There are four types of editing: copyediting, editorial development, ghostwriting, and proofreading. A copyeditor will do an in-depth edit of the book, cutting, adding, rewriting, suggesting or making changes to entire sections. This is the equivalent of surgery for your writing. An editorial developer will help you write and develop the content for the book. This is not just an editor, but someone who works with an author to actually write the book and create content. A ghostwriter is someone who will write a book for you, where you will act as the editor checking their work and making sure you are happy with the voice and tone. Your name will get put on the cover as author though, and they—the ghostwriter—is anonymous. A proofreader is the most basic form of editor who reviews text to check for grammar, consistency, spelling errors, and typos. Depending on your level of skill and creative drive, you will want someone to edit your written text before you put it out there for the world. To what level of help you and the book need is up to you to assess honestly. Your goals and expectations for the book will often come into play here for how much effort and money you want invest into editing your book.
The Pursuit of Perfection in Writing
In 1952, John Steinbeck published East of Eden. The book has been a commercial success and is considered a classic of American literature. In the first edition, on page 182, there is a typo. The word bite was printed as bight. Why do I bring this up? This is not a slight to John Steinbeck or East of Eden. The book is one of my favorites, and the fact that a typo slipped in to such a prestigious work by one of the most famous authors of the last hundred years somehow makes me like it a bit more. It isn’t perfect. Your book won’t be either. I do not mean to reduce the importance of editing and due diligence here. Editorial work is important. Writing is very personal. The creative act is the act of bringing something into existence that could not exist without you. Many authors I have worked with feel a kinship to their work and writing in a similar manner that a parent feels about a child. You want it to be perfect. Just as with children, as they grow and develop, you realize they are not. For many parents, this acknowledgment is a difficult pill to swallow, and the same can be said for many authors. Perfection is not the goal in creative writing. Beautiful things in life have flaws. Some flaws, or the quantity and sum total of them, can ruin a thing. But I prefer Tolstoy’s view on beauty from War and Peace:
“As is always the case with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect—the shortness of her upper lip and her half-open mouth—seemed to be her own special and peculiar form of beauty.”
Your book will not be perfect, either in writing, story, plot, design, production or—likely—editorial. Do your best, do your due diligence. Avoid errors as much as possible as too many can distract from communicating the story. But my advice is not to strive for perfection. The creative act is not about perfection, and striving for it will likely be costly—both in time and money—and unachievable. The goal of writing is communication. Are you communicating your story—the plot, characters, ideas, and writing—as clearly as possible?