10 tips for proofreading and copyediting self-published fiction

Here are 10 tips to help you prepare the way for editing and proofreading fiction for independent authors and self-publishers.

If your editorial business is relatively new and you’re keen to specialize in fiction editing, there are some core issues that are worth considering. Some of these certainly apply to other specialisms, but fiction does bring its own joys and challenges.

1. Untangle the terminology

You'll need to be sensitive to the fact that your clients may not be familiar with conventional editorial workflows or the terms we use to describe them!

​Clarify what the client expects, especially when using terms like ‘proofreading’ and 'editing'.
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• Most authors who ask for proofreading actually want what editorial pros would traditionally call copyediting – checking and correcting the raw text files in Word (usually using Track Changes).
• Editorial pros themselves don’t use universal terminology. One editor’s copyediting could include developmental work, while another's could be strictly sentence-level editing.
• Offer advice on the different levels of editing, and be honest about which ones you’re capable of supplying.

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​2. Discuss the revision extent

​Clarify the extent of revision required before you agree a price.
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• A final quality-control check for spelling, punctuation, grammar and consistency errors may be the least of what’s required.
• Deeper problems may exist that ideally would have been attended to at an earlier editing stage – for example, problems with clarity, plot holes or inconsistencies, repetitive words and phrases, mangled sentence structure, dangling modifying clauses – all of which disfigure the text.
• Your copyediting could well include line editing – that takes longer and has to be factored into the budget.

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​3. Manage expectations

​Find out how many stages of professional editing the file has already been through.
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• If you’re the first, it’s more than likely that you’ll make thousands of amendments.
• Perfection, while aimed for, will be impossible unless you have superpowers!
• Make it clear that one pass is not enough to ensure that every literal and contextual error is attended to.
• Be honest about what’s possible within the available budget.

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4. Put the client first – it’s all about the author

​What’s required according to the editorial pro and what’s desired by the client (owing to budget or some other factor) could well be two very different things.
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• You’re entitled to decline the work if you feel you can’t do what the client wants, given what hasn’t gone before.
• The client is also entitled to not take their book through four stages of professional revision if they choose. If they want your help and you think you can help, and you’re both clear about how far that help can go, then by all means work with the author. If you prefer to wave goodbye, then that’s fine too.

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​5. Be a champion of solutions

​The authors we’re working with are at different stages of writing-craft development.

Some are complete beginners, some are emerging, others are developing and yet others are seasoned artists. If they’re in discussion with us, it’s because they think we can help.
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• Even the beginner and emerging writers I’ve worked with have many strengths. Perhaps the sentences are awkward and repetitive, and yet the story they support and the characters who live within the narrative are amazing.
• An editorial report that summarizes strengths and weaknesses can help the author to develop their craft. I don’t provide professional manuscript evaluations/critiques or development/structural editing. That doesn’t mean I can’t tell the client what I liked, what I think they can work on, and where they might go to develop their skills.
• My editorial summaries range from a few paragraphs to a couple of A4 pages depending on what I find. They don’t take long to produce because I jot down notes as I work through the books – short reminders to myself about the points I want to make.

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6. Be prepared to walk away

​Sometimes the author and the editor are simply not a good fit for each other. In the case of fiction, this can be because the editor's can't emotionally connect with the story.
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• If, for example, deeper line editing is required, the editor will need to ‘get’ the author, be able to feel their way into the soul of the text so that they can polish without stripping out the author’s voice or style of writing.
• Repeating the mantra ‘It’s not my book’ can help but the ability to mimic the author is often intuitive more than anything else.
• If you don’t feel that intuition kicking in when you see the initial sample of the book – if it’s not grabbing you – it might well be necessary to walk away unless you’re being hired for micro correction work that focuses on spelling, grammar, punctuation and consistency.

