An essential ingredient to any relationship, romantic or otherwise, is trust. Authors must have confidence in two critical people–their editor and their publisher. The publishing experience can be a complete nightmare if no bond has formed between them.

As someone who started life as an indie author, I find myself in the odd position of having morphed into a bit of a hybrid author. No traditional agent and publisher, yet I do work with a brilliant publishing company, Hot Tree Publishing. They’ve in turn connected me with an equally brilliant editor.

In my experience, we, of the creative mind, can occasionally be fragile and a mite temperamental when discussing our paper children. We nurture our stories–having them judged on any level can be hard. It’s a necessary part of the process, having the right editor and publisher are akin to choosing the right surgeon. They help to pick apart the pieces of your heart before carefully putting it all back together again.

No matter how much editing frustrates me. No matter how much I curse at my manuscript and the comments attached to it. I know my novel will look better on the other side of it, so I slog through, trusting the insights given to me.

And they have yet to steer me wrong.