Rather than simply correct the text, they collaborate with authors by dialoguing with them (through in-text comments, email, phone, internet telephony, etc.)
[9] When authors receive the revised manuscript, they usually must dedicate substantial time and effort to reviewing the editor's changes and queries.
Skilled writers will not need to hire such an editor, instead finding sufficient the feedback of colleagues (prior to submitting a manuscript) and peer reviewers (after submission).
Nonetheless, even skilled writers may benefit from author editing, especially when they are short of time and have ambitious publishing goals.
However, these firms, for their global nature, do not always permit the establishment of the collaborative relationship between editor and author-clients which is necessary for true author editing.
Finally, novice writers may not realize how they can benefit by presubmission author editing; by submitting unedited manuscripts, they may find themselves in a situation of multiple rejections.
[12] It was used in 1953, in the title of a Doctor of Education thesis, to describe Maxwell Perkins, a literary editor who helped shape American literature in the first half of the twentieth century.
[19] The earliest use of the term in print is attributed to US novelist George Washington Cable in a 1910 tribute to his editor Richard Watson Gilder.