What’s going on with your book, once it goes to the publisher? What happens when it gets to editing? Since that time, oh so long ago, that your book proposal was sold to a publisher and your contract was agreed and signed, there has been an awful lot of back and forth between you and them about content. Now you’ve written the last page and your finished book has been delivered to the editor. You can sit back and relax now, can’t you? Sorry, but no. Your work is now going into the first phase of becoming a fully-fledged book ready for publishing and you need to be on hand to deal with any problems that arise.

How Your Book is Edited

This is where your editor speaks up – a lot. You and your editor are going to be working together quite closely now to ensure you get a final product that is agreeable to both of you. Depending on what the production schedule is, how long each stage takes is going to vary. And don’t forget, your editor doesn’t just have you as a client; he or she has got dozens and plenty of meetings to attend in between.

You could end up waiting at least a month for some feedback on one chapter and then find that you only have two days to rewrite it in. Of course, it can happen the other way around as well. And, depending on what the feedback is and how many changes need to be made, you may have more or less contact with your editor. Generally, though, this is what happens.

You submit your manuscript as per your contractual agreement – this will often be called a “first pass” manuscript.

The editor will go through the manuscript and provide comments – these may be brief, they may be extensive. This is known as a “developmental edit” and many good editors will already have done this with each chapter or so before the manuscript is finished. These comments may request you to add text, remove text, clarify a point, change the order of chapters, and so on. Revisions can be electronically submitted, printed or a mixture of both. In either case, there is one master copy and no revisions will be lost or duplicated.

The manuscript comes back to you to make the requested changes and then you submit again – the “second pass” manuscript. If you are expected to provide artwork, it should be ready for submission now and you will be provided with guidelines on how to submit it so it goes in the right place for electronic art. This also ensures that any original art is returned to you.

The editor will now line-edit your manuscript – it will be gone over line by line, thoroughly. If there are additional changes to be made, you will get the manuscript back, make the changes, answer any questions and so on and then return the final manuscript with a disk copy and any final art back to the editor.

If the editor is happy, your manuscript will be accepted and this means they can pay you! Congratulations, most of your work is now done and it's down to sales and marketing to do their job once the book goes into print.