Aja Kim asked N.K. Jemisin:

What did you go through to get your first novel off the ground? More specifically, outside of a writing group, did you get it professionally edited before you went in search of an agent? How polished was it at the start of your search for an agent and how much did it change after?

N.K. Jemisin I did not get it professionally edited before I sent it to an agent. That's not a normal part of the process; professional editing should occur after the book has been bought by a publisher (in traditional publishing). I just wrote a 0th draft, revised it up to a 1st draft, sent that to my writing group, wrote a 2nd and 3rd draft based on that, and then sent it to agents. That was enough to get me offers from 2 agents. I accepted one -- Lucienne Diver, who is still my agent to this day. After that book sold to a publisher, it got revised a couple more times, copyedited, and then a final pass from me for typos, etc.

Generally the biggest change to my novels happens after someone else reads it -- my writing group, my editor. Then I do major overhauls, like removing characters or unnecessary subplots or adding chapters, etc.

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