Professional editing brings sparkle, readability, and reader attraction to your book. Editors help you polish your manuscript and enhance such aspects as structure, grammar, flow, consistency, and style. Some or all of the following types of editing may be included:

Developmental Editing: Focused on the overall picture, i.e., structure, timing, character development, and plot. That your novel is well constructed and emotionally engaging.

Copy Editing: It is accountable for sentence structure, punctuation, grammar, and word selection. It is the editing process that produces language free of mistakes, concise, and accurate.

Proofreading: Last stage in editing process, where manuscript is read to detect small errors like typos, spelling errors, and formatting. Professional editing of your book is a seal of approval that your book is of top-notch quality, press-ready, and well placed to attract readers as well as industry professionals.

Yes, you can self-publish a book and avoid the editor, but it’s rarely worth it. Even bestsellers are professionally edited. An editor brings your writing into trim, tidies up inconsistencies or errors, and buffs the finished book to shine for readers. Omitting the editing process can impact the readability, credibility, and reviews of the book particularly in an open market.

The “publishing editor” would more naturally be used for the person employed by a publishing firm and responsible for the process of editing, i.e., commissioning books, dealing with authors, and meeting deadlines. They might or might not edit themselves.