What to Expect From Every Edit
Understanding Different Edits and What Each Entails
I feel a bit like this is a missed opportunity. Today is America’s traditional day of tax-paying, but my topic has nothing to do with taxes or taxation in any sense of the word. That said, the federal tax deadline has been extended to May 17, and my state tax deadline has been extended even further, so maybe I shall think of a tax-related post by that time. Today’s post may be taxing to read, certainly taxing for me to write (everything is), but it’s not on the subject of taxing.
I’m in favor of managing expectations. First and foremost, I try to manage my own expectations for things as much as possible. I do this by researching things ahead of time, requesting information from friends who have done or tried or purchased the same thing before, and writing down questions I have so that I remember to ask the service provider or salesperson when I have a chance to speak with them. This is to prevent me making assumptions about what a service will cover, or what a product will cost (for example), that could be out of line with reality.
I also try to manage others’ expectations when it comes to anything I’m providing whether in my professional or personal life. In the workplace, I try to be as upfront, detailed, and transparent as possible when describing what my department can or cannot do, to avoid those later requests for rush service that always seem accompanied by comments like “Oh, well, we expected it to be done quicker!” At home, for example, if my partner asks me to cook dinner, I try to set forth clear parameters to help manage his expectations, such as:
It won’t be ready till six.
It will be a vegetarian meal.
It will be terrible because I can’t cook.
Anyway, it’s on us to manage our own expectations as much as we can, and to manage the expectations of those who depend on us for things, to prevent as much frustration and disappointment and overwhelm as possible. This is everybody’s job.
Today I’m going to share some information to help new and aspiring writers and authors manage their expectations regarding what they will experience when their manuscript undergoes different types of edits. I have come to suspect this is needed due to the number of conversations I’ve had that go like this:
A Stranger: “Could you put me in touch with a professional proofreader for my manuscript.”
CF: “Yes. Tell me about your proofs—how many pages, what’s the trim size?”
A Stranger: “Oh I don’t know how many pages it is, I’m not done writing yet.”
This is a person who has no sense of what they expect from the professional they are trying to hire, as evidenced by requesting “proofreading” for a manuscript that has not been through any of the stages that precede proofreading. A transaction that can only end in tears. Or what about this one:
An Acquaintance: “I’m really disappointed in the editor I hired. They made some good suggestions about plot, character development, and pacing, but they missed so many typos!”
The level of edit that assists with big-ticket items like plot and character isn’t going to also correct for typos. Those are different things. In this example, my acquaintance was disappointed because they expected that paying for the most expensive level of editing for their manuscript meant everything from every level of edit would be done—all the lower-priced services rolled up into one.
That’s not how any of this works.
It’s common for people who are new to the publishing world to misunderstand five major types of edits and talk about them interchangeably. These are:
Manuscript evaluation
Developmental editing
Line editing
Copyediting
Proofreading
Herewith, a brief explanation of what to expect from each of these different services.
Please note: If you are publishing with a traditional publisher, several of these services may be provided for your manuscript by the publisher. If you’re working with a vanity press or subsidy press, then they may perform these services and bill you for them. If you are self-publishing you will be responsible for choosing which (if any) of these services to procure for your manuscript, depending on how much money you have to spend on getting your book ready to publish.
Manuscript Evaluation
Manuscript evaluation (sometimes called editorial assessment) is an editorial service that a writer may pay for prior to submitting their manuscript to an agent or editor. Alternately, writers may seek this service after rejection to get a professional’s take on how their manuscript could be improved. This service is also available to authors who already have an established relationship with an agent or editor, and is provided by that person. Meaning, if you’ve sold manuscripts to someone before, then you’re likely to get evaluations of future manuscripts from them as part of the work they do for you.
Outside of the agency/publishing house environment, manuscript evaluation is usually performed on a freelance/work-for-hire basis by someone who has experience as an agent, acquisitions editor, or development editor with an agency or major publishing company. Successful working authors and writing coaches may also offer this service. The key qualification for a manuscript evaluator is experience with knowing what makes books sell—this is someone who’s either sold a bunch of manuscripts or bought a bunch of manuscripts.
