Editing is an essential part of the publishing process. If you have just completed the first draft of your book, finding a professional editor to read and evaluate it is one of the best decisions you can make. As JM Agency author Victor Sheehan remarked, ‘friends and family will tell you what you want to hear, Jeremy, Amanda, Sue, and the team will tell you what you need to hear’. The first step is to have your draft evaluated by a professional editor. This is usually called ‘developmental editing’. Don’t be intimidated by the jargon, however. The process is quite simple when explained properly.

Editor’s report

Our editor’s report service has everything a writer needs from a developmental edit. The report is a detailed review of your draft. When you find an editor with our agency, we cover all aspects of the draft, including storyline, characters, accuracy, writing style, grammar, punctuation, and more.

Jeremy designed the editor’s report because he was dissatisfied with the run-of-the-mill ‘reader’s report’. He felt authors needed more. In an editor’s report, authors receive notes on the manuscript. This provides them with additional feedback. It also helps them locate exactly where the problem is. As a follow-up, writers are offered a complimentary mentoring session. We believe the personal touch is important. The author goes through their book with the editor/s, discussing possible solutions. This helps the writer grow and develop as an author.

At what stage do I find an editor for this kind of work?

After you finish a first draft of your book, you should consider an editor’s report. Finding a professional editor to read your work can give you a clear idea of what needs to be corrected and helps prevent issues from recurring in later drafts.

Line editing

Once your draft has been structured and organised, a line-editor can improve your work in terms of finer detail. Line-edits, as the name suggests, involve an editor analysing your sentences line-by-line, focusing on word choice, clarity, and flow. A line editor will also make suggestions on how to avoid cliches and improve the strength of your sentences overall. Line-editing is not necessarily aimed at correcting errors in your grammar or spelling, which is handled in our next section.

At what stage do I find an editor for this kind of work?

After you’ve improved and polished your draft for story, character, and pacing, you should consider line editing as a way to refine the writing itself. Your book does not have to be perfect for this type of editing, but it should have been read previously and, ideally, submitted for an editor’s report.

Copy-editing

A copy-editor looks for grammar, punctuation, spelling errors, and typos in your work. They also edit your manuscript for formatting, which varies depending on publishers. With copy-editing, finding a editor for your book is best saved for after your work has been refined in terms of its content already.

At what stage do I find an editor for this kind of work?

You should look for copy-editing once your manuscript has been edited for content multiple times, and you do not plan to change the text further. This stage is one of the final parts of the editing process.

Proofreading

Proofreading represents the last check on your work before it goes into print. This type of editing covers not just the spelling and grammar of copyediting, but also formatting issues such as page numbers, line breaks, and chapter headings.

At what stage do I find an editor for this kind of work?

If your book is set to be published, and has already been copy-edited, then you can look into proofreading. Having a proofreader for your work is recommended even if you are self-publishing, as catching every issue in a text is next to impossible to manage by yourself.

Jeremy was also inspired by the great American writer John Updike, who remarked that a critic’s role was to ‘identify what the author is trying to achieve, and assess how successfully they are’. Our job as editors is not to tell our writers what to write; it is to help them achieve their own personal vision and write the best book they can. Our role is more akin to that of coach or inspiring mentor than ruthless critic. Jeremy was also inspired by the coaching philosophy of Sir John Whitmore, which he discovered when reading for a business master’s at Technological University Dublin.  

Samples of our editor’s report can be viewed here. If you are interested in finding a professional editor for your book, you can also contact us directly to discuss your needs.