If you’ve never worked with a publisher before, the next steps that will happen after you sign the contract may come as a bit of a surprise. However, your first task is to deliver the manuscript on or before the due date that was specified in your contract.

So do it and send it on time. Don’t let perfectionism or imposter syndrome kick in. You have a contract; they want your book; finish it; send it.

Once your manuscript arrives in the publishing house, the editorial director will set the schedule that will keep the manuscript moving through the publishing process to meet the to-printer date. Every step all the way up to your BB (bound book) and release date is laid out.

In large publishing houses, there may be several different people doing these editorial tasks with varying titles. In small houses, there might be one person who uses several freelancers. The editorial director will be in conversation with various people in the publishing house to schedule this book since there are also several other projects at various stages of production. The editorial director chooses and assigns the content editor, copyeditors, and proofreaders.

Let’s start with the content editor since that person handles the first stage of the process and will be working most closely with your manuscript and with you. But this is where I need to issue a warning. Be prepared for the editor to do a lot of work on your manuscript (a lot). Steel yourself for this. Most likely, it won’t be a pretty process. Most likely, you will have a lot of work ahead (a lot). But soldier on. The end result will be worth it.

The content editor is not going to be marking up your manuscript for spelling and punctuation errors. That comes later. Instead, the content editor reads the full manuscript and looks at the big picture. She helps shape the book (perhaps your chapter 3 should really be chapter 1 as it is a better beginning) and looks for issues of pacing, characterization, setting, consistency, plot, etc. She will make comments on the manuscript and write a (generally very long) letter, called the editorial letter, back to you filled with comments and suggestions to improve the manuscript.

This is probably the scariest part for every author. The editorial letter may, indeed, tear your manuscript to shreds (or so it seems). It may be 12 pages of single-spaced copy addressing every bit of your manuscript and offering suggestions. This article tells you more.

So, when it arrives and you first open it, you have my permission to sit down and cry. Do it. Close your computer, walk away for a day or two, get your bearings back.

By the time you return again to the letter, you’ll see that the suggestions are (usually) right on. You’ll begin to see how much better the manuscript can be with the revisions suggested.

So get to work. If you have questions, contact your editor. Ask for a Zoom call to clarify if you’re unsure. Don’t do a lot of revisions if you’re not exactly clear what the editor is suggesting.

For the next few weeks, you and your content editor will go back and forth on the various edits and suggestions to determine what is going to make the book the best it can be. Understand that the content editor is acting as your “best reader” and is truly on your side in the process. She isn’t working against you, even if it may feel that way; she is in your corner all the way. And it’s a collaborative process.

Are editors sometimes wrong? Of course. But be open minded. There may be suggested edits that you just don’t feel will work. Talk to the editor and make sure you explain why. (Perhaps that random character the editor suggests that you cut is someone you know will be key to book 3 and thus needs to be introduced in book 1.)

Remember that schedule the editorial director set up at the beginning of this process? On there is the date for when you will have finished revising the manuscript and will turn in the final version that both you and your content editor are pleased with.

DO NOT MISS THIS DEADLINE. There are still several steps in the process — including copyediting, the interior and cover design approvals, typesetting, and proofreading. All of those people are anticipating receiving your manuscript and doing their work by their own due dates. If one of those dominoes falls, it can put your BB date in jeopardy. You don’t want that to happen. Besides delaying your book, you’re also putting in jeopardy any future prospects for working with this publisher on other books.

Your content editor is invaluable. Work with the person. She is your best friend during this process.

I bet you have never heard of Therese von Hohoff. She was the intrepid editor of To Kill a Mockingbird, working closely, across a couple of years, with Harper Lee to help develop the book into the classic it became. Through hours of back and forth, Lee and Hohoff worked out the various problems every writer encounters: the story’s through-line, the pacing, the voice.

At Hohoff’s urging, Lee worked with various POVs and voices, rewriting the novel three times—third person point of view, first person, and finally with a blend. At some point, they determined that the real story, the most authentic voice, lay with the six-year-old tomboy Scout, who could say and observe a lot of things that an adult narrator could not. The story goes that at one point Lee became so frustrated with the writing process she gathered up all the pages and threw the entire manuscript out her apartment window and into the New York City snow. She called her editor in tears. Hohoff told her in no uncertain terms to go outside, gather her pages, and keep working.

This is what a content editor does—challenges, questions, pushes (although, in today’s world, the editorial process will probably not allow for three years—books move much more quickly). This part is difficult because when you sent that beautiful manuscript in, you thought it was perfect, then suddenly, this person starts taking it apart piece by piece.

Just remember that with you and your content editor working together, the book will be better for it.