How a developmental edit differs from a copy edit or line edit, and why that matters

I see a lot of publishers and other service companies offering a “developmental edit” for your book manuscript. I’ve seen what a lot of these editors do. In many cases, it’s pretty superficial, and quite far from actual developmental editing.

Developmental editing is about making fundamental improvements to the relationship among the author, the reader, and the meaning of the book. That’s a lot more than just figuring out where textual errors are or tweaking awkward sentences.

So let’s be clear. What is developmental editing, and how does it differ from copy editing and line editing?

Comparing three levels of editing

Copy editing is essential for any manuscript before it goes into page layout and production. A copy editor will find grammatical errors, spelling errors, inconsistencies, areas of ambiguity, and some factual errors. A troubled manuscript going into copy editing will emerge as a polished, perfected version of the same troubled manuscript.

Line editing means a careful examination of the sentences and paragraphs that make up your manuscript. It will solve problems of sentence and paragraph structure and meaning. If your problems are with wording, rather than meaning or overall structure, a line edit will help. But as with copy editing, it won’t get a the root causes of manuscript problems.

Developmental editing tackles more fundamental issues. It includes everything that line editing includes, but also identifies and suggests fixes for problems like these:

• Flaws in the basic idea.
• Lack of clarity about the audience.
• Ineffective titles and subtitles.
• Flawed structure of the overall manuscript (table of contents), with recommended changes.
• Boring, wordy, or unoriginal passages, including why they are problematic.
• Missing elements that interfere with readability and credibility, such as stories or proof points.
• Inconsistencies at the idea level.
• Missed opportunities to be more engaging or convincing.
• Global problems such as repeated words or structures (for example, too many rhetorical questions or a proliferation of inconsistent metaphors).
• Issues with tone (too academic, too informal, too variable).
• Lack of graphics, or inappropriate graphics.
• Fundamental issues in the author’s psyche that are interfering with the book’s effectiveness.

Why developmental editing is expensive

Copy editing and line editing require reading the manuscript from beginning to end and fixing it. For a 50,000 word manuscript, that will cost you thousands of dollars, because such editors have specialized skills.

But good developmental editing on a manuscript that size will likely cost more than $10,000. There are two reasons for that.

First, experienced developmental editors have skills accumulated over many years of reviewing manuscripts and preparing books to succeed. You pay a lot for that level of experience applied to your book.

And second, developmental editing is not linear. You can’t just read the manuscript from start to finish and edit each paragraph. Instead, the editor is looking for patterns and coming up with ideas that many require going back to previous chapters and passages. That’s a bigger and more time-consuming job than line editing or copy editing.

(Incidentally, AI is likely to be able to take on much of what copy editors do. It will be less successful with line editing. But it is unlikely to ever replace true developmental editors, because it has no understanding of meaning and no sense of nuance.)

Even with the higher cost, developmental editing pays benefits. Unless your problems are limited to sentences and paragraphs, line editing is not going to turn an unsuccessful book into a successful one. Developmental editing can do that, because it improves and transforms the relationship among the author, the reader, and the meaning of the book.

That’s a big task that requires a skilled editor. But it can make all the difference in whether a book does the job the author is hoping it will do.