James Faktor – Editor

"In my role as Publishing Director at Lume Books I personally oversaw the editing process for dozens of commercially successful books, giving me a keen professional eye for what it takes to make a manuscript tick. I put the same amount of diligent preparation into any manuscript that I'm involved with; being a writer myself and completing the Oxford University masters degree in creative writing has taught me that each story is sacred to the storyteller and should be treated with the utmost respect.

With that in mind, my approach as an editor is to be as involved in the project as the author dictates and to respond tactfully and respectfully to an author's wishes. I am equally as comfortable offering simple grammar and syntax fixes as I am having weighty discussions around structural themes, narrative changes, and the potential offensive aspects to a work. Each project calls for a unique balancing act from the editor, and I believe I excel in approaching this optimal relationship with a mixture of both measured and frank communication skills.

I believe that many of the authors I've worked with would say the experience was enlightening, challenging, but above all fun (please ask for acknowledgements for specific comments). As a publisher by trade, there's nothing I enjoy more than embodying another world and making sure that the magic spell of the written word has been cast properly!"