Practical Proofing

How to Know When Your Manuscript Is Ready for an Editor

You’ve typed “The End.” You’ve lived and breathed your story for months—or maybe years—and now you’re wondering: Is it ready for an editor?

That’s one of the most common questions writers ask, and it’s a good one. Hiring an editor too early can waste time and money, but waiting too long can mean endless rounds of self-doubt and tinkering that never move the project forward.

Here’s how to know when your manuscript is truly ready to cross an editor’s desk:

1. You’ve Finished a Full Draft

It sounds obvious, but many writers reach out for editing before the story is complete. Editors can’t help you strengthen what doesn’t exist yet. A finished draft—beginning, middle, and end—gives us the full picture of your story’s structure, pacing, and character arcs.

If you’re still rewriting chapters, you’re not ready for professional editing—yet. Focus instead on finishing your draft, even if it’s messy.

2. You’ve Let It Rest

Once you type that final line, resist the urge to send it off right away. Give your manuscript at least a few weeks (or longer, if possible) to sit untouched. When you return to it with fresh eyes, you’ll catch inconsistencies, plot holes, and awkward phrasing you couldn’t see before.

Think of this as your “cooling-off” period—the same way bread dough needs to rest before baking. That pause often transforms what comes next.

3. You’ve Done a Round (or Two) of Self-Editing

Before hiring an editor, spend time improving your own work. Reread your manuscript and ask yourself:

• Do my characters have clear goals and motivations?
• Does each chapter move the story forward?
• Are my scenes balanced with both action and reflection?
• Have I checked for common writing crutches (repeated words, filler phrases, overuse of adverbs)?

You don’t need to make it perfect—that’s what an editor helps with—but it should be the best you can make it on your own. Editors can dig deeper when they’re not spending time fixing issues you could’ve addressed in self-editing.

4. You Know What Kind of Feedback You Want

There’s more than one type of editing—developmental, line, copy, and proofreading—and each serves a different purpose. If you’re not sure which you need, that’s okay, but having a sense of your goals helps you and your editor start on the same page.

Ask yourself:

• Am I looking for big-picture feedback on structure and pacing? → Developmental edit.
• Do I want help tightening prose and improving flow? → Line edit.
• Is my manuscript polished but needs grammar and consistency fixes? → Copy edit or proofread.

When you can name your needs (or at least your concerns), you’ll get more value from the process.

5. You’re Ready for Collaboration

Editing is a partnership. It’s not about judgment—it’s about refinement. If you’re open to constructive feedback and ready to engage in dialogue about your work, you’ll get far more from the experience.

If the idea of feedback still makes you defensive or anxious, it might be worth doing one more round of revision or sharing your manuscript with trusted beta readers first. That way, you’ll feel more confident and less protective when professional notes arrive.

6. You Can Let Go—At Least a Little

There’s a point where “just one more tweak” becomes a form of procrastination. If you’ve revised and reread so often that you can’t tell whether your manuscript is improving or just changing, it’s time. Send it out. Let an editor take it from here.

No manuscript is ever perfect—but the right editor will help you make it the best version of itself.

Your manuscript doesn’t have to be flawless to be ready—it just has to be finished, rested, revised, and loved enough that you’re ready to let someone else in.

If you’re still unsure, many editors (myself included) offer sample edits or manuscript assessments to help you determine what level of editing you need. Sometimes, the best way to find out if you’re ready is to ask.

Summer is the perfect time to complete that writing project that has been put on the back burner for far too long…

I have editing slots available in July and August.

Email me to book your spot today!

Out there in the vast universe of online publishing, there exists a number of companies looking to capitalize on inexperienced writers. We might call such a company a VANITY PRESS, a company that charges authors a large fee to print their book. They promise editing services and a host of other services, but most do not deliver. These places often conduct what I call a VANITY EDIT. They claim to read an author’s manuscript and offer critique…but most of the time, the “edit” that results offers almost no valuable feedback and instead serves to stroke the author’s ego with false praise. Not false because the book couldn’t possibly be good, but false because it was likely not read at all by anyone. I’ve read dozens of books “edited” by such companies that contain so many errors that it’s evident no edit at all was completed. Their goal is only to coax the author to pay more, submit again. As an author, you have every right to choose to print your book through a vanity press if that is your wish…but do your research and understand what you are and are not getting.

