Book Editing
Editing, whether self-publishing or traditionally publishing, is paramount for your book’s success.
Writing without revising is the literary equivalent of waltzing gaily out of the house in your underwear.
Patricia Fuller
Why you need editing
Types of Editing
Developmental/structural editing
Structural editing focuses on the overall structure and organisation of the manuscript. It is an in-depth form of editing as it involves looking at the bigger picture of the story and making recommendations on how to improve the overall flow, pacing, and coherence of the story.
Copy editing
Copy editing focuses on the technical aspects of a manuscript such as grammar, punctuation, spelling, and consistency. The editor’s goal of copy editing is to ensure that the manuscript is error free and easy for a reader to follow.
Proofreading
Proofreading is typically the final stage of the editing process and focuses on catching any errors that may remain and polishing up the manuscript ready to be published. The goal of proofreading is the ensure the manuscript is as error free as possible and that it presents well for readers.
Beta reading
During the process of beta reading, the reader will assess your manuscript and provide feedback based on the content of the story, i.e. the plot, characters, and the experience of reading your manuscript. They will flag both the good and bad aspects of the manuscript and give an overall impression and ideas for improvement.
For a further breakdown on the different types of editing, see our blog post “Book editing for self-publishing in Australia”.
How much does editing cost?
- The type of editing: proofreading (grammar and punctuation-level errors), copy editing (consistency and sentence revision changes), and structural (whole manuscript restructuring/commenting).
- The word count.
- Genre-specific elements: i.e. focus on consistency for cookbooks vs focus on language for fiction novels.
What is the editing process?
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