Book Editing
“Does my book’s manuscript need to be edited?”
First, I want to congratulate you on finishing your draft and getting yourself to the point where you are seeking an editor to look over your manuscript.
For me, when I was in the market for an editor on my first book (My Disability Doesn’t Define Me), I was apprehensive about sending it to the editor that I had found. I was so apprehensive that it took me three weeks to get up the courage to finally send the manuscript off to them!
My book has been all the better for it. I was able to have a beautifully polished manuscript that I was proud of.
The Stages of Editing
Developmental Editing is where your manuscript is evaluated at the stage its at when it is first received by the editor. It has to deal with the overall organization of the manuscript.
If you are a fiction author—like I am—Developmental Editing also looks at the pacing of the novel, the plot structure, and characterization, among other things. In this phase, your manuscript may need to be rewritten as chapters are sometimes moved around and some pieces may need to be added or removed from the manuscript as a whole.
Content Editing takes the manuscript’s overall look and makes it shinier. Edits in this stage include looking at transitions, accuracy, flow, voice, clarification, and more.
Copy Editing happens once the manuscript is developed and the content itself is solid (no more moving things around).
In this phase, the editor reviews the manuscript for accuracy, repetition, inconsistencies, word choice, syntax, tense, and a number of other content elements.
As an overall explanation of the Copy Phase, its purpose is to tighten the manuscript, but it also works to eradicate any mistakes before going for Proofreading.
Proofreading is where an editor—someone else, not the same editor as the person who did the last three edits—looks at the manuscript a final time for typographical errors and mistakes in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Proofreading is an essential last step in making the document as error-free as humanly possible.
The Stages I Offer
I specialize in two of the four stages of editing: Copy Editing and Proofreading. However, if I am your Copy Editor, I will not be the editor to Proofread your book—and vice versa.
The reason for this is because you shouldn’t have the same person who does the initial edits on your book also proofread your book.
If you hire me to copyedit your book, I have a network of proofreaders that I can refer you to.
What People Think of Me as an Editor
Hi!
Thank you for editing for me! I greatly appreciate it! I will gladly recommend you to all of my friends!