By Taylor Steed, 17 July 2025
When explaining my job as an editor, whether it be to a potential client or to an acquaintance over coffee, I tend to sound like Liam Neeson negotiating for the release of his daughter: ‘I don’t have money, but what I do have is a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.’ Okay, that last part may only ever be said in my head. But the rest of the quote is surprisingly accurate. Most people assume these editorial ‘skills’ are limited to a deep understanding of grammar and syntax, or the ability to push my glasses up my nose with the back of my well-used red pen. And while they are not wrong in that regard, I find that the skills that are typically most essential for my work are those related to communication and client relations.
Scope talk
Before an editorial project gets off the ground, the project’s scope must be clearly defined between you and the client. For editors, this can be surprisingly challenging. You see, while we understand the nuanced delineations between a line edit, developmental edit, copyedit, and proofread, members of the general public (and most writers) do not. As a result, we spend a large part of our prep not only defining what our client will be paying us to do but also what they’re NOT paying us to do. And then most of us spend a large part of the editorial process muttering to ourselves, ‘It’s just a line edit; stop looking at that’, before adding a polite comment about it in the margins.
Communication channels
I also begin each project by establishing communication workflows. For example, we’ll have a meeting to go over the project goals, I’ll send you an email summary to confirm we came to the same conclusions, and then all edits will occur within the document. And then, of course, I tend to watch with fascination as those communication flows are systematically dismantled over the course of the project. Sometimes it’s a project manager who loves Slack. Other times, it’s an author who sends voice memos when inspiration strikes in the shower. And sometimes, it’s my own enthusiasm as I send a quick text to clarify a point within the document that simply can’t wait.
As an editor, there are three skills you should master to navigate editorial communication. Firstly, you must be comfortable meeting clients where they want to communicate. Whether they prefer calls, text, email, or chats over coffee, allowing them to establish a comfortable communication method decreases stress and improves overall communication throughout the project.
Secondly, you need to find your own way of organizing communication channels. Regardless of whether a carrier pigeon was within your workflow plan, you’re still responsible for ensuring the note tied to its leg makes it into the final draft. Without this organization, author requests, altered deadlines, or universal changes may be missed.
And finally, you need to be able to establish boundaries around communication and stick to them. This is for your relationship with your client, your mental health, and your work-life balance. I’ve not yet acquired this third skill, but I hear life is quite lovely once you do.
That tech that shall not be named
This is not a blog about AI (Gasp! She said the name!), and I won’t be venturing down the rabbit hole of the evolving skills needed to remain competitive in a Large Language Models (LLMs) world. However, whether we like it or not, this does represent another relationship where soft skills are key. I view most AI-powered editorial assistants, including my ride-or-die Grammarly, as just that: a caffeine-infused, overly enthusiastic assistant who definitely majored in marketing (this is not a knock against marketing, but rather a commentary on AI’s strengths).
While my assistant’s suggestions are undoubtedly helpful when I’m missing commas or trying to find the correct spelling of ‘entrepreneur’, it becomes much less beneficial when I’m line editing a legal document (yes, I’m sure that I still don’t want to change ‘lien’ to ‘line’) or copyediting a memoir (no, the author does not wish to change Grandma’s nickname to diversify word choice).
As an editor, it therefore becomes imperative to have the confidence to trust your editorial skills not only when arguing with your assistant, but also when speaking to your clients and co-workers. More and more, I find myself patiently (okay, sometimes not so patiently) explaining to clients why the AI-written or AI-edited portion of their piece still needs my expertise. While I have no problem waxing poetic about the human touch that makes both writing and editing shine, it’s much more challenging to convince people that my grammatical choices are more correct than the grammar bot’s.
Selling yourself
I’ve saved this skill for last, not because it’s most important, but because it’s the one that I feel I have the least expertise in discussing. If you don’t believe me, simply refer to the previous sentence.
Unless you’ve managed to land one of the mythical salaried positions that are fervently whispered about in the Forum, a massive part of editing is bidding for jobs and landing new clients so that the work doesn’t run out. However, this can be exceptionally difficult, as the best edits tend to be those you don’t see. It’s a fine line to walk between showing your skills and disparaging your writers. It’s an even finer one between explaining why a writer needs your services and minimizing their own hard work and abilities. The best editors are capable of both empowering and building up their clients while still allowing their skills to shine.
As editors, it’s true that we have a ‘particular set of skills’. And, as I hope this article even haphazardly has portrayed, they boil down to improvement. Our job is to improve anything we touch, whether it be your communication channels, your first draft’s ideas, or your final draft’s grammar. While there are undoubtedly challenges to this role (such as asking an introvert-dominated field to require these soft skills), they are worth overcoming when, on the other side, we can help someone realize their work’s full potential and share their ideas with the wider world.
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Blog post by: Taylor Steed |
