The different types of Editors

You might think that a book editor just checks on your grammar and spellings. But, surprise surprise, a book editor does way more than that! Apart from going through your work like a grammar nazi, a book editor acts as the fact checker and helps in giving structure to your work.

So, here are the different types of book editors, to help you choose the perfect one for your writings.

Developmental Editors

This is the first kind of editing that your work should go through. A developmental editor is there with you every step of the way, sometimes before you even begin writing. They help you understand the structure of the story, how it should flow, helping with the character graph and the sequencing of the chapters.

Substantive Editors

Once you have a rough draft, the substantive editors come in. they check the accuracy of your facts and the plausibility of your plot. A developmental editor has been with you since the start and hence, it is necessary to get fresh eyes to view your work in order to find the loopholes and get rid of characters that do not take the story forward. The end result is a crisp and professional manuscript.

Copyeditors

They are the next in line and they go over your manuscript with a magnifying glass in hand, checking for grammatical errors, misspellings, and any inconsistencies in the sentences. Some copyeditors might be asked to fact check statistics and sources within the book for accuracy. They may rewrite certain sentences but retain the style and voice of the author.

Proofreaders

After the manuscript has been perfected and the design completed, the proofreaders come in. They check page numbers, headings, styles and whether the copyeditor’s corrections have been applied or not.

Do you need all? No. Some authors will only need a copyeditor/proofreader. Depending on their writing skills, some may need different levels of copy editing, from basic to heavy line editing, and even occasional ghostwriting. But more on ghostwriting in the next blog post.