What Is Copyediting for Your Book?
- Iris Marsh
- 10 nov
- 10 minuten om te lezen
Table of Contents
Your story is finally complete—your characters feel alive, the plot clicks into place, and your prose almost sings. But one more step stands between a “good” book and a professional one: copyediting.
If you’re a new indie author, you might wonder, what exactly is copyediting, and do I really need it? You’re not alone. Most authors think it’s just about fixing grammar or punctuation.
And I did too when I first started as an editor (right after my proofreading days). But copyediting goes much deeper than surface-level corrections.
It’s the invisible layer that makes your writing feel clean, consistent, and professional. From style choices and terminology to capitalization and hyphenation, every detail contributes to how seamless your story reads.
In other words, copyediting is what turns a finished draft into a professional-quality manuscript.
As an editor who’s worked with countless indie and traditional authors, I’ve learned that strong copyediting isn’t just technical; it’s interpretive. It ensures clarity, consistency, and the reader’s full immersion in your story.
In this post, you’ll learn:
what copyediting really involves (and how it differs from other editing types)
when copyediting happens in the book editing process
common myths about copyediting
how to decide whether to hire a copyeditor or do it yourself.
While storytelling hooks your reader, copyediting keeps them there.
What Copyediting Really Means
As the Chicago Manual of Style defines it:
“Copyediting prepares an otherwise final manuscript for publication. It consists of both mechanical editing and, where needed, substantive editing. As the final stage of editing before publication, copyediting requires attention to every word and mark of punctuation in a manuscript, a thorough knowledge of the style to be followed, and the ability to make quick, logical, and defensible decisions.”
In simpler terms, copyediting ensures your text follows consistent rules for grammar, punctuation, and formatting while keeping your meaning clear and your style coherent.
The Two Core Types of Copyediting
1. Mechanical Editing
This is what most authors imagine when they hear “editing.” It covers:
grammar, syntax, and usage
capitalization, hyphenation, punctuation, spelling, and abbreviation rules
consistency in numbers, formatting, and terminology.
For example, if your fantasy world uses The Source as a magical energy, your copyeditor ensures it’s capitalized the same way every time—not the source in one chapter and The Source in another.
2. Substantive Copyediting
This layer improves flow, clarity, and readability without rewriting your story. A copyeditor might:
smooth overly long or clunky sentences
reorder confusing paragraphs
suggest rewording to maintain tone consistency.
When I worked with a self-help author recently, she sometimes jumped from one point to another and back within one section. To streamline the flow, I moved some paragraphs around so that it would read like one cohesively laid-out argument, without changing the actual content.
Ultimately, copyediting ensures your commas behave, your grammar sings, and your protagonist doesn’t suddenly change eye color halfway through.
Here’s an example of a “medium” copyedit:
When Does Copyediting Happen?
In the traditional publishing process, copyediting happens after line editing and before proofreading.
The logic is essentially this:
Developmental editing: You ensure your story is sound, there are no plot holes, characters are well developed, and so on.
Line editing: You ensure your sentences flow well and the prose has the right emphasis and emotional undertone.
Copyediting: You ensure your manuscript is accurate and consistent in terms of style, grammar, spelling, usage, and descriptions.
Proofreading: After formatting, you ensure there are no formatting errors and fix small errors missed in the copyedit (like typos and additional spacing).
If you’re self-publishing, it’s common to combine line editing and copyediting in one round for budget or timeline reasons. This can work beautifully if you and your editor are clear on what’s included.
Copyediting vs. Line Editing
Line and copyediting share some overlap with each other. Both involve sentence-level attention, but their focus differs.
Line Editing | Copyediting |
Improves voice, tone, and rhythm | Corrects grammar, punctuation, and formatting |
Focuses on emotion and style | Focuses on accuracy and consistency |
Revises wordy or awkward phrasing | Queries ambiguous meaning |
May rework sentences for impact | Applies style rules consistently |
If line editing makes your story sing, copyediting ensures it stays in tune.
Say you have this paragraph in your fantasy novel:
“The tall wizard reached for his wand, thinking he ought to get a raise. He waved the staff around, and a purple light shot out.”
