Guest Blogger Linda Jay writes about copyediting.<\/p>\n
In 2012, Joel Friedlander asked Linda Jay to offer readers of his popular blog, The Book Designer<\/a>, advice at that time, on “one of the most important decisions a self-publisher makes: hiring a copyeditor.” Here\u2019s her reply, still pertinent today:<\/p>\n Agreed.\u00a0 You\u2019ve spent months (or possibly years) writing the manuscript that will one day be your book. You\u2019ve distilled all those handwritten notes from pages or scraps of paper, those often-incoherent e-mails to yourself, and those ideas racing around in your brain, and typed every one of them into the computer, in some loosely organized format that vaguely resembles a book.\u00a0Then one day\u2026 hooray\u2026 it occurs to you that\u2026 you\u2019re done!<\/p>\n Now you can\u2019t wait to get your little gem \u201cOUT THERE\u201d for all the world to marvel at. You are indeed a writer (which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny)!<\/p>\n Oh, yes, you\u2019ve given a sneak peek at your masterpiece to a few people whose opinion you trust\u2014relatives, longtime friends, business colleagues. And, sure, they may have spotted a few misspellings, or a weird sentence construction here or there, but what the hey\u2014everybody makes mistakes.<\/p>\n They\u2019re just tickled that you\u2019ve had the audacity, capacity and tenacity to write a book; a few glitches only show that you\u2019re human. After all, who\u2019s perfect? \u00a0It\u2019s time to send your \u201cbaby\u201d on its way to possible fame, and reap the glories of being a published author!<\/p>\n Are You Serious?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Oh, but wait\u2026 if you really want to be taken seriously as a writer, stop and listen to that little nagging voice in your head that keeps saying, \u201cShouldn\u2019t you be running the manuscript past an experienced professional copyeditor before you send it out?\u201d<\/p>\n Yes, you\u2019ve read that in order to make your book as good as it can possibly be, you must take that vital step of investing in the services of an editorial pro. And just think\u2014in the twinkling of a well-trained eye, a topnotch editor could burnish your precious prose so it sparkles in the sunlight.<\/p>\n But if you submit (interesting, the ramifications of that word \u201csubmission\u201d when it refers to sending in a manuscript, isn\u2019t it?) your pages to the hyper-scrutiny of a nitpicky copyeditor, won\u2019t your authentic voice be changed or deleted or mangled beyond recognition?<\/p>\n The answer is\u2026 no, not if you properly vet the copyeditor to make sure you can work together well, and if the copyeditor stipulates that one of his or her goals is to make your manuscript publisher-ready\u2026 but not change your unique voice.<\/p>\n A good copyeditor will offer to edit a few pages of your work as a sample, to see if you two are, literally and figuratively, \u201con the same page.\u201d\u00a0 You can usually judge from his or her edits whether you would be able to work together happily or not. For example, if you question some of the edits and the editor responds in a haughty or rigid \u201conly my way is right\u201d tone, run as fast as you can toward another editor.<\/p>\n If your manuscript is about the life and times of the artist Edward Gorey, and the editor you\u2019re considering has never heard of Edward Gorey and, furthermore, has no interest in learning anything about Edward Gorey, bid farewell and turn quickly on your heels.<\/p>\n 6 Ways Copyeditors Make Your Book Better<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n A good copyeditor brings so much to the party. He or she can:<\/p>\n With a good copyeditor on your team, misplaced modifiers, dangling participles, its\/it\u2019s, to\/too and other hair-raising\/hare-raising errors will melt away. Skilled editors say that mistakes \u201cleap off the page\u201d at them. And potential readers of your book will not be distracted by sloppy copy.<\/p>\n You can find professional book manuscript copyeditors<\/a> through organizations such as BAIPA and the Bay Area Editors\u2019 Forum (BAEF<\/a>), through online editorial sites, through ads in magazines<\/a> that are targeted toward writers, and through looking up \u201ccopyeditor\u201d on search engines.<\/p>\n A good copyeditor can make your book\u2019s message shipshape\u2014and that\u2019s not just editorial spin!<\/p>\n Originally published as “6 Ways Copyeditors Make Your Book Better,” a guest post <\/a>on Joel Friedlander’s popular blog, The Book Designer, on May 25, 2012.<\/p>\n\n