The Editing Process

This is a sample outline of what you can expect from a line edit or proofread with me. If you are interested in a developmental edit, please see my blog post, “The Developmental Editing Process.”

1.     Contact me through this website so you can send me a sample of your work. The sample should be roughly one thousand words long, preferably from the middle of your book.

2.     I will send you back a free sample edit! You can then compare my work to that of other editors and decide whether you think we’d work well together.

3.     If you decide to continue with me (I hope you do!), I will send you a quote and a time frame for the edit based on the word count of your work.

4.     You will send me your work. You can email me or use DropBox. I do ask that all my authors send me their files as Word documents. You will find that this is industry standard, as Word is a powerful word processor that offers editors tools that are essential to an efficient and thorough editing process.

5.     I get to work. Sometimes I will contact you during this period with a question or two, or if there’s an unexpected problem with scheduling, but generally you will not hear much from me. All my feedback will be in the completed edit.

6.     I send you back the work in a Word Document with Track Changes on. All of my edits will be tracked so you can see the work I’ve done and whether you feel the edits remain true to your intent. I will also include queries on the document under the comments feature. You will also receive a style sheet. The style sheet is a guide to everyone who works on the manuscript, including you. It includes any exceptions to the accepted style (I will adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style unless specifically asked not to); a word list, which details any unusual words or spellings; a character chart, which specifies physical descriptions and character relationships; and a timeline.

7.     Now you can respond to my edits and queries. I’ll have locked the documents so that your responses and changes will be tracked. This way, we have a record of the original piece, my changes, and your responses to my changes.

8.     You send me back the piece, and I’ll compile everything into one clean document. Your edit is done! Now you can send the manuscript off to the publisher or self-publish.