15 Book Editing Mistakes to Avoid Before You Hire an Editor
Updated: Sep 30
You finished the draft. Maybe you’ve even revised it twice. Now you’re wondering whether it’s ready for an editor, or whether you’re about to pay someone to point out problems you could have fixed yourself.
After years of editing novels for indie authors, including USA Today bestsellers, I see the same mistakes over and over. None of them mean you’re a bad writer. Every author makes them. But the more of them you catch before your book reaches an editor, the more your editing budget goes toward making a good book great instead of fixing the basics.
Here are the fifteen I see most, in the order you should look for them.
Big-Picture Mistakes
These are the issues a content edit is designed to catch. Fix them first, because they can change entire chapters.
1. Polishing sentences before the story works
This is the most expensive mistake on the list. Authors spend weeks perfecting the prose in chapter three, then realize in revision that chapter three needs to go. Get the story right first. Plot, characters, pacing, and stakes come before commas and word choice. Beautiful sentences in a scene you end up cutting are wasted time.
2. Forgetting what your genre promises
Readers pick up a book with expectations. A romance needs a satisfying ending for the couple. A thriller needs the tension to keep climbing. A cozy mystery needs a puzzle the reader can play along with. When a book breaks its genre promise, readers feel cheated, even if the writing is lovely. Before you edit, write down what your readers expect from your genre and check that your book delivers every one.
3. Starting in the wrong place
Many first chapters open with the character waking up, driving somewhere, or thinking about their past. Those openings feel natural to write, but they’re slow to read. Your story usually starts closer to the moment something changes. Try cutting your first chapter, or your first few pages, and see whether the book gets stronger. It often does.
4. Letting the middle sag
The middle of a novel is where momentum dies. If your characters spend chapters in a holding pattern, talking through the same conflict without anything new happening, readers put the book down. Every chapter should change something: a new complication, a secret revealed, a relationship pushed forward or pulled apart.
5. Characters whose choices don’t make sense
Readers will follow a character almost anywhere as long as they understand why the character acts the way they do. When a heroine suddenly trusts someone she’s been suspicious of for ten chapters, or a hero changes his mind with no clear reason, readers stop believing. Track each main character’s goals and fears through the book, and make sure every big decision grows out of them.
6. Slipping point of view
If you’re in the heroine’s head, the reader can only know what she sees, thinks, and feels. When the narration suddenly tells us what the hero is thinking in the same scene, that’s head-hopping, and it pulls readers out of the story. Pick one point-of-view character per scene, and when you switch, use a scene break.
7. Stakes that never rise
If the worst thing that could happen in chapter twenty is the same as the worst thing that could happen in chapter two, your story is standing still. Each act should raise the cost of failure, whether that’s a broken heart, a lost job, or a life on the line.
Sentence-Level Mistakes
Once the story is solid, it’s time to look at the prose. This is the work of a line edit.
8. Filtering everything through the character
Filter words put distance between the reader and the story: she felt, he saw, she noticed, he heard, she realized. Compare “She felt the cold wind on her face” with “Cold wind stung her face.” The second version puts the reader right there. Search your manuscript for these words and cut the ones you don’t need.
9. Leaning on adverbs and fancy dialogue tags
“She said angrily” tells the reader how to feel. A stronger verb or a line of action shows it. The same goes for dialogue tags. Said is almost invisible to readers, which is exactly what you want. Tags like exclaimed, retorted, and hissed draw attention away from the dialogue itself.
10. Echo words and pet phrases
Every writer has favorites. Maybe your characters smirk constantly, or sigh, or let out breaths they didn’t know they were holding. Maybe the word just shows up four times on a page. Readers notice. Keep a list of your pet words as you revise, then search for each one and vary or cut it.
11. Naming emotions instead of showing them
“She was nervous” is fine once in a while. But if every emotion in your book is labeled, readers stop feeling anything. Show nervousness through what the character does: fidgeting with her ring, rehearsing what she’ll say, checking her phone for the third time. Save named emotions for quick moments where showing would slow the pace.
12. Dialogue that’s really an information dump
When characters tell each other things they both already know, readers can tell the dialogue is there to explain the plot. “As you know, your brother left town after the fire” is written for the reader, not the listener. Work background information in gradually, through conflict, action, and small reveals.
Process Mistakes
The last three aren’t about the words on the page. They’re about how you edit.
13. Editing too soon after you finish
When you’ve just typed “The End,” you’re too close to the book to see it clearly. Your brain fills in what you meant instead of reading what you wrote. Put the manuscript away for at least two weeks. When you come back, you’ll catch problems that were invisible before.
14. Relying only on friends and family for feedback
People who love you want to encourage you, so they rarely tell you the middle drags or the hero is unlikable. Find beta readers who read your genre and don’t know you well. Ask them specific questions, like where they got bored, what confused them, and which character they’d cut.
15. Booking the wrong edit at the wrong time
Many authors go straight to a proofread because it’s the least expensive option, but a proofread can’t fix a story that isn’t working yet. Others pay for a line edit, then make big structural changes afterward and need their new scenes edited all over again. The order matters: content edit first, then line edit, then proofread. If you’re not sure what your book needs, ask an editor for a sample edit before you book.
Ready for a Second Set of Eyes?
You don’t have to catch every one of these on your own. That’s what an editor is for. But the more you fix before you hire one, the further your editing budget goes.
Wondering what professional editing will cost? Our guide on how much it costs to edit a novel breaks down per-word rates for each type of edit. When you’re ready, visit our editing services page to compare packages and request a free sample edit of your first 1,000 words.
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