Editing a Book with Book Editor James Ranson

About this video

Dale Roberts interviews James Ranson in person in Columbus, Ohio: a Wall Street Journal bestselling editor, ghostwriter, and book coach, founder of The Master Wordsmith, who says he has worked with over 200 authors and has been working with words for close to two decades after grant writing, journalism, and about a year of couch-to-surfing while he built his freelance practice. Ranson argues an author’s right to speak comes from experience, research, or ideally both, and that credibility requires citing sources rather than making unsupported claims. On fiction, he warns against mimicking what already sells instead of finding your own voice, noting that writing like J.K. Rowling or Stephen King will not make you either of them. On editing, he says authors misread editors as teachers with a red pen handing back a bad grade, when an editor’s job is to make the work its best through changes the author can discuss; he also warns that the commonly advised couple of weeks is nowhere near enough editing time, and that he has never seen a manuscript needing only light proofreading in his work with more than 200 authors. His book Buy Once, Cry Once: How Shortcuts Cost You in the Long Run supplies the frame: one early client went through three cheap editors in a row, each making her book worse, then paid him more than all three combined and worked with him longer than all three combined to rescue it. He closes by warning that shortcut-heavy guru programs selling speed over quality (he says do not pay someone $1,000 to be told to rush a book out) undermine a book business built on credibility.

Key takeaways

• Earn the right to say something through experience, research, or ideally both, and cite your sources: unsupported claims are a credibility and liability risk, not just a style flaw
• Do not mimic what already sells in fiction: finding your own voice matters more than copying J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, and craft (dialogue, character, story arc) is worth formally studying
• An editor is a collaborator, not a teacher with a red pen: expect substantive changes and build in time to discuss them rather than treating editing as a necessary evil
• Budget real time for editing: the commonly advised couple of weeks is nowhere near long enough for most books, and a friend or relative who is not an editor is not a substitute
• Shortcuts cost more in the long run: Ranson’s client paid three cheap editors who each worsened her book, then paid him more than all three combined to fix it, so quality spending up front is the cheaper path

Episode details: published September 29, 2017 · 39:06 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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