Editor-author communication in book editing

When students use editing and proofreading services, long-winded discussions and communications are rarely needed.

By contrast, when editors and book authors collaborate on book proofreading services UK, it is vital to have clear, sharp, and effective communication between authors, editors, and proofreaders.

This article highlights three reasons why sustained and long-term editor-author communication in book editing is essential.

 

Length of books

Compared to student essays, most books are incredibly long.

This is the same for research papers from academics, press releases from commercial organisations, and other types of content. They are almost all considerably shorter than most fiction or non-fiction books.

The long length of books means that proofreading and editing them also takes longer.

For this reason, it is usually important for the editors, proofreaders, and authors of the book to get to know each other better. As the project they are working on is long term in nature, it is worth developing a closer collaborative relationship.

 

Author-specific details

Mostly for the editor’s sake, knowing the author is hugely worthwhile. Understanding the author’s writing style, for example, and their idiosyncrasies can save substantial time and guide the editing process.

It can also lead to the avoidance of misunderstandings, such as when an editor overwrites too much of a writer’s authorial voice.

Consider how today’s editors and proofreaders – usingchecklists and modern techniques – would find it difficult to work with authors like Cormac McCarthy, who wrote No Country For Old Men (2005), without communicating beforehand.

In the following sentence, McCarthy shows an example of polysyndeton.This is when an author deliberately inserts conjunctions into a sentence in order to slow the rhythm of the writing, create a stream of action, or convey a solemn tone.

The deputy left [a person] standing in the corner of the office with his hands cuffed behind him while he sat in the swivelchair and took off his hat and put his feet up and called Lamar on the mobile.

Cormac McCarthy – award-winning author and screenplay writer –has technically written an incorrect sentence that all trained proofreaders would change and correct. They would write these sentences with polysyndeton (Ancient Greek: meaning many bound together) out in proper, grammatical sentences!

However, in book proofreading services UK, as well as in good editing and proofreading services, there should be “synergy” and knowledge between the author and editor, which depends on precise communication.

 

Developmental editing

For books, especially works of fiction, editing is usually a developmental process.

For this reason, if the author and editor are to work together more closely than they would in a smaller-scale project (e.g., a thesis, corporate press release, or other short files), it is important for them to develop a more robust editor-author relationship.

This assists the openness and productivity of the developmental editing process, enabling each party – the editor and the author – to bring their ideas to the table.

 

How to Deliver Your Manuscript to a Publisher

Once you’ve edited your book, you can be sure that it is fit for publication – whether that’s self-publishing or through a traditional publisher.

That’s not to say that your work will be an instant success, but editing and proofreading services, as well as other editorial services such as book proofreading services UK, play a vital role in polishing and preparing a final published work.

After your book is finished and edited, first-time authors may still be unsure about how to deliver their manuscripts to publishers. Also, if you’ve only ever self-published, it can be difficult to know what steps to take before sending your manuscript to a traditional publisher.

This article describes the main steps to follow to ensure that you deliver your manuscript to your publisher in the best possible way.

 

Step 1: Ensure your work is free from error or omission

The first thing to do before even considering sending your manuscript to a publisher is to ensure it is as free from error or omission as you can possibly make it.

Making additions and changes after the publication stage (e.g., after physical books have been printed) can be costly. In many cases, publishers will pass these costs onto the author.

 

Step 2: Follow your publisher’s house style

Most traditional publishers have house styles that you are required to follow in order to publish with them. Other publishers may ask you to use popular style guides to format and layout your manuscript, such as the Chicago Manual of Style.

For this reason, before sending your manuscript to your publisher, it is important to dedicate time to formatting and laying out the file and its pages according to the publisher’s specifications.

 

Step 3: Follow publisher-specific guidance

The last important step to take before delivering your manuscript is to check for any publisher-specific guidance.

All publishers have different approaches to working with book authors, and what you’ll need to do is strongly dependent on the publisher.

For example, to publish with Bloomsbury, authors need to apply the following checklist:

·         Include a table of contents

·         Use double line spacing

·         Separate chapters into different files

·         Include notes about any special fonts and the referencing style used

·         Complete an author questionnaire

·         Explain how the book’s index will be completed

 

Step 4: Manuscript review

After delivering your manuscript to the publisher, it’s important to remember that the process is not over.

