Somehow I managed to finish the massive editing project without skipping sleep or too many meals. Go me!

In a typical month, I do a variety of projects. Usually I’ll have a proofread or two, a nonfiction project, and some novels. Each project is different, obviously, but the requirements of my job vary depending on the type of project I’m working on.

First, the standard disclaimer: this is how I work. Not everyone works the same way. If you disagree with me, fine, but please don’t start a debate here. If you’re interested in how I do things, read on; if you’re wanting to discuss how things “should” be done, please do so elsewhere.

Proofreading
I find proofreading to be extremely liberating. As a rule, by the time a book goes into page proofs (especially blue lines), it’s expensive to make any changes, which means I only focus on things that are actually wrong.

If I’m doing a true proofread, I get the manuscript with all copy editing marks and the galleys (typeset pages). During the first pass, I check the formatting of the galleys (headers, footers, chapter formatting, front and back matter) and make sure that all the editor’s changes were entered into the manuscript. Then I do a second read-through just to make sure there’s nothing I’ve missed. Each change must be marked pe/ea (printer error/editorial alteration).

Sometimes I’ll get a PDF or printout of the typeset manuscript, and then I’m doing a cold read to look for mistakes that were not caught during editing. It’s not a true proofread in the sense that I don’t have a marked-up copy to compare the pages to, but it’s the same step in the overall process.

When I’m doing a proofread I can ignore things like dangling modifiers or things I might have done a bit differently. At this stage in the game, there’s no room for “well, this works, but it would be better if . . .” That’s not a proofreader’s job. The proofreader’s job is to catch actual errors, be they errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, (in the case of fiction) continuity, or (in the case of nonfiction) graphics, charts, tables, page number references, and the like. The publisher is relying on the proofreader’s judgment to make the necessary corrections without incurring too many additional charges for unnecessary changes.

Oh – and one of the most important things to remember is that the proofreader is working with the typeset pages with the full front and back matter. The proofreader is responsible for checking page headers and footers, chapter breaks and formatting, page breaks and formatting, and line breaks and formatting–the things that only show up on the typeset pages (not on pages printed out from a word processor). The publisher is relying on the proofreader to catch any errors that are introduced during the process of typesetting, so a proofreader who only checks the actual text of the manuscript for errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation is doing about a third of the job.

Fiction Editing
As I mentioned above, what I’m expected to do depends on the publisher, the author, and the project. Sometimes I work with an author to completely rework a manuscript, other times I’m doing a straight copy edit. A substantive edit deals with plotting, characterization, pacing, and the overall story, and requires a good relationship with the author as we will be working together very closely. When I’m doing a copy edit, I may or may not have any contact with the author. In that case, my focus is on the paragraph, sentence, and word level: fixing errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation; making sure the manuscript is consistent with the publisher’s style guide; making sure the details of plot, characterization, and descriptions are all consistent.

Nonfiction Editing
Most of the nonfiction editing I’ve done has been academic monographs and/or textbooks, which is very different from fiction editing. I wouldn’t say it’s easier or harder, it’s just that my focus is completely different. I’m still doing the same things in terms of fixing errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation; making sure the manuscript is consistent with the publisher’s style guide. However, I’ve also got to do a lot more fact-checking to ensure that anything stated as fact can be verified as such. Nonfiction books tend to have a lot more charts, graphs, illustrations, tables, and appendices, which must be verified as being correct and in agreement with all in-text references to them. There’s usually a table of contents which may have units and subunits that must all be checked against the table of contents, and against each other for consistency in formatting. And then there are the indexes. Sometimes I’m just asked to do a spot-check, say fifteen or twenty entries per page, to make sure the page references are correct. But other times, I must go through the index line by line to verify every page reference, and if I’m really lucky I then have to go through the manuscript to make sure everything mentioned in the text appears in the index. Nonfiction editing requires a lot more attention to that kind of detail than does fiction editing; the tradeoff is I don’t really have to remember what happened on the previous page, or the page before that, because there’s usually no overarching story that I have to keep track of.

Anthology editing
Once the stories are all selected, anthology editing is almost a hybrid of fiction and nonfiction editing. Each piece has to be internally consistent, but then the whole work has to be consistent as well. Then there’s the issue of how to order the pieces. Sometimes, particularly in nonfiction, they can be grouped chronologically or according to subject matter. In fiction anthologies, on the other hand, sometimes it’s better to separate the pieces that are similar, so I keep careful track of details in each story so that I know how they are the same and how they differ.

Tools of the Trade
Four of them: a dictionary (usually specified by the publisher so that spelling will be consistent throughout the publisher’s entire catalog); a style guide (often a major style guide such as The Chicago Manual of Style, AP, APA, or MLA, supplemented by an in-house guide or even a project-specific guide); a style sheet, and a red pencil.

A style sheet is prepared by the editor that includes, but is not limited to:

- queries to the author and/or publisher;

- timeline;

- list of characters and their relationships and descriptions;

- spelling of words, including hyphenated and compound words, trademarks, and proper nouns (basically anything you look up or that needs to be verified and/or consistent throughout);

- references to the style guide (to show why something is formatted the way it is)

The style sheet follows the manuscript through proofreading so the proofreaders will know the conventions that were followed on each project.

Hard Copy vs. Electronic Editing
Depending on the publisher, I may or may not have a choice in how I edit. Some publishers send me a printed copy that I mark up and return to them. The style sheet is especially important for these projects because I don’t have the luxury of running a search-and-replace on the electronic file; I have to locate and mark each instance in the printout, and keep track of what I’ve done.

That being said, even if I do get an electronic copy, I almost always print it out and work on the hard copy. I find that I do a better job editing on paper than I do on a computer screen. Not only that, but it’s more portable and it’s a lot easier on my eyes and my back because I’m not stuck at a desk in front of a monitor. I almost always use a red pencil because it shows up so much better than any other color. If I have the electronic file, I might make a note in the margin of a printout to do a GS&R (global search and replace), but that’s mainly as a backup in case I miss an instance as I’m reading the manuscript.

The exception to this is a short story that I know is fairly clean. If it’s ten pages or shorter, sometimes I’ll edit the electronic copy directly. But that’s pretty rare.

When I proofread, I always work from a hard copy. The pages have been designed to be read on paper, and how the pages look is as important as what’s on them. I need to be able to see whether the last lines on facing pages line up, that page-dependent formatting lines up properly, and that word and letter spacing is correct. This is extremely difficult to do on a computer screen even though my monitor is big enough to show facing pages at 100%.

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Stacia Seaman