by Bobbie Christmas
Q: What’s the difference between book doctors and book coaches?
A: In a nutshell book coaches work on you, whereas book doctors work on your manuscript.
Coaches encourage you, guide you, give you deadlines, and check on your progress with your book. Coaches may also edit as you go along, depending on the services the coach offers, but not all coaches are editors—or good editors. Some coaches might guide you through your search for a publisher or help you during the self-publishing process, but their services differ, so you need to ask what you will get for your money before you invest in a book coach.
Book doctors—another term for a book editor—take what you think is a final draft of your manuscript and line edit to correct errors in grammar, punctuation, syntax, and noncompliance with Chicago Style. Depending on the services the book doctor offers, he or she might also. examine it for technical flaws, gaps in the information or plot, weak characterization, unclear sentences, poor or superfluous dialogue, repetition, and any other errors that might keep it from being as marketable as it could be. Based on feedback from the book doctor, writers then create a true final draft ready to send to potential agents, publishers, or printers.
Book coaches make sure you write your book, good or bad, and may help you through the publishing process. Book editors, aka book doctors, make sure the book you wrote is the best it can be.
To repeat, coaches work on you; editors work on your manuscript.
Naturally no book coach, editor, or even deity can guarantee a book will sell; however, these beings may help, depending on their credentials, your manuscript, and your trust in their advice.
Q: What is your awareness, knowledge, or opinion of a literary agent pushing for a third-party critique prior to accepting a nonfiction book?
A: If the agent asks you to pay a fee for a critique, it would be dubious indeed.
To improve a book a legitimate agent may suggest you get your manuscript edited by a professional editor and may even provide you with several names of editors, but legitimate agents would not limit you to those editors. A critique, however, does not improve the book; it simply evaluates it. The evaluation should be the work of the agents at no charge.
A nonfiction book does not even have to be written to be shopped around to publishers; it needs only an informative book proposal and well-written sample chapters. For that reason I’m at a loss to understand what the agent wants critiqued. I say run! Look for agents who decide whether to take you on as a client based on your proposal or manuscript without making you pay for a critique.
Bobbie Christmas, book editor, author of Write In Style: Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing, and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. Read more Ask the Book Doctor questions and answers at www.zebraeditor.com.
