Editing & Proofreading

Understand the four kinds of editing

Developmental, line, copy, and proof edits solve very different problems, and asking one editor to do all four rarely works. These articles explain what each pass looks for, in what order to tackle them, and how to brief a professional so the money you spend actually improves the book instead of just polishing the wrong draft.

Self-edit like a professional

You can do more of your own editing than you think. Our self-edit checklists cover scene-level questions (goal, conflict, change), sentence-level filters (filter words, tense drift, weak verbs), and structural passes for pacing and point of view. Work them in sequence and your manuscript will look measurably different before a paid editor ever sees it.

Proofreading: catch the errors readers never forgive

Typos, missing quotation marks, homophones, and layout glitches quietly cost you five-star reviews. We share proofreading workflows using printouts, text-to-speech, reverse reading, and modern AI proof passes so you can hunt down the last one percent of errors that spellcheck will never catch on its own.

Hire the right editor at the right stage

A great editor is one of the best investments an indie author can make — and a wrong-fit editor is one of the most demoralising. These posts cover realistic price ranges, sample-edit etiquette, contract essentials, and the questions to ask before you send a deposit, so you match your book to someone who genuinely gets it.

Frequently asked questions