Types of Editing for a Novel: The Six Stages, in Order

Every type of editing answers a different question, and the questions get smaller as you go. Does the story work? Is it built in the right order? Do the sentences do their jobs? Is the book correct, consistent, and clean? You cannot answer a later question until the earlier ones are settled, because the answers change the pages. Cut a subplot and every sentence in it goes too. So the order is not a convention. It is the cheapest way through. Getting the order wrong is also the most expensive mistake in editing, which is why how much a book editor costs is worth reading before you buy any of it.

With Edith the six stages run in that order, and each one starts from the draft you revised in the one before. Stage 1 is the Editorial Review: she reads the whole manuscript, up to 150,000 words, and writes you an editorial letter on what works, what is holding the book back, and where to start, with overview points you discuss with her one at a time. It costs $15 and it is the only stage sold on its own. Stage 2 is developmental editing, the story itself: arc, character, motivation, theme, the emotional shape of the whole. Stage 3 is structural editing, how the book is built: scene order, chapter flow, where it drags or rushes.

Then the work moves down to the prose. Stage 4 is line editing, which Edith calls Stylistic Editing: clarity, rhythm, and voice, sentence by sentence, read against a written description of how your book sounds. Stage 5 is copyediting: grammar, punctuation, usage, and a style sheet so the book agrees with itself from the first page to the last. Stage 6 is proofreading, the last clean pass for the slips that survive everything else. When it is signed off, the book is done.

Two things hold across all six. The first is that she never writes a word of the book for you. In Stages 1 to 4 the notes arrive as cards tied to the passage, which you accept, decline, or talk through; in Stages 5 and 6 the changes arrive as tracked changes in your Word file, which you accept or reject. The second is the price: $15 for the Editorial Review, $249 for all six stages with two revision rounds each, the $15 credited toward it if you continue. No subscription; the price is per book.

If you are not sure which stage your book is at, start with the Review. The letter tells you where the manuscript stands, and if the story already works, you have saved yourself the expensive part. If you would rather do a pass yourself first, the self-editing checklist is the same six questions in your own hands. If the book is already finished and you only want the last pass checked, the proofreading checklist is the one to print. If you are unsure whether the draft is ready for any outside read at all, is your novel ready for an editor is the honest test, and why AI forgets the middle of your book explains why a whole-book read is the part most tools skip.