Who do you have edit your written materials? I’m considering hiring someone I know, and she has excellent writing skills but doesn’t have anything to do with this type of business. She’s not in this field; she’s just a good writer. Do you think that’s good enough? This is for website content. Is it better to have someone in the business of marketing or health?

Chris Kresser:  There are different categories here. When I wrote my book, which was published by a big New York traditional, mainstream publisher that does things the big, traditional way, I had an editor and then I also had a copy editor. The editor’s job is really bigger picture, like what’s the best structure for the book, what’s the best format, what’s the level of writing in terms of comprehension that should be used, what’s the overall message of the book, how do we make that as clear and actionable as possible? Those are all the things that a senior editor would do. If you’re looking for an editor for your writing content, at Little, Brown and at most big publishers, there are editors that have a lot of experience editing health books. For example, the editor I worked with is also Mark Hyman’s editor and has edited a number of really successful health books and is familiar with the field, and I think that’s very helpful, so if you’re looking for someone who’s an editor like that for your blog or whatever that it is you’re writing, I do think it would be helpful to find a health editor or an editor with experience with health-related content, and there are a lot of them out there.

The second position I mentioned was copy editor, and we’re talking about crossing T’s and dotting I’s and grammar and fact-checking. Sometimes a fact-checker is actually a different person, but these are the people who are just looking to make sure you didn’t misspell something or use the wrong grammatical structure. I don’t think it’s necessary for a copy editor to have experience in the health field. I use a copy editor for my blog content and all of the written content, stuff in ADAPT, the quizzes. Everything that you see has been copy edited. That doesn’t mean that stuff doesn’t still slip through occasionally, but it’s not for lack of effort. It goes through a few different edits, and that person I don’t think needs to be in the health field. That’s someone who just needs to have a remarkable attention to detail and to really know their craft.