Ten Copyediting Tips For Book Editors

Welcome to The Modern Editor Podcast, where we talk about all things editing and what it’s like to run an editorial business in today’s world. I’m your host, Tara Whitaker. Let’s get to it.

Hello. Welcome to today’s episode. We have a much needed follow-up to my most popular episode to date, and that episode aired in March of 2023, so over two years ago at the time of this recording, and it’s called “A Behind-the-Scenes Look at My Copyediting Process.”

Now, if you haven’t listened yet to that episode or if you need a refresher, definitely go check that out. But the reason this episode also came about is because I recently realized in a weird moment of just thinking that I don’t talk about the editing portion of my business that much.

I am still very much a working copyeditor and proofreader, and I edit frequently and consistently, but I don’t really talk about it. And I think a little bit of it is that I work—at this point in my career—mostly for publishers and companies, and so I don’t really market my services anymore. It’s not even on my website, and I kind of just forget about it.

Although I don’t forget about it because I’m obviously still working and editing, but I asked everyone on my newsletter and my Instagram followers if they wanted to hear more about the editing process, and it was unanimous, which should have been a bit of a light bulb moment for me when my most popular episode is about my copyediting process.

But apparently I needed to hear it more than once and two years later in order for me to implement it. So I have a lot to share. This episode is me starting to share that more. I’m gonna be talking more about it on the podcast and in my newsletter and maybe even on social media. 

So today’s episode, we are going to sort of expand on that episode 22 before. I’m gonna do ten more things that I keep an eye out for when I copyedit manuscripts. Now this is not an exhaustive list, it’s just a partial list, and it’s to complement the list I shared before while also leaving some room for future similar episodes.

So before we really dive in, a few things just to keep in mind if you’re a frequent listener of the podcast. This will sound very repetitive, but if you don’t listen or haven’t listened, and this is new, I wanna make sure this gets said. This is what I look for when I copyedit. Some of these things I look at before I really get into the copyedit, and some of them I look at while I’m copyediting. That’s how my brain works and how I’ve adapted my process to my brain over the last almost thirteen years.

Your process might look completely different. And that is 100% okay. This is not the right way to edit or the only way to edit; it is simply my way to edit. So if the order I do these things, or the way I do these things, if they don’t resonate with you, take what works and just leave the rest. 

And I encourage everyone listening, no matter how long you’ve been an editor, if you’re just starting out or you’re a veteran, really hone your process to what you and your brain work well with. Just because it works well for someone else does not mean it will work well for you. Also, I’m gonna be mentioning CMOS, which is the abbreviation if you don’t know, for The Chicago Manual of Style. And this is the style guide that is typically used when we are editing books.

And I’m gonna share the specific rule in CMOS when it’s applicable so that you can look it up on your own and study. More about that rule if you choose. Okay. All right, let’s get into it.

Number one, we’re gonna start off with a little bit of Spicy Tara, and that is blonde with an E or blonde without an E. The summary of this rule for me is what really encompasses it. I have been irritated with this for years, and what I mean is some—well, I’ll talk about CMOS and Merriam-Webster. They say to use these in a specific way. So blonde with an E is usually used as a noun to refer to a woman. Blonde without the E is used as an adjective for either male or female.

Now, why do we need to have two different versions of an adjective based on quote, gender? What is the point? I don’t get it. And what if we’re not talking about people? What if we’re talking about inanimate objects? Like, I don’t understand why. So what I will tell you is that CMOS covers this in an FAQ, and they say we agree with AP, which is the Associated Sress style guide, that says to discourage reducing people to physical characteristics, which yes, I agree with because usually when you’re using blonde as a noun and you’re referring to someone or a character as the blonde, in my experience, usually it’s not in a positive light. It’s enforcing stereotypes or it’s being rude or condescending about the blonde.

So yeah, I agree with that. Merriam-Webster says to use blonde with an E for girls and women and blonde without the E for boys and men. Ha. Okay, here’s my recommendation. As always, you’re gonna ask your author what they prefer and if they, I mean, depending on how experienced they are, how much they know about grammar and spelling and all of that, they might not know that there’s two different versions of blonde to be used as an adjective.

So you can ask them while also educating them that usually it’s with an E for women, without the E for men. My preference and what I encourage is to use blond as an adjective without the E across the board. I don’t care what we’re describing. It’s just blond without the E. And then when it comes to blonde with an E as a noun, keep an eye out, like I said, about if it’s reducing someone to a physical characteristic and being stereotypical about them.

