Why Do I Need Multiple Editors for My Self-Published Book?

If you are self-publishing your book, you will need to have it professionally edited before you can publish it. If possible, you need to have multiple rounds of editing to make your book ready for sale, as there are quite a few different levels of editing to ensure your book is as professional as possible. In addition, it really helps if you have more than one editor – ideally, a different one for each level of editing you have. In this blog post, we will be looking at why having multiple editors is beneficial for your self-published book, starting by asking why editing is necessary in the first place and what the different levels of editing are.

Why is Editing Important?

Firstly, why is editing so important? Simply put, it makes your book the best it can be. Nobody’s perfect – you will have mistakes in your work. However, an editor can spot these and weed them out before publication, resulting in a book that’s much more similar to what you might get from a traditional publisher. Sometimes these mistakes are just minor grammatical or spelling errors that can quickly be fixed – this tends to be in the later stages of editing. The earlier stages will focus more on the plot and structure of your book, highlighting any areas that are hard to follow or that could be rewritten in a way that works better. Your editor may also recommend completely cutting some parts or writing more in others.

Different Levels of Editing

As mentioned above, there are a lot of stages of editing and your book will need them all to make it look professional. The stages of editing can be broken down into two main sections – big picture editing and narrower editing. You will need to start with big picture editing, which covers areas such as manuscript evaluation and developmental editing. Manuscript evaluation is where you give your editor an early draft and they give you feedback on what works and what doesn’t. You can then use this to make changes and get it ready for the next stage – developmental editing. This is similar to a manuscript evaluation in that it looks at the overall structure and flow of your work, so you may be able to combine the two if you have a tight budget.

After this, you will need to have narrower editing, which is made up of line editing, copyediting, and proofreading. Line editing focuses on the sentence level, specifically, your stylistic choices. Indeed, it is sometimes called stylistic editing! Your line editor will look at the consistency of your narration and viewpoints, as well as make sure there is no repetition of phrases or information. They will also ensure your characters remain consistent, from their way of talking to their own character arc. In addition, a line editor will look at how effective your pacing is and make any necessary changes to keep readers engaged.

Next, you will need copyediting. Like line editing, this focuses on your work at a sentence level, but instead of looking at your stylistic choices, copyediting checks the technical side of things. For example, a copyeditor will make sure all of your chapters are sequenced correctly and you don’t have any numbers missing or duplicated. They will also ensure your timeline makes sense and is consistent. If you have created proper nouns for the purpose of your book, such as character or place names, a copyeditor will ensure they are spelt consistently throughout. A copyeditor will also check your spelling and grammar, as well as the layout and formatting of your book.

The final stage of editing is proofreading. This focuses on technical issues such as spelling and punctuation. A proofreader will also check the formatting and layout of your work. For example, they will check that page and chapter numbers are in the correct order and there are no duplicated or skipped numbers. They will also ensure that the font used is consistent, for example, that all chapter headings are written in the same way. As so much of this relies on having a final copy of your book in front of them, a proofreader will be the last person to look at your work and will usually be checking after your book has been formatted and is nearly ready for publication. This ensures that layout errors can be picked up.

Multiple Eyes

One final point to note – why should these all be different people? This is partly because these tasks all require different skills and not every editor will offer all of these services. However, the primary advantage of having different editors is that they will all come to your work with fresh eyes and notice problems the others didn’t. After editing, your work should be as close to perfect as possible, although do bear in mind that not even editors will be able to spot everything!

Wrapping Up

I hope that you now know what type of editing you need and why it is so important to have as many as possible. In my next blog post, we will be looking at how to match up with editors that suit your book, so come back in two weeks for that!

Want help proofreading your work? Contact Carmine Proofreading for a friendly, professional service from a qualified proofreader.

Email: CarmineProofreading@gmail.com

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