How I'm tackling developmental edits for a novel under contract

A video tutorial illustrating how I get arts and crafty on my developmental edits

Hello and Happy Wednesday.

In March, I sold what will be my sixth book—and fourth novel— to editor Sally Kim, the new publisher of Little Brown in the United States and to Jocasta Hamilton, editor at John Murray in the UK for a summer 2026 publication. On April 7th, I received my developmental edits from Sally, and a week later, I got editorial input from Jocasta. My US agent weighed in on these, as did my UK agent as well. There are a few cooks in the kitchen now. So what do I do with the main meal?

A snapshot at my developmental editing process

For anyone who has watched my revision tutorials before, you’ll know I have a specific way of editing my manuscripts that involves a LOT of arts and crafts. In today’s video, you’ll learn how I’m tackling editorial revisions for a novel under contract with a Big Five publisher. I have until July 1st to get these edits in— this gives me something of a runway, but not a super long one, especially because I have a vacation planned in June.

The due date is logistic—something I can plan for—but the psychosomatic deliverables are far trickier, still. I’ve been working on this book for well over two years and I’ve already revised it dozens of times. So the main challenge is keeping up my interest in the novel. I have to design a strategy that will get me excited to dive back into material; protect me from phoning any of my edits in. Today, I’ll show you step by step the strategy I’ve devised to get myself not just ready but excited for developmental edits.

Ready? Here we go.

A quick note before the paywall— I know that many of us have begged Substack to make individual pricing for single-article access—it’s something I want too, both as a writer and a reader. Until Substack listens to us creators, know that you can purchase a monthly subscription to “Before and After the Book Deal” and unsubscribe after you’ve read the article (or articles) you were interested in. Simply set yourself a reminder in Google calendar to unsubscribe before the month is up if you’re not enjoying further content. That’s a workaround until we get a way to purchase single articles from publications that we like but can’t, for whatever reason, support on an annual basis.

How to tackle developmental edits for a novel under contract when you’ve already been working on the thing for a long time