6 Types of Editing: Which Does Your Book Need?
Developmental editors, line editors, copyeditors, acquiring editors…Who are these people?
There are so many different kinds of editors that it can be incredibly confusing for writers when it comes time for professional feedback and revision. In this post, I’ll go over the different editorial roles, and then I’ll offer my thoughts on who might be best to hire and when.
But first…
Freelance Editors vs Publishing house editors
Because there is a lot of confusion around this, I want to distinguish between editors at publishing houses and freelance editors you might work with before pitching agents or self publishing your book.
Publishing house editors
At a publishing house, the editor, sometimes called an acquiring editor, is the person who buys your book and then shepherds it through the publishing process. This is the person your agent goes to when they’re trying to sell your book. Much like the way you pitch literary agents, your agent will pitch your manuscript to editors at various publishing houses. When one of those editors wants to buy the rights to publish your book, they make you an offer via your agent. If you agree, you’ll sign a contract and that editor will then start working with you to revise and polish the manuscript. Once it’s ready, they begin to act more like a project manager, keeping the entire publishing process on track by coordinating with the cover designer and interior designer to the people in charge of marketing, publicity, and distribution.
After you work with your editor to revise the manuscript into its best possible form, they’ll have a copyeditor go through it with a fine tooth comb. The copyeditor might be an employee of the publishing house, or a freelancer they work with regularly. Either way, all of the editing costs are paid by the publishing house.
You can read much more about how traditional publishing works in my post How to Get Your Book Traditionally Published.
Freelance editors
You might also hear an author talk about and editor they’ve hired before they have a book deal, and oftentimes before they have an agent. Because landing a literary agent is insanely competitive (learn a strategy to increase your odds here), many authors hire an independent editor before even querying agents.
You pay for this editing out-of-pocket, with editors charging by the word, by the page, by the hour, or by the project. They will help you make your manuscript as strong as possible so you can pith with more confidence and greater odds of success. Gone are the days when agents would take a sorta good book out of the slush pile and work with an author until it’s of publishable quality. Books these days need to be as close to ready for publication as possible before they’ll get an agent’s attention.
Types of freelance editing you might want to pay for
Developmental Edit
A developmental edit is a thorough analysis of your entire manuscript. It’s designed to help you implement substantive revisions to the overall book. Your editor will be pointing out what you’ve done well and where you have room for improvement on everything from voice to setting to sentence structure, but this type of edit is heavily weighted to large-scale considerations like plot, character development, point of view, pacing, and structure. Or for non-fiction flow, structure, argument, and clarity.
You’ll get this editor’s feedback in the form of an editorial letter that goes over all facets of your manuscript. These can range from 3-15 pages single-spaced pages. Personally, mine are usually toward the longer end because in addition to recommending revisions, I like to spend plenty of time on what is working so you can play to your strengths.
Line edit
A line edit is laser focused on polishing your book on the sentence level, so you can expect a lot of track changes and comments, probably on every page! A line edit will help you polish your sentences, but it won’t be focused on large-scale elements like plot, character development, or structure.
However, a line edit is more substantive than a copyedit, which is focused entirely on the nitty gritty of grammar and usage. While a line editor will usually point out grammar errors they see, especially those that are recurring, the focus here is on voice, clarity, flow, dialogue, and impact. Basically, rather than cleaning up every single typo, a line editor’s primary job is to help you make each sentence more powerful.
A full edit, or a comprehensive edit
Neither of these are official terms, but this type of editing would include a developmental and a line edit. The elements that are discussed in the editorial letter will be supported with detailed notes on the pages of your manuscript. For example, instead of just discussing how you might rethink a certain plot point or further develop a certain character or setting, this edit would include notes, comments, and suggestions in the margins and with track changes throughout the entire book to show you exactly how and where you might best address any concerns (ideally while being inspirational rather than prescriptive).
By evaluating the whole and getting close to each sentence with line notes, they will teach you how to use things like voice, clarity, flow, and dialogue to make sure each line supports the larger story: the characters, the plot, and the overall meaning and impact.
This is the most thorough type of editorial feedback you can get. It’s also what you would get from your editor at a publishing house once you have a book deal. But keep in mind, without revising and polishing your manuscript until it’s as close to publication-ready as possible, you will have a much harder time getting a book deal.
(Note: Because there isn’t an official term for development + line edits, many developmental editors will include line edits under their “developmental edit” service. Without a standard, it can be hard to evaluate who’s best for you. If you get sticker shock, or if a price seems too good to be true, make sure you find out everything that’s included.)
