Book Editing Service

A good book should capture the reader’s attention from start to finish

The process of writing a good book requires a great deal of research and concentration and takes up a considerable amount of time (sometimes months or even years). Consequently, authors can inadvertently make errors in the text and overlook grammatical and structural requirements. This can cause readers to ‘switch off’, and a publisher will not be impressed by such errors. Therefore, it is essential to get a second pair of eyes to look through your manuscript. This is where our professional, high-quality, and affordable Book Editing Service can help you.  

What can we offer?

In this service, our team of experienced editors, all of whom are writers themselves, will meticulously scrutinise your book, novel, play, or any other script. In addition to a thorough review of grammar, punctuation, and spelling, they will consider two additional elements: your choice of words and the way in which you have structured your sentences.
We always respect your style as an author, and would never intentionally change this; therefore, the suggestions and changes we introduce will not affect your style of writing, presentation of ideas, tone, or the overall structure.  

Unsure about using our service? Then send us a 100/200 word sample which we will edit free of charge so that you can see for yourself the quality of our work. 

What exactly will we do? 

1) Grammar check

Our editors will check for, and correct, grammatical errors in relation to the following:

a) Subject-verb agreement, e.g. ‘the list of items is on the desk’ (singular subject), ‘the items are on the desk’ (plural subject)

b) Conjunctions (and, but, or)

c) Use of tenses – misuse or inconsistent use can often be extremely confusing for the reader

d) Modifiers (should be correctly placed in a sentence), possessive adjectives or pronouns (mine, yours, theirs, whose), incorrect use of split infinitives, e.g. ‘they decided to not go back there again’ and double negatives, e.g. ‘he did not have no friends’

f) Ambiguous referents such as ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’, ‘it’
g) Use of capitalisation (this should be appropriate and consistent) 

2) Spelling

We will check your spelling for any errors and correct them. This includes errors commonly made in relation to:

(a) Words that are commonly confused, such as accept/except, that/which, lose/loose, than/then

(b) Use of proper names, e.g. Barack Obama, London, Monday

(c) Typos (these often occur when the text is typed quickly), a common example of which is writing ‘form’ instead of ‘from’

(d) Consistency in the use of American/British English (whichever you require) and variants thereof 

3) Punctuation

Correct punctuation makes the text easier to read, whereas bad punctuation makes reading difficult and, in worst case scenarios, can even change the intended meaning. We especially focus on (mis)use of the following:

(a) Commas – excessive, inappropriate, or non-existent use can seriously impact the meaning of your work

(b) Colons and Semi-Colons -the former indicates something will follow, like a list, while the latter joins two independent clauses together, e.g. ‘I walked down the stairs with care; they were slippery’

(c) Double/single quotation marks – the convention is to include all quotes within single-quotation marks. Double quotation marks are used for a quote within a quote, e.g. ‘My wife came into the kitchen and said “I think it’s going to rain”. I ignored her’.

(d) Apostrophes – common issues are confusion over the use of ‘its (possessive)/it’s (it is)’; unnecessary use, e.g. 1970’s, customer’s; and distinguishing between singular and plural possession, e.g. ‘the dog’s dinner (one dog), the dogs’ dinner (more than one dog)’ 

4) Word choice

In English, some words have a greater impact than others; and there are words that fit certain purposes more than others do, or convey the meaning in a better and more succinct way. We therefore check the impact of words and whether they are the most appropriate ones to use. We will also suggest more ‘dynamic’ alternatives to words that are often used excessively and make the text uninspiring and dull to read. These include over-used words such as ‘nice’, ‘good’, ‘many’, ‘very’, ‘shows’, and ‘important’. 

5) Sentence structure

A recurring problem we often encounter in book editing is what we call run-on sentences, that is, sentences which are excessively long. These can be extremely confusing for the reader who may sometimes have to read them more than once in order to get the meaning. When our editors come across such sentences, they restructure them and split them into shorter sentences so that they are easier to read.

Conversely, we sometimes come across sentences that are too short, resulting in a type of staccato effect where the text does not flow naturally from one idea to another. In these cases, we change the structure so that the text flows better. This includes using effective 'linking’ sentences between paragraphs so that there is a natural flow to the text.

However, please remember that we will not intentionally change your style. If you think we have done so, please return the text to us, explaining what we have done and we will amend the text accordingly.

Check our Book Proofreading Service