Editing your book is a must. When you publish at your own expense, you have the right to technically publish what you want, whether it’s a first draft or an edited product.
But if you want to get your book done, if you want to write a living book, you need to professionally edit a book.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to pay huge sums to top editors. Some independent writers argue that if you can’t afford a good editor, you shouldn’t bother with publishing, but this advice is a bit exclusive and strict. Even if you’re asked for cash, professionally editing a book or hiring a friend is better than nothing.
That sounds like a lot, and as the phrase “writing is rewriting” means, professionally editing a book definitely takes some time. However, it won’t last forever. Let us learn the steps of professionally editing a book:
Professionally editing a book: How long does it
Readers expect sophisticated products
Most readers are accustomed to reading traditionally published books and occasionally throw indie when someone recommends it. Traditionally published books maintain certain editorial standards. No, traditionally published books are not meant to be good.
However, traditionally published books are always edited for technical quality control. You won’t find any syntax errors, the consistency is more or less solid, and the structure is usually not a complete disaster.
This is because publishers professionally edit a book that is technical. Publishers have specific rulebooks that they use to keep their books consistent. For perfect content, you can hire book writers.
Complete characters and themes
The first draft is to plan what happens in the story and see how everyone ends up. Revised editions allow you to take ideas from the first draft and expand on them.
This means that all the themes and characters will be revamped. If the ending doesn’t exactly match the theme you want, the editor will help you fix it. If your character isn’t growing or seems to stand out, you can use the editor to learn how to remove or make it interesting.
Basically, you take the weak elements of the book and strengthen them. Editing helps sharpen themes and characters to make them as compact and unique as possible!
Every book is different, and every editor is different. It may take twice as long as expected to complete a development edit. Alternatively, the proof can be changed to another copy edit. It’s just a time frame to keep things in sight. Allow a little extra time when planning your publishing schedule, so you don’t miss out on development and editing for longer than expected.
Editors should be able to get a rough estimate of how the book will work based on sample edits and word counts. You might not always be able to stick to this time frame, but don’t be afraid to ask what time frame you should expect.
Development editing
Also, some books require more work than others, so there is no hard answer to this. However, as a rough estimate, the longer side should take about 6 months to develop and edit.
This may sound long, but keep it in mind. It will be revised over time. You may have submitted your manuscript to your editor multiple times to get things right, which may all take time.
Structural editing
Structural editing is often done concurrently with extended editing, as story development often has a lot to do with pacing and structural approach. They are very similar, and you should expect a similar time frame of around 4-6 months, but this usually happens at the same time as developing edits.
Line editing
According to an editor, an average novel of about 90,000 words takes about 4-7 weeks to edit a line. This may take some time, depending on the length of the manuscript and the severity of the errors found in the prose. It depends on the actual situation.
Proofreading
Finally, proofread! This should be the fastest step in the process, but it will still take some time.