Editorial assessment
This is a less comprehensive and usually more affordable service where an editor reads your manuscript and offers big-picture feedback with a much shorter editorial letter, usually 1-2 pages. It will touch on many of the same craft elements as a developmental edit but with less detail, little to no on-page notes, few examples to illustrate concepts, and fewer suggestions for how you might approach revisions. It can still be incredibly valuable if you just need a professional’s take on your book’s biggest strengths and weaknesses.
Copyedit
Copyeditors are extraordinarily detail-oriented people who can find every single grammar, punctuation, spelling, usage, and continuity problem in your book. Even after my agent’s feedback, my publishing house editor’s notes, and my own multiple revisions, the copyeditor at St. Martin’s found things we had all missed. It was an impressive sight to behold. This type of fine-tuning is best done after your own final polish, but it’s done before the book goes into production or typesetting.
Proofread
This is also a job for a spectacularly detail-oriented person, but it happens after the book has been formatted and typeset. Your proofreader will mark any errors your copyeditor missed (or that were created when you addressed the copyeditor’s concerns), as well as formatting errors, missing page numbers, widows, orphans, and any other layout problems.
Which editors do you need and when?
Before your book ends up in readers’ hands, you’ll probably work with most or all of these types of editors. But you certainly don’t need them all at once.
Developmental edit, line edit, or both?
Developmental edit without line notes:
If you know your book needs deep, deep work on a conceptual level, it may make sense to get a developmental edit without line notes. Why worry about particular sentences when you’re going to do a wholesale rewrite anyway?
Also, if you need particularly extensive revisions, line notes might just complicate matters, giving you too much to think about and making it difficult to see the forest for the trees.
That said, you will likely need to get a line edit after you’ve revised based on the developmental edit.
Line edit only:
If you’re really happy with the overall shape of your book, and maybe you’ve had great feedback in workshop or from beta readers, you might simply want a line edit that helps you crystallize your sentences and fine tune the other elements. Since your story elements are already dialed in, the focus here will be on things like clearing up confusing sentences, improving voice, tightening dialogue, and polishing the manuscript on a micro level.
The drawback? You might polish a manuscript that doesn’t work because of fundamental problems with plot, character, pacing, structure, etc.
The case for a full edit — developmental edit + line edit
If your story is in reasonable shape and you want feedback on how to make it stronger on a micro and macro level, this edit is for you. The overall editorial letter will show you how you can further develop the story, and the accompanying line notes can show you exactly how and where to do that, plus show you what parts of your writing style and voice are most and least effective. Your next draft will be that much stronger from the get go. That might mean you don’t need a second edit at all, or it might mean that your work on that second edit can start from a higher level.
Personally, when I finish a manuscript, I like to hire someone to do a full edit that includes both line notes and developmental notes. I’ve done this for my drawer book, my published novel, and my current work-in-progress when I got stuck partway through.
Do you need a copyedit?
Sometime before publication, you absolutely need a copyeditor. They will save you all kinds of grief.
If you’re considering traditional publishing…
You may not need to hire a copyeditor before you pitch literary agents. If you’re confident about your grammar, and especially if you have a line editor point out big or recurring problems, you can skip this step.
An agent who loves your book isn’t going to turn it away because of minor (notice I said minor) grammar problems or typos. They’ll help you fine tune a bit before they start pitching it to editors at publishing houses. Those editors will then do another round of edits before sending your book to their copyeditor for another round of fine tuning.
In case it helps, here is a post I did on the most common grammar mistakes even great writers make.
If you’re not sure about your grammar or you know it’s got a few issues, it’s probably best to hire someone so you can put your best foot forward when you submit to agents.
If you’re considering self publishing…
As an indie author, you care about the quality of your book just as much as any other author. Make that clear to your readers by giving them a crystal clean, easy-to-read book. In other words, definitely do not publish without a copyeditor! By all that is good and holy, don’t do it. None of us can catch our own errors, but you can be sure that reviewers will find mistakes and jump on them. Readers will be distracted by them, and many of them will call out mistakes in their Amazon and Goodreads reviews.
(I am not a copyeditor, so I say this as someone biased only by my appreciation for and reliance on copyeditors who have saved me!)
Before you go, check out my post on getting the most bang for your buck by starting with a step-by-step self edit. The better shape your manuscript is in when you bring it to an editor, the better that edit will be.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
