Copyediting is your book’s final edit. It’s the line-by-line edit that amends any grammatical or spelling errors, and makes revisions to improve flow and readability. This means once you receive your book back from the copyeditor, you are expected to focus on which revisions you agree with, rewriting or deleting huge chunks of your book. Once your book has been copyedited, the next stages in the publishing process are typesetting (formatting your manuscript into a book) and

When you think about punctuation, do you ever think this applies to bullet points? It took me a while to love copyediting bullet points. I used to get easily flustered by the varying options for punctuating them, especially when the style guide for punctuating bullet points is down to me (as I work with self-publishing authors). But I’ve now honed my bullet point punctuation, so punctuating bullet points is something I now look forward to! Now I’m sharing my perfected pun

When most people say something needs proofreading, they often mean editing. Proofreading is a very specific part of the publishing process: the final quality check. Editing, on the other hand, is the time for your writing to be improved, to raise queries and hone your particular style. In a recent poll on both LinkedIn and Instagram, I asked my followers to vote on this question: When you’re writing (or have written) your book and you know you need a professional to go th

The world of publishing can be completely overwhelming when you first enter it: from all the unique terms (‘what is copyediting?') to the different job titles used in the editorial business, it’s no wonder most first-time authors just don’t know where to start, or how long it takes to edit and self-publish a book. Knowing what’s involved in each stage of the editing process and how long each one takes means you can plan for them and allow enough time for each part of the edit

… and why you should write a non-fiction book! Up until early adulthood, I associated non-fiction with fact and textbooks, reserved solely for STEM subjects: reading for pleasure always took the form of fiction. During these teen and early adult years, when I first imagined myself becoming a book editor, I assumed I’d edit adult or children’s fiction. I first enjoyed reading non-fiction in my final year as an undergraduate student and then during my postgraduate master’s degr

Spellcheck, Grammarly, and other editing programs can be incredibly useful. Professional copyeditors and proofreaders use at least one proofreading program when working with written content (often two or more). Certainly, it’s best to run your written content through one or more of these programs before you press ‘publish’, as they will catch errors that would otherwise have been missed. However, editors and proofreaders don’t rely on JUST those programs. We allow for the won

The most common concern I hear from authors during our discovery call is the worry that an editor will change their book beyond recognition. I’ve spoken to authors who have received sample edits from other editors and been disheartened by the number of changes to their writing, causing them either not to proceed with that editor or not to publish their book at all. First, it’s really important to understand that there will be numerous amends to your manuscript. Many of these

When I finished my first two proofreading qualifications with the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) I thought I had a pretty good grounding in how to discuss a potential author’s book so that we’d both know what the project would involve. But when I started creating my template of questions and wanted to check if I’d missed anything, the only posts that came back when I searched ‘questions an editor should ask an author’ were ‘questions an author should a

How a book editor is like a personal trainer for books One of my specialist subjects in my book editing business is ‘active women and intuitive movement’ (and especially the benefits exercise has for our mental health, rather than exercising for aesthetic reasons). I identify as an active woman: I go running three times a week, plus a weekly Pilates class, and a weekly circuits class. I’m even a member of a Facebook group called ‘CIEP Run On Group’ which is a group for the Ch

Why I’ve decided to call myself a book editor (when I’m technically a copyeditor) Do you know what copyediting is? My business card says ‘Siân Smith proofreader and copyeditor’ because I wanted to distinguish between developmental editing and copyediting. What I’ve learnt since launching my editorial business last year is that most people who don’t work in publishing don’t know what copyediting is. In fact, when I think about it, I don’t think I completely knew what the term