During a manuscript eval, the professional you are working with will read your entire manuscript to assess structural issues: premise (is it interesting?), plot (does it make sense?), character development (round or flat?), and pacing (does it lag or sag anywhere?). They will also be giving an opinion on writing issues: dialogue (is it realistic and engaging?), voice (is the authorial voice enjoyable and compelling?), writing style (is the prose well-styled?), and point of view (does your story have the best narrator?). They may also offer additional advice as part of their service package, such as an assessment of market value or suggestions for agencies or publishers who might be interested in your manuscript.
What you will receive is a written report from the service provider detailing their evaluation of your manuscript, its weaknesses and strengths, and specifically what needs work for the manuscript to be ready for submission to a publisher or agency. You may also receive a digital copy of your manuscript with the editor’s comments embedded as a supplement to the report.
The manuscript evaluator will not rewrite your manuscript for you, taking your rough draft and handing back a finished draft ready for editing (that’s a book doctor). They may or may not make suggestions for how you can fix any of the problems they’ve identified, but offering those suggestions is beyond the scope of their work. Their job is to let you know which big picture items aren’t working in your manuscript, not to tell you how to fix them.
Developmental Editing
Like it says on the tin, developmental editing helps your finished draft develop into a better overall book by providing specific editorial feedback and suggestions on every part of the book, from language and style to plot and structure, organization, character development, dialogue, exposition—everything.
These are a lot of the same items covered by a manuscript evaluation. The major difference is that the manuscript evaluator told you (hopefully) “your manuscript is good and marketable but these particular parts need some work, good luck” while the developmental editor works with you to develop and improve the parts that need work. The developmental editor will help you fix the items that a manuscript evaluator, beta reader, acquisitions editor, or agent have told you (or you already know) are not working in your manuscript. This service is typically more expensive than a manuscript evaluation and provides more guidance.
Publishing companies often have developmental editors on staff to work on manuscripts that require this level of edit. Alternatively, an assistant editor or even a junior acquisitions editor or an editorial assistant may do this work for the senior editor whose list they work on. If you’re working outside of a relationship with a publisher, you can hire a freelance editor to perform a developmental edit. You can find editors who perform this service by googling, or going through a service broker like Reedsy or Fiverr, or by searching the EFA's member directory for an appropriate editor and contacting them directly.
What you will receive from your developmental editor is a digital copy of your manuscript with track changes turned on and edits, comments, and suggestions embedded right in the manuscript. You may also receive a cover letter or report summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript, the major overarching changes that should be made, and potentially suggestions for other editorial services that could benefit your book.
Developmental editing is a blood-sweat-tears process. Most writers will find it uncomfortable. Developmental editors will suggest changes that you don’t want to make but will improve the book. As the author, you can take each suggestion and discard it or incorporate it into your work as you please. You have no obligation to follow any editor’s commands as though they are law. (Although if your publishing company provided the developmental edit and you won’t develop your manuscript as they request, you may find yourself out of a contract.) If you are self-publishing or preparing your manuscript for submission with a developmental edit, make sure you consider whether you are willing to make major changes before hiring this editor. If you already think your manuscript is perfect and you’re going to reject everything the editor tells you, you’ll only be wasting money.
Line Editing
I’ll address this straightaway: Some people in my field of work recognize developmental editing and line editing as two completely different things while others consider them two terms for the same thing. I see plenty of freelance editorial providers offering them as separate services. I’ve never worked for a publisher who used the term line editing or hired editors to perform line edits of manuscripts—all the publishers I’ve worked for have had developmental editors performing that service. The Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) describes line editors as working at the sentence level of a manuscript (like a copyeditor) but focus on improving language and style, which a copyeditor typically would not. The EFA also recommends the same rate of pay for line editing as developmental editing.
When might you want to pay for a line edit? Based on the EFA’s description of the service, it may be warranted in two situations:
You’re totally sure that all of your manuscript’s big-picture, structural issues have been addressed without a developmental edit (perhaps as a result of a manuscript eval and revision, or with the help of beta readers) but you believe your manuscript still needs some heavy reworking for language use and style before it goes to an agent; or
You’re finished working with a developmental editor on your manuscript’s big-ticket items, but you know that language use and style are not your strong suit and you want to get some additional help for this specific thing.
