Questions about proof readers

[Opus17]

Hi all,

I'm new on this board but I've been writing a while. I've got two books in progress right now. Both historical fiction. My first book is coming up to 400 pages, 114,000 words. It's coming to the end. I need to do a rewrite myself but once that's done, is the next step a proofreader? How do you go about finding someone? What's a reasonable price to pay for a book around 420 pages? Should you protect your work before sending it out to people and what's the best way to do this?

If anyone could help me with some advice I'd be very grateful! Google throws up lots of different advice, it's helpful to hear about personal experiences

Thanks everyone

It depends on what you'd like to do with the finished manuscript. Are you thinking of sending it round to agents, with a view to traditional print publication? Or are you planning to self-publish on e.g. Kindle?

You don’t need a proofreader until the final stage pre-publication. But you might very well need a good structural editor, or thorough copy-editor, or both.

What are your hopes for the book? Where do you want to send it when you’re finished?

114,000 words is quite hefty, so it won’t be cheap for someone good. But again, depends on what you need.

Don’t tell people it’s 420 pages, always give the word count, much easier for people to estimate.

All you need to do to ‘protect’ it is stick a “copyright Opus17, 2021” on the document somewhere. Writers often worry about this but honestly, it’s very rare to have your work ‘stolen’ at all - and ridiculously hard to prove if it was - so don’t overthink that.

@Squiblet I'd like to send it around agents to see if I have a chance of getting it published. Not sure it's good enough but think it's worth a try.

@NoSquirrels thanks for the advice about the copyright, that's very helpful. I'd like to send the final copy around agents, just to see if there's any chance of it being published. I really have no idea if it's good enough but I'd certainly like to try.

I'm a proofreader and I use a couple of 'middle man' websites: Upwork and Reedsy. That way both sides are protected if anything goes wrong, although you would pay a fee to them (and they take a cut from what I earn). But like pp I think it's very unlikely that anything untoward will happen to your text if it's unprotected.

You can look for professionals on those type of sites (Reedsy vets its pros before allowing them on, so you get a better class of editor/proofreader guaranteed, whereas Upwork is more of a free-for-all, but you can check people's ratings and reviews for reassurance).

Also agree that it's usually a per-word calculation – a book as long as yours would be upwards of £800 for a proper proofread ime.

Congratulations on your writing, and good choice of genre!

Agree with NoSquirrels, you don't need to get it proofread if you're sending it round to agents (unless your spelling is so awful that it's unreadable!).

If you're just starting out, you might want to commission a manuscript critique, or assessment, or report - lots of different names for it, but it's basically where a professional editor sends you some detailed feedback. Based on what they say, you may decide to go back and do another draft.

Copy-editing only happens once you're absolutely certain you're done messing about with the MS. And it's not always essential if you're submitting to agents - it depends on how good your writing is naturally.

There are lots of professional editors out there. I'd recommend browsing the CIEP listings as a first step. Or you country's own editors' association, if you're not in the UK.

I'm an editor and proofreader.

Proofreading tends to be the last editorial step before a book is published. First you may need a MS critique or a developmental edit. You'll definitely need a copyedit.

Have you had any beta readers? That might be a good first step.

If you're hoping to be picked up by an agent, you may not need to worry about professional editing first, though some of my clients ask me to polish the first three chapters/10k of a book to send to an agent.

If you're self publishing, I'd suggest a MS critique then a copyedit. The first will pick up any 'bigger picture' issues with your book, if there are any. Copyediting focuses on the text at a sentence level, ensuring consistency of SPaG as well as consistent POV, tenses, timeline, checking that plot threads are tied up, that language is appropriate for the era you're writing about, that everything make sense and your text flows well.

Ask an editor for a sample edit of 1000 words so you can see how they'd edit your book. That's really important.

I'd check out the CIEP Directory for trained, qualified editors/proofreaders - www.ciep.uk/directory/directory-search - using the keywords 'historical fiction'. .

Costs will vary. I'd expect to edit about 2,000 words per hour for an indie author, so that's 57 hours for a book of 114k. The CIEP's suggested minimum rate is about £26/hour for copyediting, IIRC, so a good editor won't be cheap.

Have you joined ALLi? V good for indie authors: www.allianceindependentauthors.org/

Good luck! If you have any questions, do PM me.

Hi everyone,

Apologies for the late reply, my son's sleep has been killing me this week and I've only been sporadically on MN.

@IsabelleSE19 thank you so much for the website recommendations, they are helpful. I didn't realise something like that even existed. And thanks for the estimate in how much it would cost, I had a feeling it wouldn't be cheap lol. And thank you! I just love historical fiction.

@Squiblet Thanks for the advice, that's good to know it doesn't need proof-read immediately and I can just send it around once I'm finished. But I will look into the link you sent and think about getting some professional feedback from an editor.

@thelastgoldeneagle I have a couple people willing to be beta readers but they are family / friends so I'm not entirely sure they would be honest in their critique (although they would be with grammar / spelling). That's really great advice, thank you so much. It's good to have a way forward, I like the idea of sending an editor my first few chapters first and going from there. I think I'll start with that after I've finished then done my re-write. And I will look at that link for indie authors!

Thanks again to everyone taking the time to reply to me. I feel like I have more of an idea of my next steps now. I have to do the re-write first anyway, but then look into the options here and decide the next steps - but I think I'll definitely send the first few chapters to an editor to be checked over before attempting to contact agents.