions they think are valid and they want to accept and change and what suggestions they don't. When you are self-publishing, you have the final say in what the book looks like, right? That's one of the actual benefits of self-publishing is that you don't have to get a stamp of approval or you don't have to get permission from anyone. You can decide what the title is. You can decide what the cover is. You can decide what the final form of the actual story itself looks like after working with an editor. I have had the experience of, not, this doesn't always happen, but it's happened a number of times where an author will not, they will not really take my suggestions and go on to publish a version of the book that is only slightly different and they just don't take my suggestions for improvement. And how I know this is, so for most developmental type of editing, there's only one round, right?

So I look at a manuscript, I read it a couple times, leave my notes, do my editorial letter, send it back to the client, and then they make changes and get to do with it whatever they want. Like I don't see the final version unless a client has hired me to do a second pass or we're in like a coaching capacity or I copy edit the book. So I do have some clients who hire me for both the services that I offer where I will do a developmental type of edit. I'll do that manuscript evaluation, send them the notes, and then they'll take one, two, three months, make some changes based on my feedback, and then send it back to me once it's all done for copy editing. And copy editing cleans up grammar, typos, punctuation, misspellings, verb tense, that kind of thing, right? So then in that case, I see the final version of the book and I'm like, oh, interesting. They did not take my suggestions, which is fine. That's how it gets to be because I don't have final say. I can't force anyone to accept a suggestion.

There are all kinds of reasons why an author might not want to edit based on my feedback. Maybe they just think that I don't understand their book, that I see it differently than they do, and maybe there's truth in that. Maybe it's a timing thing. They've already announced their publication date. They can't push it, so they just don't have time and they don't want to make those changes. They think it's going to be a lot of work and they just simply don't want to do it. Sometimes I think it's ego too, where they just their ego gets a bit bruised because, and that's normal. It makes sense. Of course, it's going to sting when you get suggestions and feedback from someone, anyone, an editor or a non-editor. And I do think people, some authors get their feelings hurt and their ego bruised and they just like, it stings. And so they don't want to make those changes. And I can say that because I've also been an author who has received editor feedback where it stung. I got irritated because the editor didn't pat me on the back and say, this is perfect and ready to go and you're wonderful. And my first gut instinct was to just like, be like, well, she doesn't know what she's talking about because actually it's this thing.

But then I sat with it and I was like, actually, yeah, she's right. So I know that there's ego as that's a part of it. But look, again, it's fine. Like it is totally within the author's right to just what could happen? I could send edits, or not edits, I mean, I could send notes in an editorial letter to a client. They could read everything over, be like, nope, and then publish the book that very same day. That could happen, right? So to talk about editing, number one, as though like blaming an editor for the poor quality of the world building and the story doesn't make sense because the editor could very well have done their job and then the author just doesn't listen or isn't open to those things or doesn't know how to make those changes. That's another piece of it. I think sometimes there's a skill gap with new writers. Or so that can happen. my God, I just totally lost my train of thought. Developmental editor can, oh yeah, blaming an editor. Yeah, that makes no sense to blame an editor. But then also, like, I just lost my train of thought again. Blaming an editor doesn't make sense. I don't know. I lost it. Yeah. It just doesn't make sense to blame an editor for like the poor quality of writing or for negative reviews. But then throwing another editor under the bus and like making kind of negative comments about the quality of their work. Like, I don't know. That's just wild. It is. I have never, ever, ever seen an editor play this big of a role in a book's social media, marketing, efforts, ever.

The editor is invisible. The editor is anonymous. You just, you don't see this. And I think it, I'm, I wonder if it leads authors to believe that an editor plays more of like a co-writer or co-author role than they really do. And I have something, I mean, I even put this in my contract, like you are free as my client to use any ideas I give you. So if we're talking about like conflict, let's say, and I'm like, hey, there's really no conflict in this book. What if you take this minor disagreement or tension point between these two characters in this chapter and really ramp that up by doing X, Y, Z? The author can take that suggestion and run with it. They don't have to like credit me because I'm not actually writing it for them. I'm just throwing an idea out. So an editor is not a co-writer or a co-author or ghostwriting. And even with line editing or copy editing, all the editor is doing is marking up a document and turning something called track changes on so that the author can see all of the edits and the suggestions that they're making. The author still has final say. I mean, with copy editing, I can sometimes make 4,000 edits in a manuscript. This varies widely because some manuscripts that I copy edit need just a few minor edits on each page. Some need like 20 edits a page. So it just varies widely. But yeah, I could easily have a manuscript that has 4,000 edits. And the author can either accept all of those changes in one go, or they can go edit by edit by edit by edit to accept or reject those. And there could very well be an instance of me... Let's say I fix a comma splice where you have two complete sentences and instead of having a period, you have a comma, which is incorrect because if they're complete sentences, they need to stand on their own and have a period.

