"My name is Piotr. I'm one of your "friends" on Ello. I really like your posts, especially your "pathologically immature" label in your bio... I feel that describes me perfectly. I am also a writer, but behind you in the amount of stuff I've written. Currently, I work for a website creating content. It's silly and forgotten as soon as you read it, but it allows me creativity, lets me be funny (a must), and gives me a paycheck. Anyway, long story short, I'm writing a novel. It's a funny, alternate-history-à-la-fantasy-scifi. That might not make sense now, but if you read it, it would. My question to you (since you are the only writer I can even pretend I know) is, how do I go about getting someone to edit my manuscript once it's finished? Someone who actually knows what they're doing?"

Thank you, Piotr! I tell people I'm permanently 5 years old. Perhaps it's not a pathology, perhaps it's bliss, but I can tell you I'm having a ball. As to your question, I have had experience working with only two editors so far, which isn't much, and I have no clue (well, very little) as to how the relationship between an editor and a writer works in the traditional publishing world, so I'll tell you what I've learned by self-publishing my books and how I went selecting an editor and working together.