I'm just going to cut to the chase- I'm 16, I think my novel will sell very well with some cleaning up (just to make sure that everything flows properly), but I'm pretty certain that I need a professional editor to make this possible. It's not that my writing is bad; I don't like to blow my own trumpet but when it comes to writing I refuse to deny that I am very skilled in the craft (after all, it is what I spend a lot of my free time doing and refining). My only issue is that I'm not a professional author yet, and if I hope to become one then I need the view of an editor-by-trade to affirm that my writing is good enough, or to fix it if it isn't. However... As I said, I'm only 16. There's just no way that I can afford to pay an editor by the hour to go through around 300 pages of my work. So- what do I do? Submit it to literary agents regardless and if accepted, go to a publisher and have their editor work on it? Or will this not be possible without editing beforehand?
I wouldn't hire an editor at this point. It's too costly. You have no way of knowing if you'll ever get your investment back, or if you've hired the right person. But you do need a set of eyes going over your work. I'd go the cheap route - get two or three beta readers to look it over ( you could do an exchange of feedback ) and maybe post a few snippets or chapters on some writing sites just to get feedback on your grammar and style. Right now you need to have readers looking at it to see if the idea is nicely executed.
Go for it! They'd LOVE to sucker in a 16 year old girl and take your money!! Seriously . . . NO. End of. Stop thinking about it. You're not that good. Go to any writing website you choose and write SERIOUS/HONEST-TO-GOD BRUTAL critiques of other works in the same genre and be RESPONSIBLE for your critiques. Do at leat 200 to 300 of them. Then, come back and ask the same question.
I can only echo what I've read elsewhere since I, too, am not yet published... Get your story into the best shape you can manage. Write a pitch and a synopsis. If these go well, you should be good to approach publishers. If not, you might be in for a lot more work beating your story into shape. Just FYI (in case you don't know) the pitch/logline/whatever-you-wanna-call-it should be no more than 30 words and should give a very clear idea of what your story is about. The synopsis should be one to three pages and give away the ending.