Post-delivery, the publisher’s commissioning editor will review your manuscript, and after this, your book will likely be sent for external peer review. The process typically takes 6-10 weeks, but it can be significantly longer than this, especially for complex or technical material.

Any revisions that are needed for the book will need to be discussed with the publisher’s commissioning editor, and you will be expected to adjust and re-deliver the book.

How to Find the Right Book Editor

Whether you are working as a researcher, businessperson, or book author, you are likely to need a book editor at some point in your personal or professional life.

It’s worthwhile to note, therefore, that book proofreading services UK, along with editing and proofreading services, are available to make the process of preparing a book for publication much easier and significantly less time-consuming. 

Before you send your manuscript to the editor (or proofreader, depending on what stage in the writing process you are at), it’s important to use Grammarly to perform an initial spelling, grammar, and punctuation check. This will allow you to:

·         Optimise the editor’s first impression of you and your manuscript

·         Reduce the cost of the editing service

·         Gain the interest of editors with greater experience

Similarly, before sending your manuscript to an editor, it is worthwhile to decide on – and tell the editor when you contact them – what kind of editing you are interested in. There are many types of editing available, where the type you need will usually depend on what stage of the writing process you are at. For example:

·         Developmental editing: Performed to plan the structure and contents of a book

·         Evaluation editing: Performed to assess whether a written manuscript stuck, to the initial plan

·         Line editing: Performed to improve the writing line by line

·         Proofreading: Proofreaders are used to perform a final check on key aspects of the document

Once you’ve used Grammarly to perform an initial check on your work, and also decided on the type of editing you need, you should conduct a search for experienced and interested book editors. You can make your search much easier by working with a trusted editing company, or you can collaborate with an experienced freelancer.

When evaluating which editing company or freelancer you will work with, you can consider the following:

·         Customer reviews

·         Years of experience

·         Samples of work

·         Subject-matter expertise

·         Experienced editor

When you find an editor or editing company you are satisfied with, the next critical step for finding the best book editor is to ask for a price on the service and their availability. It is worth knowing that for most editing and proofreading services, they are charged per word rather than per hour.

After you’ve received price information, you can ask for free samples (approx. 250 words) from two or three of your top choices, after which you can compare their results and make a final decision.

Altogether, it’s worth remembering that editing is not only a science but also an art. Finding the right book editor for you is not straightforward and you may need to put some work into it, but it can be very rewarding and have a good impact on your book and its publication.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Self-Publishing

Book proofreading services UK, as well as editing and proofreading services, can play an essential role in helping you to get your book published. As is well-known, many of the world’s most notable fiction and non-fiction authors, including the author of the famous Harry Potter series, routinely make use of professional editing and proofreading services.

Once you have your edited and proofread book in your hands, however, the process of becoming a book author is not yet finished. In particular, you need to decide how to publish your book and make it available for the general public to purchase, read, and enjoy. Here, there are two choices:

·         Self-publishing

·         Traditional publishing

Traditional publishing is well-known to be a difficult area to enter, and this is especially true for unpublished authors. That’s to say, if you haven’t yet secured a book agent, and if you’ve never published a book before (whether with a traditional publishing house or via the self-publishing route), traditional publishing is not always the best option.

This article is aimed at new authors who are debating which route to take: self-publishing or traditional publishing. Assuming that you’re now in a position to publish your professionally edited and enhanced by book proofreading services, this article presents the strengths and weaknesses of self-publishing to help you decide whether it’s a good route of choice, for you.

 

Strengths of self-publishing

1. Independence

When authors work with traditional publishing houses, they invariably lose creative control over their work. For example, publishers typically reserve the right to choose a title for the book, the marketing angle, and the cover art, as well as to have their in-house editors chop it up and rearrange it in any way they see fit.

Of course, these are all highly significant aspects of your book that you yourself may want to control. For this reason, the independence that comes with self-publishing your book through, for example, Amazon may be much-welcomed. It can empower you to take control of these key aspects of your book, ensuring that your work is not manhandled by a publisher.

 

2. Higher royalties

After a traditional publishing house has invested a sizeable sum of money in editing services and, marketing, in selling your book, they need to make that money somehow. This is usually done in the form of renting authors only between 5% and 25% of the funds earned from the sales of the book.