Otherwise, my recommendation would be to do a developmental edit followed by a copyedit. I don’t see a need for all three.
Copyediting
Copyediting is the last edit your manuscript receives before it is composed into page proofs (if you’re doing a print product) or converted to an EPUB or MOBI file format (for electronic-only publications). Although it happens electronically, copyediting is what many of us think of as the red-pencil markup that takes care of the smaller issues in any manuscript that remain after the more comprehensive edits are done. The copyeditor makes sure that language is used correctly, that there are no misspelled or misused words, that no sentences are confusing, that no text is repeated, and that words are used and style choices made consistently.
This is the edit that will catch it if your main character went from Kate to Katie in Chapter 3 and then back to Kate in Chapter 6; or if someone’s eyes inexplicably turned from green to blue somewhere along the way; or if a snappy piece of dialogue got used twice somehow by accident; and who makes sure there are no glaring errors left before going to page composition.
If you’re working with a publishing company, this service will almost certainly be provided. Even if the company or your editor felt that your manuscript was clean enough not to need a developmental edit, they will usually make sure you get this final level of edit. Very few manuscripts can go straight from the author to the proofreader without this crucial step. You might consider skipping copyediting if you’re issuing a new edition of a book that has been copyedited before and not too many major changes have been made, for instance, but otherwise manuscripts almost universally need copyediting.
What you will receive from the copyeditor is a digital copy of your manuscript with their edits directly embedded in the text using redlining/track changes, and perhaps with a few explanatory comments embedded as well. Basic formatting edits may have been made blindly, meaning without redlining (track changes turned off) to avoid cluttering the pages with red. Examples of changes that frequently are made blindly are replacing two spaces after a period with one space after a period (don’t @ me) or replacing straight quotation marks with smart quotation marks.
You may also receive a style sheet that the copyeditor prepared while working on your manuscript to keep track of the stylistic changes they made. If your copyeditor gives you a stylesheet, hang onto it to pass on to your proofreader—it will help them do a better job. If your copyeditor didn’t provide a stylesheet, it can’t hurt to ask for it. They’ll surely share it with you if they made one.
If you’re self-publishing and you don’t have a lot of money to spend on getting your manuscript ready, this is an edit in which you should really consider investing. Especially if you skipped a developmental edit, either because you got a manuscript eval that told you the project was already seriously solid or because you know you don’t want to make big changes. A copyeditor will not make substantive changes to your manuscript unless they see something egregious (in which case, they will query you with a comment embedded in the manuscript file).
Proofreading
Finally, there’s proofreading—the last step before publication and the catch-all term for those who are not in the know to cover pretty much every type of editing.
Proofreading isn’t editing. Proofreading technically means reading over the typeset proofs to look for errors that were inserted during the typesetting process: Loose or tight lines, incorrect paragraph spacing, hyphen stacks, stuff like that. In practice, proofreaders also provide light corrections: Misspelled words, missing or incorrect punctuation, duplicated text (this is the person who catches that tricky accidental “the the”)—anything the copyeditor missed. If they were provided a style sheet, the proofreader will also ensure that style mandates are followed throughout.
If you’re working with a publisher, you’re not going to see the results of the proofread. Unless the proofreader spotted something huge that everyone before them missed, they won’t be making any changes that could affect the meaning of your words. Usually the proofreader’s feedback goes right to comp and then the fixed file goes to press.
If you’re self-publishing, you will have provided the proofreader with a PDF of your typeset, composed proof and you will receive back a PDF with corrections marked, usually using the comment toolset. You can then input these changes into your working file or pass them on to your compositor to input into their master working file, and the resulting file with these changes made is the one that you’ll send to the printer or upload for e-publishing.
That’s it, that’s the whole ball of editorial wax! Here’s hoping today’s article helps you understand the different stages your manuscript will go through on its editing journey and manage your expectations about what kind of feedback you’ll receive at each stage. Do @ me if you’ve got a manuscript and need assistance understanding what level of edit it needs. I know people who can help.
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