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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

Every author, regardless of experience, requires someone else to read through their manuscript. No book is perfect, but by hiring an experienced and professional editor you are giving your book the best chance to be successful.
Green Hill Publishing will connect you with one of our trusted editors from our network of editing to suit your project needs. Our editors are experienced in working with self-published authors and understand the importance of maintaining your author voice while ensuring your message is clear.

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?

Just like your manuscript, every editing job is unique. A good starting point is 2-6 cents per word as an estimate, but there are many factors which go into pricing an editing job, such as:
  • 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?

We begin with an editing assessment on a small sample of your manuscript to understand your project and provide a quote. If you choose to go ahead, the editor will complete the full edit using track changes in Microsoft Word. Once this has been completed, you will have the opportunity to accept and/or reject those changes.
Want to find out more about an editing assessment? Provide your manuscript details here.

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