Editing and Copyediting from an Author's Viewpoint

I have posted blogs from Taylor Stevens before - www.taylorstevensbooks.com/connect.php.

She writes insightful articles about the publishing industry.  This one is particularly important to me because it's about the editing vs. copyediting process.  And since I am working to become a legitimate copyeditor (originally, I thought  it was to become an editor), I thought I would share her distinction with you.  When I am ready to hang out my copyediting shingle, I will shout it from every mountaintop (and even from every valley).

Why this ad?

One of the topics most confusing to me when I was still trying to get published was the issue of “editor.” I had done so much research about the publishing industry, and yet, this one issue completely eluded me. I remember at one point talking to a friend of a friend of a friend and explaining my goal of publication, and, in trying to discover where I was in my process, she asked me if I had an editor yet. I told her that I had someone lined up to go over the manuscript, and at that point our conversation diverged to a place where we were both speaking English but clearly not talking about the same thing. She lived and worked in the UK, so I just chalked it up to industry differences between the two countries. Oh, how wrong I was. Looking back, her side of the conversation makes perfect sense now. The problem was that in my mind at the time, “editor” meant “copyeditor.”   In publishing, the editor is the person who actually buys your book on behalf of the publishing house. Your book then becomes the editor’s baby, just like it’s your baby—well, maybe more like an adopted child that he or she claims to love as much as you love your own, although we all know that nobody can love your own work as much as you do, but we let them think they do. Out of love for this child--I mean book--the editor works with you to get the manuscript into the best possible condition it can be, insofar as plot and structure and characters and storyline. The editor is also the guardian of the book throughout the entire publication process. He or she will be the one fighting for marketing dollars and working to make sure the cover art fits the vision of the book, and will work to get you as much attention from publicity and the rest of the in house team as possible. The editor is your point man/woman within the publishing house and if there’s ever an issue or a problem, they are the one you (or your agent) goes to in order to get problems fixed. The copyeditor, on the other hand, is a technician of sorts. I don’t know how it goes with other publishing houses, but my publisher hires copyediting out to freelancers. After the author and editor have gone back and forth over the manuscript until they are both satisfied, then it goes to the copyeditor. The copyeditor pores over the manuscript for style and word usage and punctuation and grammar. Sometimes they try to rewrite the book, but the really good ones deserve champagne because mostly they catch mistakes and save you from looking stupid.