During your self-publishing journey, you may wonder if you need to hire a professional book editor, whether it’s worth the investment. But even the best and most well-known authors have editors. I know that sounds cliché, but it’s true.

As an indie author, you don’t have a traditional publisher taking care of the editing process for you. It’s your responsibility to make sure your book is as error-free as possible before it makes it to readers’ hands.

Between writing, rewriting, marketing, formatting, and everything else, professional book editors help cross one thing off your publishing checklist. Let’s dive deeper into why professional editing matters and when you should look into hiring an editor.

What Does a Professional Book Editor Do?

So, let’s clarify a couple of editing misconceptions.

Editors are not co-writers or ghostwriters.

Editors work on completed drafts. We don’t come up with new ideas, rework plot structures, rewrite scenes, or make creative decisions. We may make suggestions and give advice, but the decisions will always be left to you, the writer.

Editors don’t change your voice.

Your story is supposed to be told how you intended, and editors don’t change that intention. We maintain it. An editor reviews, refines, and corrects what has already been created by you.

A professional editor’s job is to:

• Flag plot hiccups
• Flag confusing sentences
• Improve clarity and flow
• Catch grammar, punctuation, and spelling issues
• Maintain consistency throughout the plot, characters, and word choices

Can’t I Just Edit My Own Book or Get a Beta Reader?

You could do that, but I don’t recommend doing it in place of getting an editor. A trained editor sees issues you’ll often miss because you’re too close to your work. When you’ve spent weeks, months, or even years writing your story, it may be hard to distance yourself from it. You’ve written every single word in that manuscript, and no one knows your book better than you. However, that closeness can cause familiarity blindness.

Familiarity blindness (def.): when you don’t recognize or overlook issues in familiar environments due to becoming so accustomed to them that your brain filters out the details.

Alpha and beta reading are not replacements for professional editing. They are tools used to get subjective feedback, whereas editing provides technical accuracy and clarity. Alpha and beta readers are still a solid choice for helpful and constructive criticism and will help you gauge how your audience reacts to your story.

And don’t rely on grammar checkers alone. Those tools can help, but what they’ll consistently miss? Context, tone, and voice. These are things that just can’t be fixed by a spellchecker or grammar catcher and need a human touch.

Editing affects reviews, word-of-mouth, and author reputation. A well-edited book builds trust in you as an author. When your book is riddled with errors, it will cause a bad reading experience for your potential reader base, and you definitely don’t want that.

When Should I Hire a Professional Book Editor?

Once you’ve written your draft, revised it multiple times, and have gotten your manuscript as far as you can take it, it’ll be time to make some inquiries. Be sure to keep your deadline in mind. You never want to wait until the last minute, as editing can take weeks.

What type of book editing do I need?

The main four types of editing are:

• Developmental editing
• Line editing
• Copyediting
• Proofreading

Each stage helps your manuscript in different ways. Developmental editing looks at the big picture. Line editing looks at the sentence level and how your words flow. Copyediting takes care of the grammar and punctuation. And proofreading is one last look to make sure everything is as it should be.

You definitely don’t need all four. Editing is an expensive step in the publishing process. If you can’t afford all four, you’ll have to see which type you think your story will benefit the most from. If you’re not sure, learn more about what type of editing your book may need, or take advantage of a sample edit. A sample edit can give you insight into what you need to work on.

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It can be scary giving your manuscript over to someone else. But your editor is here to collaborate with and help you. We want what you want: to put out a great story that you are proud of.

If you’re ready to take that next step, grab a free sample edit or look into my book editing services to get your manuscript closer to publishing.

Happy writing!