All writers need a best friend– one with the skills, experience and knowledge to take their manuscript from good to great. A book editor is that best friend!
There is more to editing than meets the eye. There are different types of editors, each doing a different job. It’s important that you as an author know the difference and when you would need each type of editor.
Different types of editing:
- Editorial Assessment (assess the depth of editing required)
- Developmental and Structural Editing (big picture issues like dialogue, voice, style, character development/arc and plot, pacing, flow of content and writing style)
- Copy editing (technical editing–eliminate inconsistencies by correcting errors in spelling, capitalisation, tense, etc)
- Line editing (focus on style of writing and sentence structure, rewrite sentences to flow better)
We offer a full editing service for first-time authors and content writers. The editor will assess each manuscript on its own merits and advise the author on the level of editing needed – light (merely to polish a well-written story), medium or heavy editing (manuscript requires all the above editing levels).
Note: book distributors and retailers will reject an unedited book to avoid returns from dissatisfied readers. This can cause the author great financial loss if he/she has already paid to print physical copies of their book.
Proofreading looks at spelling, grammar, punctuation and consistency. A proofreader will get a digital or printed copy of a final manuscript and then go through it like a fine toothcomb to pick up potential errors. The last thing you want is to have a book riddled with mistakes because then your reader will then start to think they need to fix the errors.
A proofreader will highlight the mistakes in a document or on the printed proof so that the editor can make the final decision. We prefer to do the proofreading once the book design has been completed so that the proofreader can pick up typos that may have been made in the layout process as well. Simply put proofreading is an additional service to editing, it is the very last stage of the writing and editorial process.
Some publishing houses print an initial galley copy, a short run so that a focus group can also give their input on the book and highlight possible mistakes. We recommend that our authors do this.