Also understand the difference between the “editing” you might get at one of these places compared to what you will get from an editor like me. I will find errors, I will correct mistakes, I will point out issues with story, voice, point of view, etc… I might point out things I love about your writing, but my real job is to find the things that are not quite right so you can fix them. More often than not, the editorial letter I send you at the end will make you a little bit angry–after all, it’s tough to hear criticism. My mother, published author Maggie Shayne, put it best when she said that good editors are the ones that have the nerve to tell you your baby is ugly. 🙂

So if you are looking for someone to tell you ONLY how wonderful and perfect your writing is, you might want to reach out to one of those vanity presses I mentioned above. If you hire me, I will most certainly point out your “baby’s” imperfections. But I will also give you the advice you need to address those imperfections.

This is a question that comes up often, especially during the holiday season.  Many authors seek to publish novels with a Christmas theme, but unfortunately, the time to jump into a holiday novel is not the same time we begin our holiday shopping.  Time and time again, authors contact me in October or early November to discuss plans for the editing and publication of a book they wish to sell throughout December.  Unfortunately, this is often too late!  My advice for authors seeking to publish holiday novels is simple: Plan ahead.

• Plan the end-date first. Holiday books should ideally be ready for sale the day after Thanksgiving to capitalize on the busiest buying season of the year.  Teachers have used backwards design in lesson planning for years—create the assessment first, then work backward to decide what kids need to learn when.  The same idea applies here.  Once you have your end-date in mind, determine when you should schedule editing dates.
• Give yourself, your editor, and your formatter enough time to do the job correctly. If you know that it takes you three months to complete a first draft of a 60,000-word book, give yourself the time you need.  But, do not ignore that a good edit also takes time, and after that edit, you will surely need to revise your manuscript and possibly have it edited again.  Although you, the author, determine the number and type of edits you need, also keep in mind that producing a quality product will be better for your career in the long run.

Note: Some authors do not complete all steps of the editing process, so your schedule might look a bit different than that below.  The important idea here is to figure out a timeline well in advance of publication. 

Suggested Editing Timeline:

1. 15 Weeks Before Expected Publication Date-Book Editing and Formatting Dates.

The very best editors and formatters book at least a month in advance and sometimes two! As you near the end of your first draft, contact your preferred editor and book a date for the first and second rounds of editing.  Contact your formatter and get on his/her schedule for a date at least 2 weeks prior to your intended publication date.  Planning ahead now will save you time and stress later.

2. 10 Weeks Before Expected Publication Date-Developmental Edit Round 1:

Round 1- A developmental edit (or a story edit) is typically completed in two or more rounds.  This edit will take 1-2 weeks. The editor will focus mostly on character and plot development, with some attention to major stylistic, construction, and grammatical issues.  The editor will likely send the manuscript back to the author with a list of suggestions for revision.

3. 8 Weeks Before Expected Publication Date- Author revises based on editor’s suggestions. The author most often takes another 1-2 weeks to complete revisions and return the book to the editor for a second round of editing.
4. 6 Weeks Before Expected Publication Date-Developmental Edit Round 2-The editor will need at least a week, if not more, to complete a second round of story editing.
5. 5 Weeks Before Expected Publication Date-Author revises based on editor’s suggestions. Authors typically take a week to revise after the second round.
6. 4 Weeks Before Expected Publication Date-Copy Edit/Line Edit:

A copy edit/line edit should be done after the story is set.  The editor will typically make changes within the manuscript during this phase, correcting grammatical, typographical, and sentence construction errors.  The author may point out any inconsistencies in plot, but the focus is on getting the manuscript as clean as possible.  Editors typically require 5-7 days to complete a copy/line edit.  Though authors can easily accept and reject changes in a day or two.

7. 3 Weeks Before Expected Publication Date-Proofreading:

The final step before publication is to proofread the manuscript.  Editors will complete a final read to catch any remaining typographical errors.  This typically takes approximately 3-5 days, depending upon the editor. Even if you have hired an editor to proof your manuscript, know that he or she may not get all of the errors. I suggest that authors re-read their own manuscript and enlist the help of friends and family members.

8. 1-2 Weeks Before Expected Publication Date-Formatting:

Professional formatters might require more time than this, so checking in advance and booking time on the formatter’s schedule should take place at the same time you book time with an editor.

It is essential that the book be proofed again after formatting as the formatting process tends to add errors to the manuscript that were not there prior to formatting. All told, the author might need another week or two to proof their own book.  Some might send it out to beta readers as well during this time.  I would not recommend involving beta readers any sooner in the process.  (I will save my discussion of the pros and cons of beta readers for another time.)

