Editing a Series: Do We Have to Start with Book 1?

Once in a while, I get hired to edit the second or third book in a series that I’m not familiar with. This happens for lots of reasons. Sometimes the author doesn’t get the first book in the series edited at all and then discovers, post-publication, that they should have, and so they decide to make the investment with subsequent books.

Sometimes an author does hire an editor for the first book in a series, but that relationship doesn’t last. Maybe the editor and the author weren’t a good match for each other (because there is a bit of chemistry involved—you want your editor to “get” you), and the author has decided to go a different way. Or maybe the editor the author hired for the first book was great but is no longer in the business, and so the author has to find someone new.

Whatever the reason, it happens once in a while that I get hired to edit a subsequent book in a series without having read the first installment(s). Is that a problem? Yes and no. Here’s what I mean.

Writing a series is a delicate balance between making each book a standalone edition and tying them all together. You want people to be able to pick up each book and enjoy it for its own sake, whether or not they’re familiar with the stories that came before. But at the same time, you’re creating a world within the series and each book is tied to the world with interconnected histories and story lines.

Ideally, your readers will start with book 1, fall in love with it, and wait impatiently for book 2, book 3, and so on. What is also nice is if the reader starts (for whatever reason) with book 2 or book 3, falls in love with the story and the characters, and decides to go back and read the books in the series that came before the one they read. For that to happen, that subsequent book has to be written well enough that the reader feels satisfied with the story to trust you as an author, but also curious and hungry enough for more of the world that they commit to reading earlier volumes. That’s the trick—satisfying your readers at the same time as you whet their appetite for more.

As an editor, I should be able to work on book 2 or 3 or 4 without having read what came before. Will I have a question here or there about a relationship that may have developed in an earlier volume? About a conflict that began before the book I’m working on? Probably. However, that should not interfere with the story being told in the book in front of me. The story on my desk should feel complete; it should not be completely dependent on my familiarity with earlier volumes. Would that familiarity enhance my enjoyment of the new book? I’m sure it would. But it should not be necessary.

So, back to my questions from the beginning. Should I have to read earlier volumes in a series before editing later ones? No. I should not. If that’s a requirement, then that book is not fully developed—and I can help with that. (See “Developmental Editing” on my Services page.) If you want to pay me to read those earlier volumes before I edit a subsequent one, then that’s negotiable. But if we’re having that discussion, then there are bigger problems on the horizon.

Are you writing a series? Would you like to talk to me about editing the first book in that series, or are you already at book 4 and needing a new editor for that one? Leave a comment under this post, or send me an email and let’s talk about your editing needs.