The Best Writers Have the Best Editors.
Even history’s greatest wordsmiths, like Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, and Ernest Hemingway, knew their work needed an extra pair of eyes.
It’s true. Stephen King said, “The editor is always right…to edit is divine.” And while editing most certainly plays an important part in the writing of books and other long-form copy, the conversation around editing for marketing material can’t be left out.
Both styles of editing look to remedy the same things: spelling errors, typos, grammatical errors, and, likely the most important, message clarification. But the singular, pivotal difference between the two lies in purpose.
A novel, whether fiction or non-fiction, aims to entertain and inform the reader with information that the writer has made their own. The writer defines the objective of the writing, creates an outline, and fills in the gaps with information.
Marketing copy, however, specifically in the forms of blog posts and long-form articles, seeks to earn organic links and spread across the web. It builds the brand’s digital presence with the ultimate goal of creating a community centered around their products and/or services.
As a result, editing marketing copy simply requires a different kind of editing.
Marketing Copy Needs a Clear Message
Unlike novels that, in any form, may harbor and even encourage debate over their message, marketing copy needs a different angle. The content needs to be clear, concise, and written in the language of its target audience. The length of the content itself may be predetermined or placed at the writer’s discretion.
Therefore, the style of editing required is a direct result of the innate nature of marketing copy. Both the writer and the editor will likely be closely aligned with what the final outcome should look like before a word is even written. This is in contrast to novel writers and editors, who often collaborate on a project throughout or after its creation.
But let’s be real: writing marketing copy is not an automated process. There is something to be said for a writer who brings fresh, relevant ideas to a creative brief.
The Writer/Editor Relationship in Marketing
Let’s make one thing clear: The marketing copyeditor, to whom I’ll refer as the “corporate” editor, must ensure the copywriter understands and executes properly the assignment at hand. But the definition of “properly,” in this case, is even up for debate.
As a career copywriter, I’ve worked with a slew of copyeditors. Most knew how to do their jobs well, many simply did their jobs with a mistake here and there, and some let pretentious intellectualism get in the way of their work. The latter tends to elongate the editing process unnecessarily, delay client deliverables, and lead the editor to believe that they are the ones responsible for writing the content but are thus gifted a “template” of sorts to work with, provided by yours truly.
Some copyeditors stick to the creative brief and do not deviate whatsoever; others know a good idea when they see one and run with it, giving credit where credit is due. When the editor is open-minded, the definition of “properly” simply becomes “well-written”; when creative briefs and style guides are the idols of the project, “properly” becomes “Does it follow requirements?”
The best copywriters are self-aware and skilled. Most editors will know when they’re working with somebody who excels at their craft. But unfortunately (and, ironically, fortunately), not every copywriter worth something is “great.”
The “Corporatization” of Today’s Copyediting
Many copywriters seeking to make a living tend to contract with marketing agencies and media groups. It only makes sense: These are the clients that can provide the most consistent and reliable flows of work. The only problem, at least in my experience, is that this strand of clientele tends to employ copyeditors cut from all cloths: some open-minded, some robotic, and some pretentious.
The types of copywriters, however, cannot be explained with a three-tier system. Some have a solid grasp on grammar and the mechanics of writing but produce work that sounds flat and fails to resonate; others understand the importance of personality and resonance but riddle their writing with typos and grammatical errors. Some understand both but fall short in research, and some simply rely on their genetic ability to string words together. With such an endless array of copywriters and a relatively simple set of copyeditors, the job of the copyeditor becomes even more difficult.
Thus, the “corporate” copyeditor is born.
The Corporate Copyeditor’s Persona
Corporate copyeditors have bosses, unlike those who specialize in editing work not related to marketing. This doesn’t necessarily affect the corporate copyeditor’s ability to do their job well, but it absolutely changes the framework within which the editor does their job.
This is where the “Does it follow requirements?” definition of “properly” lives the most, and that affects the life cycle of all work the agency churns out. However, this type of copyeditor often has to deal with various types of copywriters the agency employs on a freelance basis to tackle workloads. In-house copywriters can be expensive and demanding; it’s a much more affordable, long-term solution to offer consistent work to a freelance copywriter.
With time, the focus of the corporate copyeditor’s editing can gradually shift away from message clarification and error correction to pattern recognization and disintegration; in other words, falling into a routine of looking for and correcting the same things often dictated by a creative brief and/or a style guide. These copyeditors are editing work submitted from various copywriters, each with their own unique style of writing. To expedite the process, they often look for and rely on these patterns.
