What Types of Editing Does My Manuscript Need?
The following includes an excerpt from Untangling the Self-Publishing Process: A Practical Guide to Creating and Marketing a Professional-Quality Book by Julia Soplop, Hill Press founder.
No matter how skilled a writer you are, your manuscript will require numerous rounds and types of editing to elevate it to its full potential. It’s ideal to hire a professional editor to assist you with each round of editing. But if budget is a concern, you may have to try to find family or friends who are willing to help with some of these aspects. Even if you can hire a professional, you’ll still want as many eyes on the manuscript as possible for additional suggestions.
Editors often assess the state of a manuscript before estimating their editing costs, so the tighter the manuscript is by the time it gets in their hands, the less expensive their fees will be. Asking people in your life whose opinions you respect to read your manuscript before it goes to a professional editor is always a good idea.
Standard Types of Editing
Below are the four standard types of editing your manuscript requires, all of which Hill Press provides. We can help you determine the phase your manuscript is in at the time you reach out to us. Sometimes, you’ll need multiple rounds of one type of editing or another to polish it. And the more proofreaders and rounds of proofreading the better! No single editor, regardless of talent and experience, will find every error in a long manuscript.
Developmental Editing: You’ve completed a full or partial draft of your manuscript. Now it’s time for developmental editing, which tackles the big picture: organization, structure, plot, pacing, and character development. These high-level suggestions can help you focus your rewrites to transform your draft into a finished book.
Line Editing: After you’ve gotten the bones of your manuscript in place based on developmental editing suggestions, you’re ready for line editing. Line editing focuses on how the manuscript flows by examining sentence- and paragraph-level structural issues, word choice, and grammatical and spelling errors. Line editing also looks for inconsistencies in writing style and plot.
Copyediting: Once you’ve updated your manuscript based on line editing suggestions and you feel the content of your manuscript is complete, it’s copyediting time. Any major round of editing likely introduces new errors, so copyediting is essential. Copyediting focuses exclusively on identifying and fixing mechanical issues, such as grammatical, spelling, usage, and punctuation errors.
Proofreading: Yes, you still need proofreading after copyediting. Proofreading is examining a manuscript word by word in search of typos. It takes a meticulous eye. Proofreading should happen before a manuscript goes to layout and again after layout is complete, because the design process can introduce new typos and spacing issues. Proofreading should follow any additional rounds of changes.
Specialized Editing
While any manuscript should go through the types of editing listed above, you may need to seek additional assistance depending on the genre of your book.
Technical editing: If your book covers technical material, such as engineering, scientific research, or law, it’s a good idea to hire a technical editor with experience working in your genre to help ensure content accuracy and adherence to your industry’s style standards.
Sensitivity reading and editing: If your manuscript discusses race, sexuality, disabilities, or any vulnerable or marginalized populations, it’s wise to hire a sensitivity reader or editor to help you determine whether—despite your intentions—your writing could be offensive to those about whom you’re writing. You’ll need to hire someone who specializes specifically in the populations covered in your book. They can help you identify bias, misrepresentation, or inadvertent disrespect and suggest how to adjust your language to be more inclusive. Listen to their input and pay them for it! But remember that no one speaks for everyone in any population, so it’s always a possibility that your word choice may not sit well with all readers. Be open to continued conversations and editing if readers identify insensitivities in your work.
Looking for an editor or self-publishing consultant? Drop us a line.
To learn more about self-publishing, check out Untangling the Self-Publishing Process.
