3 Steps to Edit Your Manuscript Professionally Now

“Edit your manuscript until your fingers bleed and you have memorized every last word. Then, when you are certain you are on the verge of insanity… edit one more time!”
―CK Webb

Need to know how to edit your manuscript? The editing process has three different steps:

1. Developmental,
2. Substantive, and
3. Copy Editing.

Unfortunately, most amateur writers only lightly copy edit their work, or do a quick proofread (which is a different stage of the publishing process). This results in a poorly written publication, that won’t generate the much hoped for sales of books. Poor grammar, spelling, and punctuation is a turn-off for readers. Consequently, authors who don’t respect the editing process are considered amateur, and attract bad reviews (if any).

We know you don’t want to appear amateur with your writing, do you? Therefore, it is important to understand the different stages of editing, and why you need to hire a professional editor.

What is Editing?

In layman’s terms, an editor takes your document and removes most of the flaws. As a result, it becomes a valuable piece of content for your business.

Most importantly, the editor ensures that the writer’s ideas are clearly communicated to their reader. Therefore editors work closely with writers.

Firstly, they help develop the written material.

Then they make changes to improve the text so that it is engaging and easy to understand.

Finally, a professional editor polishes the content so it is ready for publication. 

Therefore, you must ensure that you look for editors who have the skills to retain your unique voice as the author.

As previously mentioned, the professional editing process has three steps—developmental, substantive and copy editing. This is how we work with our clients using Deb Donnell‘s Diamond Publishing System™.

1. Developmental Editing

First of all, our editor grades your content for quality. Developmental editing is recommended when the writing requires signification restructuring. Possibly you’ll plan and restructure the text to establish a clear message and call to action. You will be working closely with our editor through this step. If your content needs significant work, you’ll probably be asked to rewrite it more than once.

Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it. . . .
—Michael Crichton

2. Substantive Editing

Next, the substantive editor goes through the document line by line. As a result, they make changes to the text which improves clarity, logic and flow. This cuts out repetition and wordy sentences which may confuse the reader. You may also have heard this stage referred to as Line Editing.

Writing without revising is the literary equivalent of waltzing gaily out of the house in your underwear.
—Patricia Fuller

3. Copy Editing

Lastly, the copy editor improves the formatting, style and accuracy of the content prior to it being typeset. Additional grammar, punctuation and spelling errors are located and corrected. Finally, the facts in your work are checked, and any potential legal issues are addressed.

How to Edit Your Manuscript

Learn more about how to edit your manuscript yourself, as well as the publishing process with Deb Donnell’s book, Creating Published Diamonds. You can also get training from our other company, KESWiN™ Academy.  Professional editing takes time. Shortcut the process, and the cost, by investing in your developing your writing and editing skills.

“I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”
—Blaise Pascal, French Mathematician and Philosopher, 1623-1662

Is a Tool Like Grammarly Helpful?

Our founder, Deb Donnell, was actually a beta tester of the Grammarly grammar and spelling tool back in its early days (2009-2010). It was originally designed to help students write and communicate more effectively, and avoid plagiarism. It has now expanded into being an effective tool to give predominantly non-writers the confidence to write professionally in the education, corporate, government and business worlds. 

As non-native English speakers, they [the three Grammarly co-founders] understood the challenges of avoiding unnecessary mistakes when writing anything from research papers to professional emails. “It just takes an incredible amount of time, effort and psychological pressure to take your thoughts and put them in writing,” says Lytvyn, 44. “It is genuinely difficult … So we decided to make it easier.”

CNBC Article 28 January 2025

Essentially we have watched Grammarly grow up into its current iteration (which now relies heavily on AI). And while we occasionally use it (with the permission of our clients), it is mainly as a tool for copy editing, and only to verify any recommended changes we make. While it’s come quite a way since 2009, it still doesn’t replace your creativity, unique voice, or the skill of a professional editor, especially at the Developmental and Substantive stages.

It is also important to note that Grammarly, with it’s AI component, relies on user content for the learning and development of it as an effective text analytical tool (it is a large language model, which have benefits and risks attached to them). So if you do choose to upload content and use it, make sure you have permission to do this, otherwise you may be breaching copyright and intellectual property laws.

The license you give us allows us to—solely for the purposes outlined above—store, reproduce, use, publish, and publicly display (to show your User Content to you), modify, and create derivative works of (such as providing writing suggestions and autocorrecting words) your User Content. The license you give us also permits our service providers to assist us in doing this.

Grammarly does not own, control, verify, or endorse User Content. You are responsible for all of your User Content. That means you should back up all your User Content and not do anything illegal or harmful with it (including violate any intellectual property or trade secret laws).

Grammarly Terms of Service (Bold emphasis ours)

Grammarly’s Terms of Service are similar to all other Cloud based services and digital sharecropping platforms. They rely on you uploading your content and data to their servers, and granting them and their service providers (unknown third parties) a license to pretty much do what they want with your content and data. 

Therefore we suggest that if you use Grammarly, you do so with caution—accept the changes that make sense to you, and discard or ignore the rest. And delete the content when you have finished, rather than store it there. You can learn more about Grammarly here and even sign up through our affiliate link if you think this is a useful tool for you.

Engage Our Editors for a Professional Outcome

Our mission at KESWiN Publishing Services is to empower you to communicate with clarity, succinctness, and the passion that burns within you.

When you hire us to edit your manuscript or other content, our editors take your content through the three steps of editing. Above all, they work closely with you, retaining the original meaning, tone and voice of your writing. Most importantly, they are qualified and experienced experts who are committed to protecting your intellectual property and copyrights.

Therefore, if you are working on a manuscript you consider valuable, then contact us now to discuss how we can help you edit your manuscript professionally. Our minimum charge for assessment and editing is NZ$50.00 plus GST (if applicable).

Our team help individuals, micro and small business owners, and mid-market clients across the globe to transform non-fiction writing rocks into published diamonds. We can help you do this too.