However, if you opt for the self-publishing route, you can fetch royalties as high as 70%. As a case in point, if you sell your book on Amazon between 2.99 USD or 9.99 USD, you can receive a royalty of 70%, with Amazon taking a cut of 30%. This is significantly lower than the 80% cut your publisher might end up taking.

 

Weaknesses of self-publishing

1. You have to do everything

When publishers sign you onto a contract, they give you access to professional editors, marketers, cover designers, and typesetters. However, if you opt for self-publishing, you’ll have to do all of this yourself or hire freelancers to work with. The learning curve can be steep, as with any new skill.

 

2. Print distribution difficulties

If you decide to self-publish your book, especially as a brand-new author with no track record, you’re likely to have a difficult time getting the print versions of your book into bookstores. By contrast, the sales teams within traditional publishing houses usually have strong links with bookstores, and so that serves as a much more direct path into print distribution.

Different Editing Styles and When to Use Them

A commonly overlooked piece of information when people order editing and proofreading services is the question of the editing style that should be used. It is always crucial to tell your editor which editing style you need them to prepare your document with.

In book proofreading services UK, it is also common for authors to need to prepare their manuscripts according to the publisher’s style, and this is similarly a frequent requirement in academic writing. In particular, journals often require authors to submit articles in a certain style in terms of the following criteria:

·         Layout

·         Font and text size

·         Presentation

·         Formatting

·         Table, figure, and image formatting

·         Use of language

As of 2021, there are over 20 reputed and widely-used English editing style guides – ranging from the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS)to The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). For this reason, it is sometimes a confusing question as to which one you should choose.

This article provides an overview of some of the more common editing styles and editing style guides that you are likely to encounter as a student or academic. Afterward, the article briefly discusses how best to choose and apply a style guide to your written work.

 

Editing styles

In the disciplines of history and arts, and also commonly for books, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS) is currently the standard. CMoS was one of the earliest style guides created for American English, and it was first published by the University of Chicago Press in 1906.

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) was one of the publications of the American Psychological Association issued in 1929. The purpose of the style guide was to ensure that scholarly papers published in the field of psychology were consistent in terms of their layout and presentation. A core feature of APA style is its emphasis on simplicity in terms of tables, citations, abbreviations, and writing structure.

Industry-specific style guides also exist, including the following:

·         Chemical fields:The American Chemical Society (ACS) Style Guide

·         Medical fields: The American Medical Association (AMA) Manual of Style

·         Technical fields: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE) Style Guide

·         English editing manual: New Oxford Style Manual

As a final example of an editing style guide, consider The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law (also known as the AP Stylebook or AP). This style is frequently used in the context of journalism but it is similarly popular in public relations, corporate communications, marketing, and broadcasting. While the style was first introduced in the 1920s, the AP Stylebook was not published until 1953.

 

How to choose an editing style

One of the simplest ways to ensure that you choose a suitable editing style is to purchase an editing and proofreading service and, after doing so, consult with a professional. When you speak with this professional editor, they will be able to check your requirements – for example, by communicating with your publisher or targeted journal – and give you suitable guidance.

It is also worth noting that because many editing styles are industry-specific, your choice of editing style may also be informed by the nature of the topic you are writing about. For example, if you are writing a newspaper article, using the AP Stylebook as a model to prepare your manuscript is preferred. Also, if you have a publisher in mind, stay close to their requirements.

How Do Proofreaders Help Authors?

All of the world’s most prominent authors make frequent and extensive use of editing and proofreading services, including specialised book proofreading services UK. For example, Stephen King is famous for working extensively with proofreaders (to check the accuracy and correctness of his writing) and with editors (to help develop and structure his initial drafts).

In no way does an author’s reliance on proofreaders and editors detract from their creative achievements; as a matter of fact, it is extremely logical for a writer to use proofreaders and editors to address the technical task of correcting and optimising their writing, freeing them up to focus on more creative tasks.

Book proofreading services UK are increasingly in-demand today due to the growing recognition of the above fact: namely, that writers should do what writers do best and – likewise – proofreaders and editors should be recruited to do what they do best (that is, to correct and maximise the clarity, concision, and consistency of the author’s creative work).