From a birds-eye view, it’s not a bad idea. Time is money, and copyeditors only have so much time in the day to edit copious amounts of work. But in the trenches, it’s a different story entirely.
Where Agencies Go Wrong with Copyediting
An epiphany to one writer may be an everyday occurrence to another, and the copyeditor may handle both the same way. For example, if a creative brief for a blog post that highlights the benefits of a company’s products does not explicitly state to list such products in the article, a talented copywriter new to the scene may independently arrive at the conclusion to do so and be proud of it; a seasoned copywriter would, most likely, view the brief as ill-informed and execute the same list tactic.
The copyeditor may either slash or praise the idea entirely; in the case of the former, potentially eliminating a differentiating factor from the piece. In the case of the latter, building confidence in the new writer and only confirming the doubts of the seasoned one.
Do you see where all this is going? There is so much room for interpretation with marketing work that, even with creative briefs and style guides dictating projects, the job of the copyeditor becomes even more difficult.
And with that, we enter the realm of unrealistic editing expectations.
Unrealistic Editing Expectations Agencies Rely On
At the end of the day, the ultimate focus needs to be on producing good work. It doesn’t have to bestseller-worthy, it just has to get the job done. This is the first rung on the ladder of expectations that both the copyeditor and copywriter need to grab.
Fewer Revisions, More Pay
It does, however, get more complicated from there, but let’s start simple. One of the absolute worst morale tactics any marketing agency can deploy is requesting that writers produce work that requires fewer revisions in return for bonus pay. While it’s important that copywriters be compensated fairly for their work, this places the emphasis on compensation, not the work, which tends to have a reverse effect, especially for less experienced copywriters with the potential to grow into great ones.
A copywriter simply does not have the ability to produce work that does not require revisions. The artist is too attached to their work to simply exit their own perspectives and look at it with an unbiased eye. But isn’t that what you’re paying the copyeditors for, anyway?
This is where the bosses of the corporate copyeditors get in the way of the process, demanding more for less. If you don’t have enough copyeditors on staff to handle the workload, hire more. If your workloads are too much, scale down. Either way, the answer to the question of “How do we get our writers to produce work that requires fewer revisions?” does not lie in the writing itself or its compensation.
You’re Fired
The next thing, then, that tends to happen is that agencies simply fire copywriters whose work requires too many revisions. To be frank, there is a place for this, but not where you may think. “Revisions,” in this specific case, should mean strategically missing the objective of the piece on a consistent basis, not message clarification and error correction.
When the strategic objective of the piece is missed like this, a rewrite should be requested and the copyeditor should not have to do their job at all. But when the copyeditor begins copyediting, that’s when the work of the copywriter has been accepted for compensation and deemed deliverable, and that’s when message clarification and error correction begin.
Too often do marketing agencies define “copyediting” as “making work that sucks better.” This is obviously wrong. If the rest of the world was like that, nothing important would ever be created. An average copywriter turns into a great one with unbiased help and guidance over extended periods of time, and those come from the copyeditor. When you hire a copywriter, you’re making an investment in the agency’s future, not day trading.
“Here’s Our 24-Page Writer’s Guide”
And finally, we have those agencies who onboard, train, test, walk, test again, train some more, walk again, and spoon-feed their writers. At that rate, you might as well read them a bedtime story too.
In other words, these agencies stifle the creative process completely with strict adherence to unreasonably lengthy style guides and requirements. I’ve seen it, I’ve worked with it, and I continue to work with it. Some even throw videos in there.
These agencies either lack the logistics to consolidate their roles and requirements, are too lazy to do so, don’t prioritize it, or simply believe that vomiting a slew of guidelines onto their copywriters will somehow grant submissions papal infallibility.
Let me save you the suspense: No one reads these. I promise. I would bet every penny to my name that not a single copywriter sits down at their desk, turns on a lamp, grabs a drink, and says, “Alright, let me read this 24-page writer’s guide from beginning to end.” This is not the latest J.K. Rowling novel or edition of The New Yorker. Ambition, at first, may fuel the apprentice to do so, but the journeyman’s already been around the block a few times and knows what to expect.
In Conclusion
I will never professionally recommend that work goes immediately from creation to publication without editing in between. Stephen King definitely gets it right. But the job of the copyeditor is one of the most difficult jobs on the planet. Get it right as early and as often as you can, and you end up making more money, keeping clients happy, retaining writers, and setting sail for realistic growth.
