DON'T.
Reedsy defines five types of editing: editorial assessment, developmental editing, copy editing, proofreading, and fact-checking.
For my manuscript, I choose copy editing, defined by Reedsy as, "Line-level edits to refine voice, maintain consistency, and improve clarity." Click here to see the full list and descriptions.
Reedsy recommends copy editing if you already have a strong story and are looking to improve your prose. Four Dogs and a Small Town, in my opinion, is a very strong story and I wasn't looking for improving my prose so much as I was looking for correct formatting, although I really appreciated the copy editor's suggestions.
Punctuation is not my strong point. I rely heavily - much too heavily - on ems, and I have an unfortunate tendency to type abbreviated words (unintentionally) that require some guesswork on the part of the reader (thr..does she mean the, or their, or through? Commence resorting to contextual clues.) I know this, and I wanted an experienced set of professional eyes scouring my manuscript that would see what was actually there, not what I thought was there.
Don't be discouraged by this, but, upon receiving my edited manuscript, I have over 5,000 Comments & Changes. Granted, all but 62 of those were corrections to punctuation and spacing, but still.
My editors suggestion that I address the content comments first, and then do a mass Accept on the others, was a very good one, and one that I will follow on my next manuscript. But, since this is my first rodeo, I was determined to review every single change so I could get an idea of where my weaknesses were most prominent and then work on them in the future.
Apparently, I have difficulty in the use of towards versus toward. The rule (I looked it up) for usage is stated that both mean exactly the same thing, but toward is the preferred American usage, and towards is the preferred British usage. What can I say, I read a lot of British authors.
As far as the editorial comments, I found most of them helpful in terms of clarification for the reader. I knew what I meant, but I needed to spell it out in more detail in the manuscript so the reader would also know what I meant. When you work on the same story for a while, all the time accepting/rejecting possible ways and means to the final outcome, it's easy (at least in my case) to forget what I ultimately included or discarded along the way. That other pair of eyes, the ones with no preconceptions, will pick those Huh? moments out right away.
Right now, after finishing my review, I'm working with a graphic artist on the cover. I will be going back and fine-tooth combing the manuscript again, this time more for appearance before I attempt to load it onto a publishing platform.
While waiting on the cover, I am reviewing categories for both KDP and IngramSpark, and will be purchasing ISBNs in the coming week.
I'll let you know how it goes.
