When one decides to enter the wide world of publishing, she usually has aspirations of becoming a senior editor or marketing coordinator at a large imprint of one of the “Big 5” publishing houses—but what is to be said of the lesser known copy editor?  People don’t realize how integral copy editors are to the publication process of a new book.  Even after a manuscript has been perused over and reworked by an author, an agent, and an editor, there are still flaws that need to be smoothed out.  The copy editor comes in and gets down to the nitty-gritty, fact-checking and ensuring the novel runs smoothly.  It takes a special individual to be a copy editor, someone who is detail-oriented and not afraid to burn the candle at both ends.

Holly Robinson remarks in an article for the Huffington Post, “A copy editor is someone who takes out her bright lamp, microscope and fine-toothed comb. She nit-picks through each one of your pages, catching time transitions that don’t make sense, erroneous spellings, accent marks if one of your characters happens to speak a foreign language, word repetitions, name changes or hair color changes you forgot you made, etc. In other words, the copy editor is a fierce, mistake-seeking hound, nosing around in every dark corner of every paragraph to make sure you get things right.”

To read the article in full, click here.