It has been close to twenty years since people started paying me to edit their manuscripts and during only the last couple years has AI really begun to be part of the conversation. What role will it/does it have in publishing? Will it kill the editing business? Will it ever be as good as a human? I am always interested how other editors feel about AI coming into our field and everyone seems to have a different take. I connected with Helene Kiser through Kit’s Creator Network and asked if I could interview her on her experience with the publishing world. Obviously, I had to ask her about her take on AI & editing. I love her honest talk about it. You, of course, will have to read the interview to find out what she said...So here we go:
Libby: You work across genres and formats—from fiction to thought leadership to brand voice. What underlying editorial frameworks or heuristics do you rely on to keep your work consistent, regardless of format? How do you “triage” what needs fixing or reworking in a manuscript that’s 80% there?
Helene: My editorial approach centers on purpose (the why), audience (the who), and voice (the how). This works whether I’m editing a memoir, an advertisement, or a think piece, because every communication establishes a contract. Break that contract and readers feel betrayed, even if they can't articulate why.
This philosophy underpins my proprietary Butterfly Blueprint® framework, which I've developed over more than three decades of editorial work. The metaphor is deliberate: like a butterfly's transformation through caterpillar, chrysalis, emergence, and flight, writing moves through discovery, development, refinement, and empowerment. Each stage is orderly, purposeful, and necessary. The framework works across every format I touch because it focuses on the writer's intent and the reader's experience rather than surface-level mechanics.
The question of “what to fix” almost always comes down to those three key concerns: clarity of the why, the who, and the how. Every writer and every project is different, so the “fix” will always be a unique solution.
Libby: From your vantage point working with a wide range of authors, how have you seen the publishing landscape evolve over the last five years—especially in terms of what success looks like for writers?
Helene: Success absolutely does not mean the same thing to everyone. Authors must be or get clear on exactly what they want to accomplish. What’s the real goal? Before I begin with a new client, I need to know their publishing goals. When you dig really deep, they are never the same for everyone. Sometimes traditional publishing makes sense. But increasingly, I'm helping clients build hybrid strategies. The "one true path" narrative, if it ever truly existed, is dead forever.
The democratization of publishing (I’m looking at you, Amazon KDP) has fundamentally changed what "success" means for writers, and honestly? That's largely positive. The question isn't whether traditional or independent publishing is "better" but how we help writers make informed choices for their writing and goals. I've watched authors build sustainable careers through alternate forms of publishing after traditional deals proved unattainable or were rejected from the start for whatever reason, reaching exactly the readers who want their work.
The metrics have shifted from advance sizes to direct audience relationships, which is both terrifying and liberating. It also means that quite worthy writing, the stuff that would have made editors swoon a few years ago, isn’t getting picked up. Contemporary publishing has always been numbers-driven, with writing the commodity being sold. More people are writing books — one of my agent friends quips that during the pandemic everyone learned how to bake bread and write books. At the same time, fewer people are buying books. There are tough decisions being made, and it often doesn’t seem fair because, well, it isn’t.
Helene Kiser
Libby: You’ve worked closely with writers going both traditional and indie. With traditional publishing in such a state of flux—shrinking advances, reduced editorial support, new discovery channels—what shifts have you noticed in how writers think about getting published? And how are you adapting your role to meet those new realities?
Helene: Five years ago, writers asked "How do I get an agent?" Now it's "How can I build a platform?"
What I'm seeing is writers approaching traditional publishing with much clearer eyes about what they're trading away. They understand that a small advance for a debut novel means they're essentially licensing their work for pennies on the dollar. I've had clients and friends turn down traditional deals that would have seemed like winning the lottery a decade ago.
Publishers outsource the editorial function whether they admit it or not, and authors are hiring freelance editors either before submission or after acquisition or often both, to fill the gap. This creates an odd dynamic where editors like me work on a manuscript so it's query-ready, then do more rounds post-contract because the in-house editor didn't have bandwidth or doesn’t exist.
Writers (no matter how they publish their work) now need to dive headlong into understanding marketing, audience development, and sustainable content creation. The "tortured artist in a garret" archetype is giving way to the writer-entrepreneur. The infrastructure that traditional publishing provided at varying levels — editing, design, marketing, the unsexy stuff that most MFA programs don’t teach — now falls on authors to at least some degree. It's like being handed the keys to a car without driving lessons.
Libby: With self-publishing more accessible than ever, and traditional publishing in flux, how has your work—and your clients’ expectations—evolved? What power dynamics have shifted in how manuscripts get shaped and published?
