M F ALFREY

Understanding the Editorial Process and Choosing the Right Service for Your Manuscript

As a writer, whether you intend to follow the indie or the traditional route, you are most likely going to ask the question: what is the difference between a copy edit and a proofread? Or perhaps, you may already have a rough idea. Either way, it is useful to get some clarification. This way, if you are an indie author, you can be confident you are producing and publishing work to the highest quality you can. Conversely, if you are going down the traditional route, you will at least know the phases of the process your book is going through at the publishers. This post forms part of a guide which is intended to outline when these stages occur, what they focus on and why, and should inform you which services you may need when employing an editor or proofreader.

It is also worth noting that during all these stages, as an author, you can take or leave the advice given. Though obviously, if something is incorrect, nonstandard, or is simply confusing, then it is quite useful to have trained experts onboard to advise—particularly for indie authors. With opportunities such as print-on-demand publishing available, the market has been flooded with books of varying standards, so why not take the pressure off yourself and have someone else take a look? The more rigorous the process a book goes through, the better the final product. Cut and polished diamonds sparkle the brightest, and so should your awesome story.

Remember, at the end of the day, if you choose to pay someone for all of these services or select only one or two, ask yourself what your manuscript really needs to make it sparkle. You will know. You are the best person to reflect on your strengths and weaknesses as an author. The clues are in the results of your drafting (essentially editing), the comments from writer groups and workshopping, and the feedback from your alpha and beta readers. List them down. Scrutinise that list, and use the information in this guide to help you decide which service or services are the best fit for your manuscript. Whether you are indie or not will have a huge influence on your decision making here, because let’s face it, as an indie author you are writer and publisher and probably your own publicist too. Imagine adding all the editorial hats on top. That is a lot of hats. It’s not impossible though, to edit your own material, though I personally always appreciate a second or even third set of eyes (and perspectives) on my manuscripts.

The Copy Edit

After the alpha, beta, and developmental edit stages come two more choices before the final proofread which most people are familiar with. These stages are known as a line edit and a copy edit. As an author, you will probably choose one over the other based on what your manuscript needs. A line edit is slightly different to a copy edit. These stages are focused on a micro level. Let’s look at a copy edit.

What it is

For a copy edit, the editor has their grammarian hat on, ensuring grammar, punctuation and spelling are correct. They will be applying house style (if working for a publishing house) and restructure if necessary for sense. This stage is more about the technical side of grammar and formatting. So correctness in terms of the English being used and formatting as per the indie author’s or publisher’s house style and industry standard.

What it’s not

It is not about craft and clarity in terms of how the story is constructed. So that means the editor is not looking at character, plot, setting, and themes or reader engagement. This is because that should have been addressed in the previous stages. So if an author hands over a manuscript that has not been through a developmental stage, those issues are likely to be overlookedt. However, sympathetic editors may make a note or mention generally is something needs work. For an indie author, it is a question of making the most of their money. If they hand over a well-drafted and developed manuscript, then great. The copy editor can focus on the task at hand. Yet if the story is poorly developed and full of character and plot issues, that will not be rectified by a copy edit and would be a waste of funds.

What the author gets

The author receives a manuscript that is now close to what it will look like on publication. It should be smoother, relatively error free, and grammatically standard in terms of the English it has been checked against: New Heart’s Rules for English English or The Chicago Manual of Style for American English. The editor may communicate through in-text annotations and report the reasons for corrections and revisions.

Further Reading