The author could see that change that I've made where I've split them into two sentences and be like, no, that doesn't fit the vibes. I want to put a comma there. Like the author could do that even though it's not grammatically correct. They just really want a comma there so they could ignore my edit and keep it the way it is. that could happen. So it just doesn't make, it just doesn't make sense to blame an editor. And it also, again, I don't want people to get the wrong idea about what an editor's role is in the process. Okay, a couple of other minor takeaways I think that I want to touch on from this whole situation. I know that I'm not coming at this from the perspective of an indie author who has a published book and who has like gone through this process herself because I haven't. I'm trying the traditional route. I have an agent. So I'm not speaking at this from a place of experience. I just think I've gone through this with clients and just from observing all of this, how all of this has unfolded, I think these are good takeaways for all of us. It's healthy. to have a degree of separation between you and your creative work. Because otherwise, if you are so emotionally invested in your book, if it is something that you have been working on for a decade plus, what can happen then is you are not able to see the issues with it and you're not able to accept criticism or suggestions from people outside who are reading it and giving you feedback.

Which all of us, like all of us have that issue, by the way. That's not, no matter if you've been working on your book for 10 weeks or 10 years, all of us have that issue where we can't see our own work completely objectively. We need people to help us spot issues, particularly if you're a new author, because you're learning, you're figuring out all of these things. And It's just hard to spot issues or whatever in our own writing, because often we know our intention. We've spent so much time with these characters in this world, and we know what we're trying to do on the page, but we can't always see that it doesn't come across that way on the page. So that's why you need outside perspective. And I think that's another takeaway, how valuable that is. Doesn't mean you have to hire an editor. I know that is not financially possible for everyone. This can be beta readers, critique partners, your friend who reads a lot and can give you their feedback. It doesn't matter. Well, it does matter who, because you don't want to pick your mom who just is going to tell you you're amazing and brilliant and wonderful and everything you do is amazing. Like you want you want to pick someone who's actually going to be honest with you. But the point is just that you get outside feedback and that you're willing to go into it with an open mind. You do not have to suggest or you do not have to accept all of the suggestions or feedback or agree with what the person is telling you.

Again, going back to my clients, I know I even say that I put like a little disclaimer when I'm sending them my notes. Like if something doesn't line up with like your vision for this book or how you see it, if you disagree with something, you can obviously disregard it. You don't have, you're not under an obligation. But I do think it's important to weigh that heavily. especially if you are very close to something and emotionally invested in it. Because if you can't accept criticism, you cannot accept anyone saying anything negative and you get defensive, the same thing is going to happen when you get to readers and reviewers who are leaving negative reviews of your book. Even the most amazing books where I'm like, okay, 10 out of 10, 5 stars, this is absolute perfection of a book. I will go on Goodreads or Amazon and the average rating is like 3.6. And I'm like, what? Did we read the same book? This is perfect. But that's, it just happens with books that there's a subjective quality to reviews. Not every book is going to be everyone's cup of tea and that's fine. So, but if you are so emotionally invested in what you're writing that you can't accept criticism or a negative review, I don't know how you're going to do this, like be a published author. And I've seen this, I know it's easy for me to say that because I haven't experienced it, but I just have seen this with clients with indie authors who I work with and some of them just get absolutely destroyed by seeing negative reviews come in, even though I tell them not to check reviews.

Reviews are for readers, they're not for you. They can't help it and they do and then it just absolutely destroys them and they spiral over it. But once you release something out into the world, it's like it kind of, you kind of lose control of it to an extent and you just kind of have to accept that like that's part of putting something creative in front of people. So yeah, creating that separation, making sure that you get outside perspective and really carefully consider it. Particularly, I will say even more so if you're hiring an editor. Because if you are taking the time to hire an editor, a professional book editor and give them money and sign a contract, You are doing so because you value their feedback. You trust them. You believe that they know what they're talking about. Okay. People hire me because they value my expertise in this. I have worked on so many books. I've worked with so many authors. I'm not just going in and leaving comments like, yay, awesome. Love this. Oh my gosh. Or like, I want her to wear a red shirt in this scene because red's my favorite color. Can you change that? Like, that's not what I'm doing. That's not what editors are doing.

So really heavily weigh an editor's feedback because that's why you hired them, right? Again, I'll repeat myself for probably the fifth time. Doesn't mean you have to blindly accept all their suggestions. Editors are human. We make mistakes. We see things wrong, like whatever. But you need to weigh that heavily. And if you're reaction to that is to shut down and be closed off and not consider the fact that maybe there are issues or just not be willing to make changes, it's going to come back to kind of bite you in the *** in the long run. Yeah. So, okay. I want to just end the episode there because again, I want to keep the focus on the education piece of this and understanding, I really want y'all to understand what an editor does, what an editor doesn't do. And I cannot stress this enough, this whole situation with this author and the editor stepping out publicly, even, I don't think the editor's actually named, like we know their first name, but we don't know their full name. Even that is just highly unusual. I cannot think of that ever happening, of me ever seeing that on social media. It's just bizarre.