Helene: The transformation has been more nuanced than a simple power shift, though social media loves that narrative. Traditional publishing retains significant advantages such as advance capital, distribution infrastructure, and cultural legitimacy, especially for certain genres.
What's changed most dramatically is that writers no longer need to accept terrible terms out of desperation. There are options, and more and more of my clients come to me with a strong desire to create the best possible book but without any interest in traditional publishing, or at least not an interest in an agent and the so-called Big Five.
Publishers are less willing to build careers over multiple books, with a pressure to earn out advances immediately. You don't get to be Anne Tyler or John Updike, publishing steadily for years before winning the Pulitzer. It's complicated.
Libby: Do you see a future where editors are embedded earlier in the content lifecycle—not just polishing prose, but helping shape brand voice, creative direction, and publishing strategy? Is that already happening in your work?
Helene: It’s already happening in digital-first environments. Editors might work with clients to adapt content across platforms, develop repurposing strategies, and map the reader's journey from Instagram post to newsletter to book purchase. The consideration is that the focus moves from the work itself to marketing. It’s important to be crystal clear on whether we’re editing for excellence or metrics.
Libby: We’re seeing a wave of freelance editors being undercut or replaced by AI-assisted editing. What human-level editorial thinking do you believe still can't be replicated—and how can professionals reposition themselves around that?
Helene: The "wave of freelance editors being undercut" concern is real but overstated. Yes, AI can handle certain mechanical tasks: grammar checking, consistency review, basic structural analysis. But it fundamentally cannot do what skilled editors do: understand subtext, recognize when a piece is arguing against itself, or help a writer discover what they're trying to say beneath what they think they're saying.
The threat isn't that AI will replace editors, it's that writers who don't understand what editing is, let alone its value and inherent humanness, will settle for AI-assisted adequacy. Proofreading does not equal copy editing. Copy editing does not equal development editing. And AI, while undeniably helpful for certain finite and structured tasks, cannot truly do what is understood to be quality editing. Human-led editorial thinking isn't just about catching errors; it's about being a sophisticated reader who can identify connections or articulate why something isn't working and suggest viable alternatives for consideration.
Many good writers believe that their skill automatically makes them good editors. That’s not the case at all. An analogy is that Michael Jordan, an elite athlete and the greatest basketball player of all time, did not have much success in his short-lived baseball career. The skills are completely different and it’s even more complicated when attempting to self-edit. Even further, good proofreaders are not necessarily good developmental editors and vice versa.
My free weekly Editorial Notes newsletter teaches writers how to edit themselves with bite-sized, genre-agnostic, actionable tips in each issue. My readers run the gamut of skills and subject matter — and many subscribers are themselves professional editors — and there is never a possibility that we can’t teach ourselves to get better at the task.
Libby: What role do you believe editors will need to play in an AI-accelerated publishing world? Will we see a bifurcation between “commodity editing” and high-trust editorial strategy?
Helene: The bifurcation is already evident and will likely intensify, which sounds ominous but isn't necessarily bad. Commodity editing such as proofreading or basic copy editing will increasingly be AI-assisted or relegated to lower price points. High-trust editorial strategy will command premium positioning because it involves judgment, taste, career thinking, and creative collaboration. The stuff that requires an actual human!
However, there's real value in an editor who simply makes your book significantly better without positioning themselves as your publishing guru or life coach. We need to protect space for editorial craft that's excellent without being consultancy theater.
Kiser helping writers move their projects forward
Libby: If an experienced editor wanted to level up—to move from being “good with words” to becoming a true thought partner to authors—what would you recommend they study or practice next?
Helene: This is a challenging question. Let’s assume the editor is already a voracious reader, either deep in a single area, wide across many genres, or a combination of both.
The best way to be a collaborative partner is to learn to give thoughtful feedback that empowers (not directs) the writer to make the best choices possible for their own work and intention. It takes real effort and a lot of practice to clearly discern and articulate what a piece is trying to do before suggesting how it might better accomplish that goal. The goal should always be about the why, the who, and the how of the project in front of them, not the editor’s personal taste.
Practically: seek mentorship, edit outside your comfort zone to stay humble, and maintain a practice of analyzing published work you admire to understand the editorial choices at play. Reverse-engineer excellence whenever you can.
Libby: Thank you for your thoughts!
Helen Kiser has written beautiful essays on experiences with grief—if you are writing memoir or have been enjoying my letters where I talk about general-interest essay publishing or lit journal publishing, you should take a look at what and where she has been publishing to inspire your own work. Helene Kiser will also be teaching a Forever Workshop on self-editing in April and you can learn more about that here.
Thank you for reading.
And as alway, keep going. Your art is important.
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