Book Editing - An Important Role in the Publication Industry
Book publication is a very big deal today with more and more people reading fiction as well as nonfiction. You may be a very good writer, but is a totally different ball game. "It is absolutely essential for the book to be a good piece of literature in the increasingly perfectionist world, especially for nonfiction works" says HG Nadel an author and screenplay writer. Book editing is best done by professional editors called copyeditors. There are many reasons for this, and they don't make the author's ability to write look crass. It is noticed is not done too well by the original authors. It's worth the money to get your manuscript copyedited, even if it is a self-publication. Freelance editors often copyedit books.
Copyediting refers to improve the quality of the manuscript with respect to grammatical correctness, political correctness, punctuation, terminology and factual correctness in the case of nonfiction work, while keeping the meaning untouched. The thing with book editing is that the author usually gets too attached to the matter he or she has written which impairs his or her ability to think practically about it as a work of literature to be read by many people. That is why, many good book editors don't edit their own books, and it's just not good practice to have a whole work of art or science get done by a single person.
It is one step below proofreading. This is so because editing can bring in many typographical errors into the manuscript, since someone playing around with already-written words is liable to make a bad change somewhere. Book editing is also essential for publishing houses since their copyeditors work to bring the manuscript up to some particular standards and styles maintained by the house.
There can be various kinds of book editing. Hard editing refers to significant changes being made in the manuscript. For example entire paragraphs may be reframed, keeping the meaning constant, so as to explain the concept better. Often manuscripts may contain redundant matter which needs to be edited out, or people would rather read a book which is shorter than what the manuscript is. Here is where book editing is very important. The author, being the one who's expressing, has no idea what people will think on reading his book. Thus the copyeditor is his key to the rest of the world.
Technical edits are also often required, especially but not limited to works of nonfiction. For example, computer codes and algorithms in computer science texts need to be checked. However, usually there is so much code in a book that authors have to rely on reader feedback in this case. Book editing for facts requires the editor to be an expert in the field of concern of the book.
Book editing does not complete the job of making a final manuscript. All typographic errors, grammatical mistakes and unintended mistakes which are easy to escape book editing are to be removed by proofreaders. Proofreading is just the act of correcting small mistakes. There is no question of juggling around any words here. A final manuscript is obtained after thorough proofreading.
Copyediting refers to improve the quality of the manuscript with respect to grammatical correctness, political correctness, punctuation, terminology and factual correctness in the case of nonfiction work, while keeping the meaning untouched. The thing with book editing is that the author usually gets too attached to the matter he or she has written which impairs his or her ability to think practically about it as a work of literature to be read by many people. That is why, many good book editors don't edit their own books, and it's just not good practice to have a whole work of art or science get done by a single person.
It is one step below proofreading. This is so because editing can bring in many typographical errors into the manuscript, since someone playing around with already-written words is liable to make a bad change somewhere. Book editing is also essential for publishing houses since their copyeditors work to bring the manuscript up to some particular standards and styles maintained by the house.
There can be various kinds of book editing. Hard editing refers to significant changes being made in the manuscript. For example entire paragraphs may be reframed, keeping the meaning constant, so as to explain the concept better. Often manuscripts may contain redundant matter which needs to be edited out, or people would rather read a book which is shorter than what the manuscript is. Here is where book editing is very important. The author, being the one who's expressing, has no idea what people will think on reading his book. Thus the copyeditor is his key to the rest of the world.
Technical edits are also often required, especially but not limited to works of nonfiction. For example, computer codes and algorithms in computer science texts need to be checked. However, usually there is so much code in a book that authors have to rely on reader feedback in this case. Book editing for facts requires the editor to be an expert in the field of concern of the book.
Book editing does not complete the job of making a final manuscript. All typographic errors, grammatical mistakes and unintended mistakes which are easy to escape book editing are to be removed by proofreaders. Proofreading is just the act of correcting small mistakes. There is no question of juggling around any words here. A final manuscript is obtained after thorough proofreading.
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