Authors and manuscripts

I enjoy working with authors, although I respect that the publishing pathway is expensive. If you already have a publisher, great! If, like almost all new and many previously published authors, you don’t have a publisher, then the current technological options to create an ebook or print-on-demand book are exciting. Be prepared to spend some money to get your work to market.

Hiring a professional editor is wise, and if you’ve sent me an enquiry about editing your manuscript, I’ll likely have directed you to this page so that you can make an informed decision. I go into some detail so that you understand the process and costs.

Let me say again how much better your editing additions have made this story. It has made it come to life. I have admired each one and feel I’ve had a private writing lesson.

Overview

The unavoidable consideration with your manuscript is that it’s long, and that means my work takes time. If your manuscript is 100,000 words, it might take me more than a week to work through it.

As explained on the services page, there’s no simple answer to how much a project will cost. It’s a balance of complexity against word count. For fairly standard book editing, anywhere from 3.5 to 6 cents per word is normal. You can do a quick calculation based on your manuscript word count to see if that cost is feasible. I understand that professional editing can be an expensive proposition for a self-publishing author.

My rates page goes into further detail.

Assessment, editing and proofreading tasks

I have yet to work on a manuscript that hasn’t had thousands of minor details that need attention. My input might include:

  • Line by line copyediting with tracked changes

  • Consistent capitalisation in headings and terminology

  • Consistent treatment of numbers

  • List punctuation and parallel structure

  • Common grammar problems with difficult punctuation like semicolons and dashes

  • Consistent spelling and hyphenation according to an agreed dictionary

  • Feedback on language and tone, with comments if there are problems

  • Comments on idiomatic style (i.e. style that might be characteristic of you but which could be edited)

  • Consistent formatting where required

  • Comments on any problems

Working with an editor

Here are some further considerations:

  • It’s important that I work on your ‘final draft’ manuscript, and not chapter by chapter. It’s easier and safer to apply consistency to an entire document rather than bit by bit.

  • Most of the copyediting and proofing is done with tracked changes (although it’s counterproductive to track trivial changes), and it’s up to the author to accept (or reject) any changes. This means that the editing process makes substantial review work, and you should factor this into your time frames.

  • Working in tracked changes can hide mistakes in a document (e.g. extra spaces or orphan letters that are hard to spot when a document is in review). These are often solved by a simple but thorough spellcheck once all tracked changes have been removed. You should add this task to your workflow.

  • Another task to consider is a final proofread by a third party (perhaps a friend or relative) to a printed version of the manuscript. This is because we all process information in context, and once we’re familiar with text it’s very hard to spot mistakes (even obvious mistakes). You’re already familiar with your work. After I’ve edited it, I’m also familiar with it. The best solution is to let an independent party look over the final manuscript.

Disclaimer

Despite best efforts, it’s impossible to guarantee that all errors are eliminated in a copyedit. Eliminating all errors is a different procedure – that of proofreading (and even then most publications still have a background error rate). It’s also worth pointing out that after several thousand changes have been made to your manuscript, any remaining errors will stand out. This isn’t an indication that the copyedit has not been thorough, just an acknowledgement that the copyediting process is not foolproof. Getting to publication is a staged procedure.

Next steps

If you’ve read this page and you’re ready to take the next steps, I look forward to working with you. If you want to know more about what it’s like to work with me, read some feedback. There’s also useful information on my rates and terms pages.