And it's bizarre to have the editor talk about things in this way and to be this heavily involved. It's just odd. And perhaps this is this author's way of shielding herself or not really taking accountability. I don't know. But I hope that this author and anyone in this situation in the future, I mean, let's hope it's none of us, but I would really hope that there is just a focus on writing, on improving as a writer, on learning the skill set, accepting criticism, but also really recognizing that you are the author. The book is your creation. You are the one that gets the final stamp of approval. Oh, that's another thing I want to touch on. This whole idea of an editor signing off on something doesn't exist. That is a weird sort of cop-out. I, in self-publishing, there is no signing off. I talked about that hypothetical scenario earlier where an editor where I give a client notes and suggestions and they read everything. They're like, awesome, thanks so much. And then they go publish the book in that version, like the version that I saw later that day. They make no changes. They do nothing to the book. They don't accept any of my suggestions. They just publish the book as is. That could absolutely happen. And that's fine. And that's within their right to do that because it's their book. They get to decide when they publish.

They get to decide when they feel like it's ready. So there is no signing off. I mean, to be generous and think of a reason or a world where this might exist, I guess I could see if an author asks an editor, hey, do you feel like this is ready to publish or do you think I still have some big issues that I need to address? the editor could give their opinion and say, this revised draft, you've done the work, you've improved the story, like I feel good about this and I hope you do too. The editor could say that, but that's not like signing off on it. The process does work different in traditional publishing, obviously, because you have editors working closely with an author and there are multiple rounds of editing and it's just different in traditional publishing. But with self-publishing, that doesn't exist. So yeah. But I, but I really hope that this author is #1 taking care of herself because like I said, I cannot imagine being at the center of all of this scrutiny and vitriol and BookTok, as much as I love BookTok, BookTok does love to dog pile.

And it seems like everyone just loves to kind of gloat or, rant or I don't know about people, but like kind of jump on the bandwagon of tearing someone down, which is a bummer. I even saw someone posting a video where they took the first like 5 pages of the book and screenshotted them and were going through it in a very long, detailed video talking about all of the issues with the writing and examples of how it was crappy and like the story was bad. Which I posted about this, referencing it vaguely and not tagging the author. Of course, I would never do that. And it seemed like people were pretty split. I just feel like you are absolutely within your right as a reader to leave a negative review, to even mention how crappy the writing is in your review. That is fine. I have no issue with that. But to take a screenshot and blast the author like that and tear apart their work line by line just feels... another level and it feels unnecessarily mean.

And there were, on that original video that I saw, I went to the comments because I was surprised that the person was doing this. And there were all these comments like, do this with, I'd love to see another example of this. And I'm like, okay, so is this person just going to pick another indie author randomly and like blast them? I hope not. I mean, it's one thing to do this with like, I don't know, Stephen King… who's a massively successful New York Times bestselling author. And is he even on social media? I don't know. It's one thing to do with Stephen King's writing. Like I, it feels different if you were to take the 1st 5 pages of one of his books, but to do it to a debut indie author feels, yeah, no thanks. I will not be doing that. So yeah, I do hope that this author is really, taking care of herself because I cannot imagine this.

But also I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned here about taking accountability, not rushing your work, not being too emotionally invested in it and being open to criticism. And then also being very clear about the role of an editor and what an editor does and doesn't do. And recognizing that a book belongs to an author ultimately. Of course the editor can play a role and you can be unhappy with an editor's deliverables. You can feel like, hey, I hired this editor to do an evaluation or an assessment or a developmental edit and like all they did was give me 3 sentences of notes. That's not like, you can be unhappy with the editor's quality of work in that sense, sure. But in that case, it's like the author just didn't deliver on what was promised. So… But just blaming an editor is insane behavior to me. Okay, so those are my thoughts on this. If you would like more info, obviously you can go to Book Talk and check out videos about it. I hope that this wasn't too mean-spirited or gossipy because I really want to keep the focus on what are the takeaways and what's the role of a book editor in all of this as opposed to just like continuing to harp on this. That's also why I wanted to do a more deep dive on this in a podcast format too. So I appreciate y'all being open to this and listening to this episode. Would love to hear your thoughts on it too, particularly if you are on book talk or you've read the book and you've like really kind of seen all of this unfold. I guess another final thought is I don't want this to scare any indie authors who are like, oh, I'm getting ready to publish my first book. Like, this is scary. There's so many lessons on things to avoid and how this was handled that I just, I think, you know, don't let this scare you. All right. Well, thank you for sticking with me on this episode. I know it was a little different, but I hope it was helpful.

Katie Wolf