Copyediting for The Trouble with Demons

Since I'm doing the copyediting on The Trouble with Demons this week, I thought I'd tell you about the process from my point of view.

In copyediting, my editor (Anne Sowards) goes through the manuscript with a fine-toothed comb. She makes suggestions on perhaps a stronger word to use here, or some clarification needed on a point there. Ace Books also has a copyeditor who carefully reads the manuscript looking for typos, missing words (more common than you'd think), inconsistencies in plot facts, punctuation, etc. My copyeditor, Emma Stockton, absolutely rocks. This lady has sharp eyes. It's making my job much easier, since she's caught like 99% of any boo-boos. I hope to be finished with the copyedits by this weekend, so I can get back to writing Bewitched & Betrayed.

What I'm doing is answering any questions from Anne or Emma, tweaking a paragraph to more clearly explain a subplot point, and carefully reading the manuscript and fixing anything that isn't exactly how I want it. Copyediting is the last chance an author gets to make big changes in the copy, because the next step for the book is typesetting. Once a book is typeset, it is very expensive to the publisher to make changes that could cause copy to reflow. Needless to say, your editor will encourage you to do anything you want to do before the book is typeset.

We're using "Track Changes" in Word this time around instead of actually writing on a hardcopy printout. As an editor/proofreader in my day job, this is absolute heaven for me. Not to mention, the typeset version will be cleaner because there's not another person manually entering all the corrections/changes. My editor will look over the changes, click on "accept all changes" and it's ready to be typeset.

And yes, when I have ARCs (advance reader copies) of The Trouble with Demons, I'll be having some contests to give you all a chance to win one. ; )

Once the corrections/changes are made, the book is typeset. The final step in the editing process is the page proofs. Proofing a typeset book makes it so much easier to find the last of the typos, since it's in a different font than the one you wrote it in. I'll also be looking for bad word breaks, etc. Ideally at this stage, by doing the edits electronically using Track Changes, the typeset version should be almost perfect.

Tomorrow, I'll go into specifics about the changes/edits/corrections we're making, and how that could help you tighten up your own work when an agent or editor asks you for a partial.

Lisa