I Just Learned the Difference Between an Editor and a Copy Editor

We’ve had a house full of people for the last week and it’s been so lovely — our older kids, and nieces, and boyfriends, and friends. We didn’t celebrate the 4th because we had school that day (obviously, July 4th is not a holiday in France), and weren’t really feeling it anyway. But yesterday was the last day of school, so we celebrated the official beginning of summer break with a big feast last night.

I’ve been mostly off social media for the last several days while we’ve enjoyed our visitors, and oh my every time I checked in for a bit, it was pretty overwhelming. Mass murders, and gun violence, and extra big doses of anti-trans propaganda. I hope you’re making time to rest your brain and feel what you’re feeling.

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Editors, Copy Editors, and Fact Checkers

Here’s a little update on my upcoming book (it’s out October 4th, and you can pre-order it now — here’s a page with links to lots of bookstores where it’s available).

This book writing and editing process has been very different from my last book. For those of you who are curious, this is what it’s been like. (I should add a caveat that this is what is was like from my perspective, I’m betting there were other rounds of editing and feedback happening at the publisher that I wasn’t seeing):

After I signed my contract, I was assigned an Editor. The Editor had read my book proposal which included a full outline and several sample chapters, and she understood what it was I was wanting to do. But remember, it’s just a proposal, almost like a suggestion — the book can turn out quite differently than the writer envisions when creating the proposal in the first place.

My Editor started by helping me think about how the book could be organized or structured. Sections? Chapters? Is there a specific order to the information I want to share? Will there be an introduction? Does the book need an appendix? How about footnotes?

Once we settled on a format we were comfortable with, I started writing and re-writing — I developed some of the stuff in the proposal, but mostly wrote new work. I wrote on a shared Google doc and whenever I was ready to have her take a look at the work, I’d let her know and she would put comments and feedback in the margins.

Eventually, I submitted my finished manuscript. It’s weird to call it “finished” because it has since changed a lot.

At that point my Editor went through the whole manuscript at once, and filled the margins with notes, concerns, questions, and small typo-edits too.

Then she sent the manuscript back to me and I responded to all of her comments. Sometime I responded by taking her suggestions. Other times I pushed back. I would clarify things. I would ask my own questions.

From there, the Editor cleaned up the manuscript, incorporating any changes we’d made, and sent the latest version to the Copy Editor. The Copy Editor has a different job than the Editor. The Editor is helping with overall vision, and the Copy Editor is cleaning everything up and making it tidy and consistent — typos, spelling out numbers where appropriate, spacing or non-spacing around em-dashes — stuff like that. The Copy Editor also gave the manuscript an overall read to make sure everything made sense.

Once the Copy Editor was done, my Editor looked at the Copy Editor’s notes, made more of her own in response, and then sent the manuscript back to me. And then it was my job to go through that current set of notes and accept or push back on the suggestions.

Next, the manuscript was cleaned up once again, and sent to the Fact Checker. If my last book was fact-checked, I was not even aware of it. But for this book, we wanted to make sure everything I was claiming could be backed up with strong sources. The Fact Checker had the manuscript for a long time, because it takes a long time to do a thorough fact check. When she was done, she sent the manuscript to the Copy Editor, who looked at the Fact Checker’s feedback and then left a few of her own notes. Then the manuscript went to the Editor who went through and added a few notes as well — sometimes she would note where she wanted me to pay special attention to what the Fact Checker said. Other times she would say she disagreed with the Fact Checker on a certain point. And then the manuscript came back to me.

This stage was definitely the hardest part for me. The Face Checker’s job is to get really picky and to question everything. So there were lots of tears and long hours on my part where I was re-researching and re-writing, and (sometimes feeling like this whole thing was a mistake and I questioned all of my life decisions). The goal was to make sure I got things as correct as I possibly could. I found it to be really difficult work, but ultimately, the Fact Checker helped me make the book stronger. And I feel very lucky to have had the manuscript thoroughly fact-checked. Not every book gets that opportunity.

After I made all the changes and re-writes (or sometimes pushed back with more research of my own), I sent the manuscript back to my Editor. My Editor cleaned up the manuscript and incorporated the changes once again. Then she had the Copy Editor read it again, so she could check all the new additions/rewrites for typos and consistency.

At that point, the manuscript went to the Designer to be put into the layout.

That’s not the end of the process at all. Not even close. But it’s a good stopping point. I’ll tell you about the rest in another newsletter. : )

I want to give a huge thanks to everyone who has preordered the book and spread the word and made requests at their libraries. It’s incredibly helpful, and I’m truly grateful. Thanks in advance for helping me keep up this energy till the book release.

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Alt Summit Is Coming to NYC!

Some of you know this already, and some of you my be surprised to hear, but I run a conference called Alt Summit (it’s actually my main job when there’s not a pandemic). Alt Summit has been around since 2009 — there have been 15 conferences in four cities: New York, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Palm Springs. It’s for content creators and entrepreneurs in creative fields, and it’s always an event full of learning, collaboration, and inspiration.

The last Alt Summit conference was the first few days of March 2020, right before the whole world shut down. It feels like a million years ago, I’ve missed it so much. And I’m very happy to announce that it’s coming back!

Alt Summit is headed to New York City this fall. We’ve partnered with The Riveter and we’re hosting a one-day conference on Friday, October 7th, 2022. The venue is called Pier Sixty and it’s right on the waterfront, with floor to ceiling windows. I can’t wait!

A typical flagship Alt Summit conference is several days long, but I admit it feels nerve-wracking and risky to relaunch an event after a 2.5 year break, and I felt like a one-day conference was a good way to have a reunion with this special community.

If you’re interested in attending Alt Summit in NYC, tickets go on sale this Thursday, July 7th (that’s tomorrow), and we’re launching with an Early Bird price of $450. I feel like I should tell you that the last time we held an Alt Summit in New York City, it sold out in 20 minutes. Will the same thing happen after this long break? We’re not sure. But if you definitely want a ticket, I would recommend setting an alarm for 9:00am Pacific Time on Thursday, which is right when tickets go on sale. You can check out the FAQs or read the testimonials to learn more.

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That’s all for now. Feel free to comment on anything I mentioned above, or whatever’s on your mind. I hope you’re having a good week.

kisses,
Gabrielle