Hi Bernard. Thank you for signing my books at the Jorvik Centre in York earlier this year. It was a great pleasure to see you there and, had my husband been willing to carry more books than just the paltry six he agreed to, I would have brought them all! Anyway, I have another motive for sending this message, in that I have almost finished my first novel and have a list of agents to whom I will be sending my manuscript, but one thing still puzzles me. I have come across lots of references to Editors etc and people charging monies to copy-edit manuscript before sending them to an agent. I suppose my question is whether this is what I should do or is expected of or necessary? I have obviously been re-reading myself and getting others to also, but wasn’t sure whether hiring someone to correct my errors is something that would be done before or after it has been accepted by an editor. I would be most grateful if you could enlighten me on this? Kind regards, Jane