The Editing Process
Getting your manuscript professionally edited is a must nowadays, especially if you plan to self-publish. And for traditional publishing, agents and publishing houses will be more willing to work with you if you present them with a professionally edited manuscript. Even landing a deal with an agent or publishing house won’t make you exempt from having to pay for editorial services. This page is just to give you an idea of what you have to look forward to on your manuscript’s journey from first draft to publication.
This is where you read through your manuscript several times to be sure that:
- It meets the needs of the reader
- There is consistency in the plot (without holes)
- Your story’s world and the characters in it are strong, well developed, and compelling
- Your sentences are clean and easy to read
- There are no blatant mistakes in grammar, spelling, or punctuation
TIP: After you finish writing your first draft, I suggest you put it in a drawer (literal or figurative) and forget about it for a while. Take a vacation, read some books, or write a different story. When some weeks have passed, or when this story is out of your mind, come back to it for the self-edit.
YOUR JOB NEXT: Hand it off to other pairs of trusted eyes.
In this step, someone else should read your manuscript and give you a critique of its strengths and weaknesses. Should they exist, issues such as holes in the story, inconsistencies in the plot, and so on can be caught and corrected in this step.
You can do this step after the book is written or if/when you hit a snag and can’t move forward. This might help you out of a block.
TIP: This does not need to be done by a professional. You can ask family, friends, or colleagues to be your beta readers, and there are plenty of free online resources for this step as well.
YOUR JOB NEXT: Seek professional editing help and determine what kind of services you require.
Depending on what kind of service your manuscript requires, the editing performed could be a manuscript critique, a developmental edit, or line and copy edits. You will be given feedback in the form of an editorial letter with other notes, or you will get back your manuscript with edits marked in Track Changes or in comments.
YOUR JOB NEXT: Read through the comments/edits and set up a time with your editor to go through any that need addressing or discussion.
After you have discussed the first-round edits with your editor, choose which changes you will accept and which you will reject and make the changes accordingly. This could mean major or minor, whole or partial rewrites. Depending on the amount of revision work made, another pass by your editor might be necessary. This cycle is repeated until you have accepted or rejected all the changes and comments and you feel you have a strong, polished manuscript remaining.
YOUR JOB NEXT: If you are self-publishing, you may want to find a designer to help you with the cover and page design of your book. If you are looking for an agent or a publishing house, you should prepare your query.
For self-publishing, when all the editing, designing, and formatting have been completed, work with your e-publisher to publish your novel. For traditional publishing, send off your query and edited manuscript to potential agents or publishing houses according to their query preferences.
YOUR JOB NEXT: Wait—the hardest part.