With these issues in mind, the purpose of this article is to explain some of the specific ways in which proofreaders help authors. The types of authors considered in this article are blog writers, book writers (both fiction and non-fiction), poets, and authors of short stories. Any person in any of these categories can expect to learn something from this article about how a proofreader might work with them to improve their documents.

1. Captivating readers

To communicate effectively and connect with readers, clear and compelling prose is vital. If this is missing – and it is very easy to miss if you don’t work with a proofreader – you will not be able to connect properly with your readers and, in this way, captivate them.

2. Having a knowledgeable collaborator

The proofreader you work with on your writing project is likely to have vast experience in reading all sorts of documents, ranging from high-quality books and textbooks to poorly-written blog articles and student essays. For this reason, it is likely that they will have some knowledge about how best to maximise the impact and effectiveness of your writing.

3. Painstaking attention to detail

The best proofreaders go through a document line by line, word by word. As they proceed through the document, they fine-tune your style, correct errors, and promote clarity and concision. Due to their painstaking attention to detail, the proofreader will polish all aspects of your work.

4. Trustworthy advice

Given that proofreaders typically have experience working with published authors and stakeholders in the publishing industry, they can exploit their understanding of both the editorial and creative process to offer personalised and trustworthy advice. As a result, you may find that as a result of working with a proofreader, you not only end up with a great document but also that you receive useful leads for publication.

Editing Checklist for Good Business Communication

The main task of a business editor is to enhance your written content to ensure that it is a perfect fit for it's audience. Just as authors of short stories and books use book proofreading services UK to improve their work before publication, it is critical for businesses to use editing and proofreading services to ensure their content is up to scratch..

Irrespective of the type of business document that you have – whether it is website copy, a report, a document, an information email, marketing or advertising materials – it is important to apply a standardised editing and proofreading process. This ensures that the style, tone, and presentation of your business documents are uniform and consistent, and it also safeguards against human error.

The purpose of this article, therefore, is to provide and discuss a comprehensive editing checklist that you can use for good business communication. Whenever your business uses editing and proofreading services, consider consulting this editing checklist to ensure that the professional you have worked with has performed a high-quality service.

Editing Checklist

·         Correct and consistent spelling, grammar, and punctuation (correctness)

·         Content is easy to understand (readability)

·         Content is not overly long (concision)

·         Ideas are explained effectively and accurately (accuracy)

·         The focus is good and key points are sharply presented (clarity)

Discussion

The editing checklist presented above focuses on five core areas: correctness, readability, concision, accuracy, and clarity. To ensure that your business writing is as direct and concise as it needs to be to engage your audience, it is essential to score well along each dimension.

If you are concerned about your editor’s ability to meet the requirements in each of these areas, please remember to consult with them before the service begins. It is helpful if your editor has experience in working with checklists, and you can ask them about this before hiring them.

It is worth noting that although the editing checklist presented above, if followed effectively, will bring your business content to a shippable state, there are other issues that it may be desirable to focus on. For example, if your company has standards in terms of style, it is important to ensure that the editor has those guidelines close at hand.

Another consideration relates to the use of specialized terminology, acronyms, and jargon in your business writing. Since your audience may be put off by the extensive use of technical terminologies and jargon, it is crucial to balance this aspect of your business writing by using such words sparingly (if at all).

Conclusion

Asking your editor to follow the editing checklist presented here is a surefire way to improve the quality of the service you receive. However, as emphasised in this article, there are other issues you may want your editor to focus on, including fact-checking, conforming to company style guidelines, and striking a suitable balance in terms of the use of jargon and specialised terminologies.

How to Edit Documents

One of the easiest ways to edit any document – whether an academic essay, a poem, a novel, a blog article, or anything important – is simply to order editing and proofreading services. Most companies that provide these types of services, including companies offering book proofreading services UK, have a pool of writing and editing professionals who can help you on any writing-related task you may have.

However, if you are committed to editing a piece of writing yourself, there are a few tricks of the trade that are important not to overlook. This article covers the main points that will help you do a great editing job irrespective of the type of document you are working with.