You want the psychic distance to be closer, so you change the wording (line editing):
“Octavius drew his wand. I ought to get a raise… He waved the staff around, and a purple light shot out.”
But then… which is it, as staff or a wand? Say you’ve already established it’s a wand, so you revise it as follows (copyediting):
“Octavius drew his wand. I ought to get a raise… He waved the wand around, and a purple light shot out.”
Copyediting vs. Proofreading
These two are often confused, especially in the self-publishing world.
Traditionally:
Copyediting happens before formatting and includes all grammar, style, and usage corrections.
Proofreading happens after formatting and catches typos, spacing errors, or misplaced punctuation.
In the indie world, “proofreading” sometimes means a light copyedit on an unformatted manuscript. If you’re hiring an editor, make sure you clarify what their service includes.
What Are the Levels of Copyediting?
Copyediting actually consists of three levels, as stated in The Copyeditor’s Handbook by Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz:
Light copyediting: correcting all mechanical issues, cross-referencing (e.g., chapter mentions, character’s eye color, reference list), fixing all indisputable errors in grammar, syntax, and usage, and querying wordy passages or possible factual inconsistencies.
Medium copyediting: Includes all of the above plus revising awkward phrases and suggesting revisions for wordy sections, fact-checking the content, and querying faulty structure or logic gaps.
Heavy copyediting: Adds revising minor wordy or convoluted sections, revising incorrect statements, light restructuring, and fixing logic gaps.
Always confirm with your editor what level they provide—definitions vary between professionals.
Personally, because there’s so much overlap with line editing, I only offer copyediting combined with line editing. It’s the best of both worlds.
Myths vs. Reality: What Copyediting Is Not
Even experienced authors misunderstand copyediting. Let’s bust a few myths:
Myth | Reality |
“Copyediting just fixes typos.” | It enforces consistency, clarity, and readability, not just surface errors. |
“A good proofreader can replace a copyeditor.” | Proofreading comes after copyediting; skipping this step risks deeper issues. |
“Copyediting changes your voice.” | A skilled editor enhances your voice, never replaces it. |
“I can run Grammarly instead.” | Tools catch some issues, but they can’t apply a style guide, track narrative logic, or flag continuity errors like a human can. |
Why Style Guides Matter
A style guide ensures your manuscript follows consistent rules, whether you use The Chicago Manual of Style or another.
It contains a set of rules and conventions to use for grammar, usage, punctuation, spelling, treatment of words, styling of titles, numbers, abbreviations, and so on. Each country or discipline often has their own versions.
For example:
The Chicago Manual of Style is the most-used guide for fiction and general nonfiction in the US.
Associated Press Stylebook is the guide often used for journalism or other media and also by some nonfiction publishers in the US.
APA Style Guide is a guide used by academics in the psychology and psychiatry field for purely academic books and papers
New Hart’s Rules is used by fiction and most nonfiction publishers in the UK
Canada editors often refer to The Canadian Style.
A style sheet, meanwhile, is something you create to reference:
character names and traits
capitalization choices
spelling preferences (grey vs. gray)
worldbuilding terms and proper nouns
and so on.
When you or your editor create one, it helps keep your story’s details and punctuation consistent from start to finish.
Which Skills Do You Need for Copyediting?
When you copyedit, the most important skill you’ll need is focus. You need to pay attention to every sentence, phrase, word, and punctuation mark.
This means you’ll need a firm grasp of grammar, syntax, and language (which is always evolving). Attention to detail is a must if you want to ensure consistency and correctness.
If you want to do your own copyediting, it can’t hurt to take a short grammar course or read some books on the topic. Some I recommend are:
The Copyeditor’s Handbook by Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz (a bit dry, but does contain everything you’ll need).
Chicago’s Guide to Copyediting Fiction by Amy J. Schneider (adds everything you’d need to look at for fiction and the kinds of “rules” that are looser here).
Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer (funny and contains everything you’d need).
Can You Copyedit Your Own Book?
Yes, and you should try! It’s a great way to improve your writing craft and it will decrease your quote when you do hire a copyeditor.
