What do Authors Need to Know when Researching Editing Services?

An attractive part of self-publishing is the freedom of choice around what services you want to have carried out and how, and when it comes to picking the editing services, this is really important. It sounds obvious, but ensuring that your text is as good as it can be is vital for a book’s success, so making sure that you have the right editor and the right editing services for your book is essential.

Consider what type of editorial services you actually need

When you’re looking at getting your book edited, the first thing to consider is what type of editing service you want to be undertaken on your book, as this is going to have a really big influence on the type of editor or editorial services that you’re actually looking for. Are you still pretty much at the draft stage, and looking for a big-picture view of whether you need to make substantial changes to improve the book? It may be that a developmental edit or a structural edit is most suitable for you. A developmental edit often includes an editor working with you directly and providing you with feedback on specific areas of the manuscript, while a structural edit mostly looks at the big picture and may include a significant amount of rewriting based on the editor’s feedback. Or are you hoping for the editor to take a closer look at smaller details to improve? In which case a line edit or opinionated edit may be more appropriate.

A line edit typically focuses on working through the edit line by line, giving you feedback on how to improve each sentence where relevant; an opinionated edit is an edit focused on providing you with feedback in order for you to take on that feedback however you wish, while also correcting any consistency issues or errors that may crop up within the manuscript. Perhaps you’re happy with the content, but you’re looking to make sure that the text is as correct as it can be? In that case, a copy edit or a proof read would work best for you. These are the most corrective edits, which you should be looking at when you’re happy with the content of the text. A copy edit is an in-depth look at consistency, repetition, spelling and grammar, while a proof read is purely focused on making sure there are no errors remaining in the text, so should take place at the latest possible stage before publication. One thing that can make the process of looking at editorial services a little more tricky is that the majority of organisations who offer them to authors define common editorial services differently, so where one may describe a copy edit as looking at the flow of the text, another may describe a copy edit as a purely corrective edit. Make sure that you know what you’re looking for with your specific project.

Be aware of your budget when selecting editing services

A more in-depth edit like a structural or developmental edit will be much more expensive than a final-stage proof read. Some form of corrective editing – certain line edits, copy editing, proof reading – will be essential for your book to be in the best state it can be before publication, so make sure that there’s room in your budget for this at the very least. Contact specific individual editors or editing companies to get a more exact idea of costs and how this will fit into your budget, and remember that here at Troubador Publishing, we can give you the costs of a copy edit and/or proof read at the initial quotation stage, so you know these services can be factored into the production of your book with us.

An individual editor or an editing services company?

In some instances an author may have an individual editor in mind when working on their book – for example, a developmental editor who primarily works in the sci-fi genre. But in the majority of cases an author will need to comb through the internet to find the right editor or editorial services provider for their book. Whether an author is looking to work with a specific individual or with an editing services company, the first thing to do is to assess their credibility. Are they a member of a trusted organisation like the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading? Have they undertaken editing training so you can check their suitability for working on your book? Do they provide examples of books that they’ve worked on in the past so you can assess their ability to successfully edit books? It’s important to consider whether the individual editor or editorial service provider is qualified to do what they say they can do when considering whether to hire them to work on your book.

How Troubador can help with book editing services

Troubador Publishing provides copy-editing and proof-reading services as part of its self-publishing services, and the costs for your specific project can be gained by submitting your manuscript for a bespoke quotation. Troubador is a member of the CIEP and has an in-house team of professional editors working on your book, so quality is assured. However, we recognise that not every author is looking for help in every single part of the self-publishing process, so our sister company Indie-Go also provides authors with individual editing services, specifically opinionated editing (for authors who are looking for some feedback on their book), copy editing and proof reading. Editing services are often one of the first things that an author needs to consider when working on their book, so ensuring that the right edit is carried out is essential. Every book is different, and the aims of every author are different; it’s really important to consider what it is you need for your particular project.