thierry sagnier – Editor

Many years ago when I was a new writer, I had the good luck of selling The IFO Report, my very first novel, to Avon. After getting the manuscript, the editor there sent me a twelve-page single-spaced letter requesting 96 clarifications. She questioned the finer points of the plot, the depth of my characters, the validity of the science I quoted, and pointed out lacuna in the book that were, honestly, gaping. I told her not even my mother had ever written me a 12-page letter and the editor was not amused. She wanted to know why I had used the word Malgache instead of Madagascan. Malgache, she wrote, was a deprecatory term used by French colonialists to describe the natives of Tananarive. I did not know that, though I should have.
Unless you’re a well-established author working with a large publishing house, editors like the one who worked with me at Avon don’t exist anymore. The major houses—and there are fewer and fewer—went through a great cost-cutting frenzy in the early part of the new millennium, and content editors, as they were known, got the ax.
Today, when your manuscript is submitted to an agent—or to a publisher—will be looked at first by a gatekeeper intern whose job is not to accept your work but to reject it for any number of reasons—poor grammar, bad spelling, holes in the plot, flat characters, flaws in your world-building, and poor construction, to name a few. Writers today are expected to submit perfect works. Anything less doesn’t stand a chance.
Writing is difficult, and solitary. We often become so close to our characters and plots that we don’t see the flaws they exhibit. Writing groups and beta readers are fine, but they’re not vested in your work.
That’s where I come in.
I’ve been writing for almost fifty years. My first published piece appeared in The Washington Post in the 70s. I’ve authored twelve books, and eight of these have been published by both large and small presses. One was optioned for the movies, though never produced. Two more books are scheduled for later this year, and three sequels are in various stages of completion. More recently, I’ve been approached to help a noted physician write about his life work, and by an international organization to do a book on its history. I’m currently working with a few selected writers to improve their works and make them more publishable.
I’m not a copy editor. What I do is make sure you haven’t overlooked something important in your plot. I help you create characters that are interesting and multi-dimensional. I can spot and help you define that elusive something missing from your book, that small detail that makes what you wrote really stand out. I can help you reorganize the work to make it more readable, and redirect you if you get lost, because we always do get lost when we write. It’s a journey where the paths constantly fork, and keeping on track is one of the trade’s greater challenges.
It’s actually harder than ever today to get a book published, read and appreciated. I can help you with plot conception, from your original ah ha moment, to completion. We can polish your synopsis, carefully pick the excerpt you’ll send to a prospective agent, write a stunning query letter, and work on your elevator pitch
If you choose to self-publish, I can put you in touch with copy editors, cover designers, publicists and experts who know how to manipulate Amazon data.
Writing is never easy, and you’ll still do the brunt of the work—I won’t write your book—but the process can be made a lot less arduous if you’re working with someone who’s done it all before. Whether you’ve just started writing your book, whether you’re stuck, whether you’re done and are ready for the next stage of production, I can help you!
Contact me, and let’s talk!