However, a copyeditor looks at a lot, so it can still be difficult to know where to start. So here’s how you can approach it in passes:
Create a style sheet. Track names and descriptions of characters and places. This helps spot inconsistencies or illogical settings.
Read for awkward phrasings. It often helps to read it aloud. If it feels strange when you say or hear it, it’s likely not the best way to phrase it. The same is true when you find it sounds really monotonous and boring.
Check for grammar, usage, and spelling preferences. For instance, do all the verbs and subjects agree in a sentence? Do you use awhile and a while correctly? Did you use “their” instead of “they’re”? Do you consistently use “alright” instead of “all right”?
Hunt the nitty-gritty punctuation and spelling errors. Add a hyphen to your compound adjectives, fix that typo, and add that missing comma. A dictionary (which you can often find online) will be your best friend here.
Remember: use a style sheet! Create one before you begin your editing, whether you follow one consistent style guide or add some rules and conventions of your own.
Using Tools to Aid Copyediting
Software can assist, but don’t rely on it completely.
While editors aren’t 100% accurate in their work either (the margin is usually 95–99%), these software tools can fall as low as 50% accuracy.
Most popular options:
ProWritingAid: good for fiction. I often use the consistency and grammar reports (includes spelling) as final checks. You can also adjust the rules in the settings to check things more according to your style rules.
Grammarly: I’ve used this in the past, but it tends to be more accurate for business-type writing.
When you use these tools, pay really close attention whether what they suggest is actually a good suggestion. Consistency is really useful to ensure you style your quotation marks and ellipses the same, that you use the Oxford comma (or not) throughout, and whether you’ve capitalized consistently.
What editors use
PerfectIt is “proofreading” software that is widely used by editors everywhere. It’s very helpful as a final consistency check and ensures that you’ve enforced your style rules throughout the document.
And if you have a subscription to the Chicago Manual of Style, you can easily integrate that within the software.
When to Hire a Copyeditor
If you’re a new indie author, you might wonder whether you need to hire a professional or if you can get by with copyediting your own work.
Hire a copyeditor when:
you plan to self-publish professionally (especially for print or eBook retailers).
you’ve read your book multiple times but still find inconsistencies.
you want your manuscript to meet publishing standards (CMoS, AP, etc.).
A professional editor brings a trained eye and objectivity. They see what you’re too close to notice.
Unfortunately, it can be quite expensive to hire a copyeditor.
I get that completely; as an indie author myself, it’s a struggle to find the budget and invest such a large chunk in your book. Especially since you don’t know whether you’ll see a return of that investment.
But if you want to deliver a quality book, a copyeditor is a crucial piece of that puzzle. Even the best copyeditor will struggle to edit their own book. You’ll start to become blind to your own mistakes.
If the budget is tight, here’s my suggestion:
Hire a copyeditor for just the first 10,000 words to identify your common issues.
Or request a line writing assessment for targeted feedback and a style sheet you can apply throughout.
If you’re pursuing traditional publishing, the publisher’s in-house editor will handle copyediting. Still, fixing the opening pages of your manuscript helps with a stronger first impression.
Why Copyediting Matters More Than You Think
Copyediting isn’t just about correctness; it’s about reader trust.
A well-edited book signals professionalism and care. When readers can focus on your story instead of small mistakes, they’re more likely to recommend your work and buy the next one.
It’s so much more than simply running a grammar and spelling check on your document.
And make no mistake: you will make errors in your manuscript. It’s inevitable. Even when you think you’ve changed all instances of a character’s name to a new one, you’ll have missed a couple.
In fact, this is one of the most common errors I see in manuscripts. And trust me when I say it’s jarring when Jane suddenly becomes Suzanne with no context whatsoever.
So before you hit publish, take one more careful pass. Brush up your grammar, build your style sheet, and give your story the clarity it deserves.
Whether you hire an editor or learn to refine your own work, giving your manuscript this stage of attention ensures readers see your best version, not your “almost there” one.
👉 If you’d like more guidance on the copyediting process and how it differs from other types of editing, check out my post on line editing vs. copyediting.
