Erin Young – Editor

I am a literary agent, an experienced writer and a freelance editor working through EY Edits.

I have worked at several literary magazines, editing stories for publication. This allowed me to work with shorter forms of fiction and nonfiction and to understand how to make these stories stand out.

As an agent, I understand the traditional marketplace. I've taught classes at the University of Southern California on how it works. I've worked through the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) to mentor writers to make their fiction more salable. I've maintained a long client list and sold their novels to the big five after closely editing them. I have worked with New York Times bestselling authors and their bestselling books and series as well as many other critically-acclaimed authors through my agency. I have seen manuscripts at all levels and have helped them develop from ideas into a polished work, ready to be published. This makes me qualified to edit your fiction, while also giving it a salable direction.

As a writer, I understand the importance of preserving the integrity of a work. I understand how important it is while editing to make sure not to stifle the voice, intent, or diction of the author. This can be easily overlooked when editing an early draft or copy editing for grammar, but I feel confident that I will preserve your work and make it shine.

Additionally, I love to give my clients help with publishing, whether it's through query letter review or knowledge and a good word. The publishing industry can be tough to get into if you don't know how. That's where I come in.

Why should you hire me?

It was my job to get books in shape to be sold to traditional publishers. This is how I learned to edit, always with the direction of how to make a book more marketable and help it sell for the most money possible. Most editors from the top five do not have to think about editing this way because they edit books that have already proven to be marketable--this is the only reason they acquire them--so they don't have the skill set to make a book more marketable. They only know how to clean it up. If you want to sell more books or position your book to be sold to these acquiring editors, you need an editor who knows how to take you from a middling story to something that stands out. This is my specialty.