One of the most important aspects of writing a book is the book editing process. This is because book editing is where you check whether your book is good enough to be published or not. Although you may be satisfied with your work, you might be surprised at the number of mistakes it has. These mistakes may vary from grammar errors to bad sentence composition. One such form of book editing is copy editing. But what is copy editing? Why should you use it? How should you decide?
Here are the pros and cons of Copy Editing.
Pros
- Adherence to various writing styles
Copy-editors follow various writing styles. Whether it is The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, or the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition copy editors follow them all religiously. This adds a more professional feel to your book it also makes sure that your book conforms to a majority of writing rules.
- It is very thorough
Copy-Editing is very thorough. It not only entails the correction of spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntax. It also ensures consistency in spelling, hyphenation, numerals, fonts and capitalization. Copy-editing also flags ambiguous or factually incorrect statements and tracks macro concerns like internal consistency.
Cons
- It is pricey
Any type of editing takes money. This is because you are obliged to pay someone else to check your book for errors. Sadly though the more editing done, the pricier it becomes. The same can be said for Copy-editing. It usually takes around $30 to $50 an hour. It also depends on how many pages the book has and how long it takes to accomplish the job. So there is a chance that you will be paying a veritable fortune the longer your book is.
- The quality varies
The quality of the editing work really depends on the skill of the editor. So if you hired an editor with lackluster skills you will find your work shabbily edited and not worth the price you paid. Which is why it is important that you hire an editor that is both affordable and competent.
Book Editing – Pros and Cons:
Developmental Editing