Revision
How to Approach Editing Your Book, From the Point of View of a Professional Editor
The Three Types of Edits Most Books Need to Stand Out in an Agent’s Queue
You’ve just finished a first draft of your novel. It may have taken you a few months or a few years. But what’s the next step? How do you approach revising a novel when it feels so huge?
As a professional editor, I deal with hundreds of clients a year who are eager to submit their books to agents and publishers. The process I use for editing a book involves three steps. Not all books need all of these steps, but knowing the difference between them can help you edit your own work.
This article will explore the three types of edits that professional editors perform, and how you can utilize my steps as an editor in your own self-editing process.
When I approach a book, I try to decide where it falls in the hierarchy of edits. This helps me determine how many rounds of edits a book might need.
There are three edits I use:
- Developmental/Content Edits
- Copy/Line Edits
- Proofreading