 

1. Use an editing checklist

Any wordsmiths out there will know how valuable it is to use an editing checklist. This is what professionals use when they provide editing and proofreadingservices as it enables them to ensure that nothing is neglected when working on a piece of writing. No matter what type of document you have in front of you, having an editing checklist to hand will prove invaluable.

For almost all editing tasks, a standard checklist that can be applied fruitfully to improve the document will focus on the following issues:

·         Clarity

·         Concision

·         Punctuation mistakes

·         Spelling mistakes

·         Incorrect use of prepositions and conjunctions

·         Formatting errors

·         Consistent tense

·         Consistent tone

·         Subject-verb agreement

If you approach the editing task with a checklist like the one above beside you, you’ll find that you can edit almost anything!

 

2. Choose the right words and phrases, not the most complex-sounding ones

Oftentimes, writers will favour words that are complex or long, which is generally an unnecessary and undesirable practice. It’s understandable that writers sometimes do this, especially when they need to appear authoritative about the topic they are addressing. However, in writing, bigger is not always better.

When editing, therefore, if you keep in mind the general rule that you should aim for concise words and phrases rather than complex-sounding ones, this will go an extremely long way toward improving the quality of the document you are working on. After checking over the version of the document you edited using this general rule, the writer will likely be impressed as they will be able to easily understand what they previously wrote much more effectively than they originally could.

 

3. Kill your darlings

Being ready to “kill your darlings” – which is to say that you are ready to get rid of parts of your writing that you may be very proud of – is an essential part of the editing process. If you are willing to eliminate any sections of your document that don’t contribute to its purpose, and if you act on this during the editing process, you’ll be well-positioned to optimise any type of document you are working on.

A Comprehensive Guide to Essay-Writing

Editing and proofreading services, and even book proofreading services in the UK, should always be a writer’s go-to when they are nearing the end of the writing process. In the case of proofreading services, these are ideal when you have finalised your writing and need to add extra polish, while editing services are useful at an earlier stage when you are trying to optimise the way your writing comes across to its intended audience.

However, if you are nowhere near the stage of making use of editing and proofreading services, it’s useful to know about some of the resources and strategies that can help you along. For example, essay-writing – which is the focus of this article – is an often-daunting activity that editors and proofreaders cannot help you with, and so it’s worth learning about how to complete this particular task well.

 

What are the main types of essays?

Every scholar out there has their own classification system for essay types, but here are a few of the most common ones:

• ·         Persuasive essay: Seeks to convince the reader of a certain point of view.
• ·         Admissions essay: Explain why the candidate is interested in applying to a particular institution.
• ·        Expository essay: Comprehensively introduces a given topic, ideally in an objective and unbiased way, to increase the awareness and knowledge of the reader.
• ·        Comparison essay: Describes a pair of opposing issues, arguments, or – for that matter – anything else (e.g., artworks, computing systems, and so on).
• ·         Personal essay: Communicates anecdotal events and typically written in a narrative structure.

 

What structure should an essay have?

Although there are many types of essays, most tend to follow a similar structure:

·         Introduction: Sets the background and context for the essay, the key topics it will cover, and – by the time it has finished – clearly communicates to the reader what the focal point of the essay is.

·         Body: A series of paragraphs or sections and subsections, ordered in a logical and coherent way, that present evidence in support of the focus of the essay.

·         Conclusion: Wraps up the essay, potentially reiterating its key points and, if the word count allows, adds a new perspective for understanding the focus of the essay. Generally, conclusions should not introduce new evidence.

 

How can I write a strong essay?

As noted earlier, it is usually recommended to call on a professional editor or proofreader only once you have written all – or most – of your essay. Once it is finished, the editor or proofreader can help you to optimise the written work you already have, but they cannot write the document for you.

If you’re not yet at a point where you can do this, consider following the process described below to help you along:

• ·         Mapping ideas
• ·         Planning
• ·         Drafting
• ·         Revising

During the final revision stage, it may be useful to consult with an editor to see if you have gone in the right direction. Also, remember that after the revision stage, it is essential to proofread your work.

The role of editing and proofreading when writing your thesis

In many ways, writing a thesis is like writing a book. Just as there are book proofreading services UK for people writing novels or short stories, there are also editing and proofreading services that can make it easier to write your thesis. Oftentimes, working with an editor or proofreader who specialises in your subject area can help you optimise your thesis.