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7. Decide whether fiction's a good fit for you

​There are challenges and benefits to fiction editing and proofreading.
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• On the one hand, fiction lends itself to flexibility with regard to strict adherence to pedantry, especially when that pedantry does more harm than good.
• Editing and proofreading fiction is in some ways nowhere near as technically demanding as an academic project with a book-length style guide attached to it and a reference list of a similar length.
• On the other hand, however, that very flexibility makes fiction work trickier too. Improving prose so that it meets publishing-industry standards while retaining authenticity of voice, flow, mood and style requires not a little artistry.
• If you've been hired to copyedit or proofread, you might not expect to have to deal with viewpoint problems. Still, they arise often enough with self-publishers that it's worth understanding how POV works so that you can query or fix. This post is how I explain it to beginner crime-writing authors but the principles apply across genres: A beginner's guide to narrative point of view in crime writing.
• Being emotionally responsive to the text is essential. That's a difficult thing to learn on a course. 
• Every change or suggestion needs to be carried out gently and elegantly so that the editor’s input is invisible to the reader. Some editors and proofreaders steer well clear of fiction; for others, it’s the best job in the world! There’s no shame in deciding it’s not for you.

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8. Do a short sample edit before you commit

​Unless you’ve previously worked with the author, work on a short sample so that you know what you’re letting yourself in for.
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• Sometimes it’s only by actually working on a piece, rather than just reading it through, that you get a sense of where the problems are and whether you’re capable of solving them within the asked-for brief.
• This will help you to get the fee spot on, too, because you’ll be able to extrapolate how long it should take to complete the project.

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9. Query like a superhero!

​All querying requires diplomacy, but fiction needs a particularly gentle touch.
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• Your authors have poured their hearts and souls into their novels. When you’re highlighting problems or suggesting recasts, it’s essential to get the tone right so that you don’t come across as critical.
• If it sounds like I’m stating the obvious, bear in mind that when you’re drawing attention to dangling modifier number 87 and you’re only on Chapter 5, it’s easy for notes of frustration to creep into your comments! I know this because one of my regular authors joked with me that she’d sensed this in my commenting in one of her books. Eeek! That made me pull my socks up.

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10. Keep your clients' mistakes to yourself

Some of our self-publishing clients are pulled a thousand-and-one ways every day. And, yet, they’ve found the time and energy to write a book. We must salute them.

Some are right at the beginning of the journey. There’s still a lot to learn and they’re on a budget; they’ve not taken their book through all the levels of professional editing that they might have liked to if things had been different.

Some haven't attended writer workshops and taken courses, and they probably never will – there’s barely enough time in the day to deal with living a normal life, never mind writing classes. They’re doing the best they can.

With that in mind, respect the journey.
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• We're professionals and we're hired to fix problems. If your author has struggled with a sentence and made an error that you think is amusing, fix it or suggest a recast, and move on.
• Don't share that error in an editing Facebook group (regardless of that group's privacy settings) so that you and your colleagues can have a giggle about it. Our clients are the people who pay our mortgages and food bills. None of us is perfect. We all make mistakes. We're hired to sort out these problems, not use them as fodder for relaxation and networking.
• Those 'closed' online groups can feel like private, intimate spaces where we can chat and let off steam with a select group of editor friends, but that's not what's happening in reality. What goes online, stays online. If you're sharing a head-desk moment, it can be seen by hundreds, perhaps even thousands of other editors, most of whom don't know you (though they might just know your author).
• If you're in doubt about whether you're oversharing, ask yourself how you would feel if you were the author. If the words 'hurt', 'offended' or 'disrespected' come to mind, you know what to do (or not to do).
• That the author's name hasn't been mentioned isn't an excuse. We are being paid to edit the words, not share unintentional blunders with 500+ colleagues. At best it's rude and unprofessional. At worst, it's a breach of privacy.
• If you need guidance from colleagues on how to recast or make sense of a piece of writing, create a fresh example that illustrates the problem and ask them for advice on that, not the original.
• Plus, if authors never made mistakes, we'd be redundant. And there's nothing funny about being an unemployed editor.

​We must always, always respect the writer and their writing, and acknowledge the privilege of having been selected to edit for them.

Those are my 10 tips for working with indie fiction writers! I hope you find them useful as you begin your own fiction-editing journey!

And drop me a note in the comments if you think I've missed anything out!

Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.

She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.

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