Editing

In 2022, I started working as an editor for a curriculum company, then moved to their publishing team, and I learned a lot about how trad companies edit. When I decided to go indie in 2025, I decided I needed to replicate it. Not every company goes through these edits, but this is what I try to do.

Sensitivity Edit

What is a sensitivity edit? It is having someone read through your book looking for things that are generally offensive to a large section of humanity. There are so many different kinds of sensitivity edits that you could do: language edits, situation edits, interaction edits--and I try to do as many of these as possible. This editing sector is actually my specialty, and I'm really good at my job. I specialize in Human Rights--Women, People of Color--especially US Enslavement, and People with Disabilities. This type of edit is especially important for Historical fiction, nonfiction, books with representation (contemporary, modern-day setting stories), or if you want your story to overall be approachable by anyone.

Subject Matter Expert Edit

This is more for Historical, nonfiction, and science-based stories--which I write. Having someone who knows your subject matter is very important to guarantee that your story or book is as accurate as possible. This edit isn't necessary for everyone, but can be quite an important step.

Developmental Edit

This edit is for everyone. A developmental edit helps smooth out all the rough and clunky parts of a story. Usually, it would be good to have several developmental editors, but Indie authors can replace some of these editors with Beta readers who are willing to point out where the story is weak, boring, confusing, clunky, too much, or not enough.

It should also help iron out character development and story ARCs, themes, and readability. I think Dev edits are one that should absolutely be done in some way.

Comb Edit-Large Scale Error Edit and Line Edit

This is also another edit that applies to every type of author. A large-scale edit or line edit gets down into the nitty-gritty. It should help you cut out superfluous text, dialogue, worldbuilding, and catch some continuity edits. Some Indies definitely replace this step with Beta readers or critique partners as well. As long as someone is looking for these things, your story will get better. But of all the types of edits, this is one I recommend not skipping.

Format Edit

Hopefully, once you get back and complete your line edit, you'll be ready to set your book into its final formatting. For me, that would be ebook, paperback, and hardcover formatting (yes, these are all separate, and yes, I can make a post about this later). Once you get the book set into its format, it is so good to have several (at least two) sets of eyes look it over and make sure headers, footers, indentations, pagination, etc all look correct. The following editors can also help with that, but at the very least, YOU the author should check over the book in its finally state to make sure it looks good. Otherwise, there may be glaring errors that you are sending out.

Copy Edit

This is also one you should never skip and is a deep dive as well. It should iron out the last of the formatting, continuity, and developmental editing errors that were missed and do a partial proofread. Copy edits make a huge difference in a story looking professional, so don't skip it, even if you skip everything else.

Proofread

Last edit: Proofread. Typos have a notorious way of making their way into published books, no matter what authors, editors, and helpful readers do, so make sure to run it through a proof. You should do one digitally, with your manuscript printed out, and then also in the final format (such as if it is printed in a book), and have someone else (at least one other person who knows what they are doing) look for these grammar and syntax errors. The less you have, the better your final book will look.

End comments:

The one thing that I haven't been able to replicate in my edits is doing it for several rounds. Having a group of people sign off on each round of edits, saying that they didn't find any errors, would be nice. And someday, that will be awesome. But for now, this is how I do it, and I do recommend that all Self-Published/Indie published authors do something of the same.