When you work with an editor or proofreader to improve your thesis, you save substantial time and you also ensure that your ideas are conveyed in the clearest possible way. This represents a double-win: you can allocate the time you save to other important academic tasks, and you can also benefit from a high-quality document. This helps to ensure that you receive the best mark that you can for your all-important final submission at your university.

Many users of editing and proofreading services wonder about how these services actually work to improve their written documents. What exactly is the role of editing and proofreading in enhancing your document? How is it that cooperating with an editor or a proofreader can change my thesis? These are critical questions that this article seeks to help answer.

Above all else, the role of editing and proofreading in the thesis-writing process is concerned with a collection of carefully applied steps. These steps cover the following issues: language, consistency, and progression of ideas. At the outset, it is also important to ensure that your writing, formatting, and referencing styles satisfy the requirements published by your university.

For example, your department may ask you to use the Harvard, Modern Language Association of America (MLA), or American Psychological Association (APA) styles. Always remember to pay attention to the edition of the style guide you are using as there is a substantial difference between, for example, the 6th and 7th APA style guides. It is worth noting that sticking to the style guide as you write your thesis can save you a significant amount of time when reviewing your work. This can also save you money if your proofreader or editor does not need to spend as long revising your document.

Regarding the important steps involved in editing and proofreading your thesis, these are mentioned above: language, consistency, and progression of ideas. Language refers to the dialect or the regional/national variation that exists in the language used (e.g., US or UK English). It is important to ask your department about the dialect of English to be used. Consistency refers to the overall use of terms, tense, numbering, formatting, abbreviations, and referencing in your document. Finally, the progression of ideas is concerned with the coherence and logical flow of your writing.

When you work with a professional editor or proofreader to improve your thesis, you can benefit from dramatic improvements in language, consistency, and progression of ideas. Coupled with the benefits of time-saving and freeing you up to complete other tasks, working with a proofreader or editor typically plays a valuable role in optimising your thesis.

Strategies for writing a good plot

Many resources are available that authors can use to make their life easier. Editing and proofreading services are one of the most widely-used resources, as well as book proofreading services UK. However, these services are usually used when an author has finished their book, or when they are in the stages of finalising something that has already been written.

Dissimilar to other types of writing Proofreading services and aids for authors, assistance in terms of planning and writing a good plot is somewhat lacking. Furthermore, many authors believe – perhaps rightly so – that if another person writes their plot for them, this is a form of cheating or an unacceptably substantial shortcut. For this reason, this article outlines a few of the strategies you can use to create an excellent plot for your next book.

 

1. Know what a plot is

This sounds patronisingly obvious, but having a clear understanding of what a plot is – or, so to speak, the general essence of plots – is fundamental. Therefore, this article must begin with a definition of the concept of a plot in a piece of fictional writing.

A plot refers to a sequence of interrelated events that a writer devises in order to engage a reader. A plot can also be viewed, perhaps more helpfully, as a complication followed by the resolution of the complication.

 

Image: Devising a plot lies at the centre of creative writing

2. Remain focused

By this, we do not mean that you yourself should remain focused (though, of course, you should). Instead, we mean that your manuscript should remain focused. Remember in the previous step that we defined a plot as a complication followed by the resolution of the complication. With this in mind, the sequence of interrelated events that you devise to serve as your plot should, in a focused way, always move the reader onwards to the resolution.

 

3. Know when enough is enough

Awful plots are bad, boring, or unsuccessful for diverse reasons. However, one of the most common reasons why a plot is unsuccessful is due to the phenomenon known as “plot overkill”. If the sequence of interrelated events that defines your plot establishes a complication and resolves that complication, stop! There is no need to continue dragging everything out with new events that occur after the plot’s resolution.

 

Image: Books vary in length, but knowing when to stop is fundamental

4. Learn about common types of plots

The main types of plots are tragedy, comedy, hero’s journey, rebirth, overcoming the monster, voyage and return, and rags to riches. Each type of plot is associated with clear and well-defined contours, and although these plots have been used endlessly, they never get old. If you use these types of plots as a general framework, in which you set a novel sequence of interrelated events, your book is likely to win over your reader and keep their attention.