Julie Broad breaks down three editing stages for nonfiction: substantive editing fixes organization and flow, copy editing handles grammar and consistency, and proofreading catches final typos. Most authors need all three, though experienced writers can sometimes combine substantive and copy editing into one role.
Chapters
Substantive vs developmental vs copy editing vs proofreading what the heck are all these kinds of editing and what do you actually need for your book? Hi, I'm Julie Broad, founder of Book Launchers, a fantastic company that will help you write, publish and sell a nonfiction book that grows your business and builds your brand in the more formal, traditional publishing world. Substantive editing, which can also be called developmental editing or even comprehensive editing. The editor reviews your book for overall concept and intended use. They review the content at a high level and evaluate the organization and writing style. We do that at Book Launchers, but we call it content editing now. The purpose of this kind of editing is to make the document functional for its readers. We like to make it more than functional, though. We like to make sure that it flows, that it'll be entertaining or at least engaging for the reader. We consider who you're marketing your book to and whether you're going to be connecting with them based on what's in the manuscript. There's always an element of cutting out stuff you don't need and adding more to areas that aren't as clear or need more explanations. Content editors at Book Launchers also make recommendations to help ensure you've set yourself up to sell your services or attract leads with what you're writing. For example, if you're building a speaking business, have you mentioned a few talks you've given inside the pages of your book? You don't make it blatant, but you weave them in with stories and examples. Have you seeded the outcome you can provide folks who hire you for consulting gigs? Or have you showcased what your product or service can do in at least one story, if not more? We're looking for that. We're also looking for opportunities to create league magnets and content placement in magazines and blogs. Content editing is almost entirely analysis based, and while some actual editing, what you might picture in your mind as editing, occurs in the form of moving things around, looking at language to explain things, and ensuring that ideas are clearly presented and logical. A manuscript is usually returned to the author with a lot of questions to answer, research to add, or sources to cite. When you review your content edit, always keep in mind that it's your book. You can take or leave these editorial suggestions. The goal is to improve your book to make sure your reader is going to get the desired outcome from the material. Copy editing is very different than content editing. We have different people doing each kind of edit because it's a different skill set. Copy editing is more rules based and focuses on grammar, commas, punctuation mechanics of style and and consistency in how things are presented. While your document may come back with a lot of red on it, I usually find they add about a thousand commas in the copy edit, but that's just me. I maybe don't use enough commas. There's only one thing that your book needs, more commas. It's usually easier to process and work through your copy edited manuscript than it is to work through that content editing. The heavy lifting is most done and now it's just refinement. All that said, if you're hiring editors on your own, it would be a very smart move to make sure you lay out exactly what you expect will be covered in each of these types of edits. It's not safe to assume that they will do everything you think they will. Everyone defines it a little different now. You might be left going, now wait. What does a proofreader do? Is that the same as a copy editor? They catch the final little things that are left over. The goal is to get an error free document, but that's not easily achieved. The proofreader is a fresh set of eyes to catch superficial errors in spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation and formatting. This is the editor who prevents the Amazon reviews from pointing out all the errors when there's only a couple typos that snuck in, but they still snuck in. Bottom line, most authors need all three kinds of editors. If you're an experienced writer with a great book outline, you might be able to get away with just skipping right through to a copy editor. You if that copy editor does a little bit of the substantive editing work. But typically, most authors need all three of these kinds of edits. If you like this video, please hit that like button. Subscribe to the channel, turn those notifications on and tune in every Friday when we have a new video. If you comment on the day a video is released, there's prizes. So go ahead, let me know you're watching. And if you've got an idea for a future video, let me know that too. Thank you. See you on the next video. I'm going to make my prescription Some more commas.