Many of my most successful authors have their e-books re-proofed once every few years simply to produce a cleaner copy.  This does not mean the editor did not do his or her job; it is simply proof that catching every error is impossible.

Recently, I found myself involved in a conversation with a frustrated author who had used another editor.  She was angry that her readers had found ten errors in a book she had paid someone to proof.  As we spoke, she admitted that the editor had found and corrected 600+ errors in the manuscript.  While perhaps I should have lamented with the author about the poor performance of the editor, instead I could not help but point out that the author HAD FOUND AND FIXED more than 600 mistakes.  Missing only 10 was, in my opinion, a job well done.

As you can see, a complete and total edit of a manuscript needs to be in the works almost 4 months before the intended publication date in order to go off without a hitch. That means that your Christmas novel should be well underway by the end of July! In the end, planning ahead will lead to less stress in the days and weeks that lead up to your release date.

“Can you guarantee an error-free manuscript?”

This is a question that seems to come up in almost every conversation I have lately.  And the answer is a truthful NO.  Books published and printed by the major publishing houses often have errors even after being read, edited and revised several times.  Each year I purchase classroom sets of texts that have been printed and reprinted–even these novels sometimes contain errors.  The truth is that no editor (or publishing company, for that matter) can make this guarantee.

My advice for authors seeking to publish independently is simple: Understand that writing is a process that requires more than one draft, more than one revision, and more than one person willing to read the unfinished product.  If you are looking for a professional to edit your work, ask another writer for suggestions before surfing the web in search of an editor.  Once you find a reliable editor, spend time developing a good working relationship with that person.  Be sure that he or she respects your creative integrity, but is also willing to give you true, critical feedback.

Writing is work.  And no manuscript is perfect after a single draft.  Some are not perfect after six drafts.  So my best advice to writers seeking to publish independently is to find an editor you can rely upon and a process that works for you.   Do not expect perfection after a single edit, but instead focus on making your manuscript better with each revision.  Errors might remain, as they do in some traditionally published books produced by top publishing companies.  The key is to embrace writing as an art form that you, with the help of a good editor, continue to perfect with each new novel.

I’ve recently added a new service, especially for my incredibly prolific clients!  Those of you who are mid-way through a multiple book series  may find yourselves in need of a sensible way to keep track of characters, places and events.  I have been working to perfect a series bible format that will make the chore of keeping your stories consistent and harmonious so much easier!  E-mail to request a sample.

What is the difference between a copy edit and a proofread?

Copy editing and proofreading are two sides of the same coin, both important parts of the editing process that are essential to producing a polished manuscript.

Copy editing is the first step in the editing process.  The copy editor often completes several readings of a manuscript, checking for typographical, grammatical, and punctuation errors, but more importantly, making corrections to and comments about the content.  The job of the copy editor is to attend to the “5 C’s”, making certain that the manuscript is clear, correct, concise, consistent, and comprehensible. 

When asked to copy edit a manuscript, I often spend a good deal of time checking historical accuracy, ensuring the consistency of characters, clarifying confusing sentences or even confusing scenes.  I do NOT make stylistic changes or usurp the artistic integrity of the author.  A great copy editor works alongside the author, not dictating but suggesting.

Proofreading is the final step in the editing process. It is the proofreader’s job to complete a final reading of the manuscript, correcting typographical, grammatical and punctuation errors.  By the time the manuscript is ready for the final proof, it has been read several times by several different people and needs nothing more than a final careful check before publication.

If you are e-publishing your manuscript, you may find that after your novel has been formatted, one more read-through is needed to correct “scanning errors” that come about as a computer program readies the document for e-readers.  I call this a “quick clean-up” and offer this service to many of my e-publishing clients.

I’ve just added a new service, especially for all of my authors who are already knee-deep in the process of publishing a manuscript!  For those of you who need nothing more than a quick read-through of a recently scanned manuscript before uploading it as an e-book, this service is for you.  Let me look for scanning and typing errors for you at a reduced rate of .004/word.  This is roughly $200 for a 50,000 word manuscript!

Contact me today to get the ball rolling.

As any good writer knows, even the most powerful story gets better when it is properly and professionally edited. And more importantly, a polished manuscript garners more attention both from mainstream publishing companies and from potential readers of e-published books. No matter which vehicle takes your story to your audience, the brick and mortar bookstore or the digital media marketplace, your readers expect perfection. I can help you deliver a flawless text to your audience.