Ever wonder what your book editor’s process looks like? At Cypress Editorial, each round of editing follows a structured approach, ensuring your manuscript gets the attention it deserves.
Once the contract has been signed, I begin the administrative (i.e., scheduling invoices) and project management tasks to keep me organized. In the latter, I map out short- and long-term goals, from how many pages per day to when I’ll complete the project. This helps me ensure smooth operations and that there’s plenty of time to check over my work and craft an editorial letter and style sheet (when applicable).
I typically work on one or two large projects at once, as well as some smaller projects. This might mean I spend half the day on one book, then the other half on the next.
As I read, I incorporate in-text edits and comments via Word track changes. I also create a style sheet for the relevant edits, which helps me track the author’s style choices and ensure consistency. As I’m incredibly thorough, it generally takes weeks to get through the entirety of a manuscript.
To ensure alignment with industry standards, I refer to Merriam Webster (the standard dictionary for US English) and The Chicago Manual of Style (which contains standardized rules for grammar, punctuation, and more).
For developmental edits, the focus is on the in-text comments as opposed to the in-text edits, and there’s extensive outlining and notetaking along the way so I can be sure to address all elements that need to be developed.
Once I’ve gone through the pages, I do an additional read to ensure my comments are comprehensive and clear, and I review any line edits to ensure nothing’s missed. From there, I work on the editorial letter, which contextualizes my suggestions and explains them in depth.
Throughout the project, I provide frequent updates, though I save more fully fledged thoughts for the end, once I have a sense of the work at large. Free follow-ups meetings are available upon request, and questions are always encouraged.
I hope this gives you a sense of Cypress Editorial’s process for each round of editing. Please follow for subsequent articles on the different stages of the editing process, which occur in this order: developmental edit, line edit, copy edit, proofread.
Let me know what questions you have about the editorial process, and I’ll be glad to address them.
Cypress Editorial 
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