And I mean, I do see blonde with an E used mostly when they, when it refers to a woman character, but blond without the e as an adjective, we don’t care what quote gender, we don’t care about that blonde with an e and as an adjective, it’s up to the author, but also good for editors to know so that we can approach the author about these sorts of things and educate them if we need to. Spicy Tara is gone for a minute.

Number two. Okay, as in spelled out o-k-a-y, or OK as in capital O, capital K, or o-k, as in lowercase O, lowercase K. If you’re following Merriam-Webster, the preferred spelling is OK: capital O, capital K, but I have many, many authors who prefer okay to be spelled out.

Either way, we’re gonna query if we need to, if it’s not apparent, which they prefer, and above all, we’re gonna keep it consistent. But there are different versions of okay, and you need to keep an eye out for those. All right.

Number three, is God capitalized or not? Now, of course, this is going to heavily depend on what you’re editing, and we are referring to CMOS 8.92 with this one for deities. If you are editing something that is religious in nature, you are most likely capitalizing God, and you are not using it in phrases like, oh my God. That’s gonna depend on what you’re editing. Of course, now, if you’re not editing something, if you’re editing something not religious, then authors can choose to cap it or lowercase it.

Oh my God is used a lot, for example, in romance and mystery and thriller and suspense, which is what I specialize in. I have authors who do both, who capitalize God sometimes and who don’t capitalize it. It’s a preference. Again, you’re gonna query if in doubt, you’re gonna go with the author’s choices, but you are also going to query them if they’re using God in a way that could be taken as profane, depending on the context of the book. So keep an eye out for that. 

Number four. This kind of goes along with God and a warning here for mild swearing, but I have to do it, is around damn it and whether it’s two words or one word and how it’s spelled. I had no idea when I started editing that there were so many options for damn. But there is. In Merriam-Webster, the preferred spelling is two words spelled d-a-m-s space i-t.

But it can also be spelled as one word, d-a-m-n-i-t, or I’ve even seen d-a-m-m-i-t. And this relates back to when God is put in there and I apologize if this is profane, but it is an example of what we will see depending on our content, is, dammit, are those three individual words? Is it God and damn is one word, and then “it” is a separate word. Is it three separate words? Is it d-a-m-n space i-t? There’s so many options. So again, we’re gonna make sure that what we’re using is appropriate for the book that we’re editing, and then we’re going to make it consistent throughout. Okay? No more swear words.

Number five is mouthed words. This is covered in CMOS 12.49, which is unspoken discourse, which I would put under, or it is put under internal thoughts. And then things like mouthed words. So for this, you can use quotation marks or you can italicize, and I see both in the books I copyedit and can query the author on which one they prefer.

Or if a preference is obvious, ensure consistency. Do you get the trend here saying like, the same thing over and over again? But it is something we have to look out for. And I will say here, I’m gonna put a pin and I’m gonna talk about it in the next one.

Number six, which is gestures or facial expressions. This could fall under 12.49 as well, but I did wanna separate it because I wanted to ensure that I wasn’t talking about sign language. Now, sign language, personally, I would advise formatting sign language in roman and in quotation marks with the dialogue tag of signed. Italicizing sign language tends to other it, and in my opinion, isn’t necessary to italicize. It’s dialogue. Just the same as spoken words. So we treat it as such. What I’m talking about here is things like, they gave me a “what the heck?” look. The “what the heck” part I’ve seen quotation marks, I’ve seen italics, and I have even seen hyphenation. So they would hyphenate what-the-heck. Personal preference is italics, but again, we’re gonna check with the author.

And what I wanted to put a pin in before is if you’re choosing all of these things, right, like gestures and facial expressions and words as words and internal dialogue, if everything is in quotation marks or everything is italicized, it’s going to start looking really not good for the reader experience.

So keep in mind when you’re making choices for all of these things, or if the author has made the choices, and it’s like every other word is in quotes or every other word is italicized, that’s going to take the reader out of the experience. So you might want to switch it up a bit and use different formats for different things.

All right, moving right along. Number seven is for searched terms. So this is something like “I typed ‘how do you fry an egg’ into my browser.” We’re talking about “how do you fry an egg here.” Typically, shocker of all shocks, I see this in quotes or italics, but be consistent and make sure that you’re not overusing something.

So if you’re editing a book and for some reason the character is typing things into a search bar repeatedly, make that judgment call on do you want all those things to be in quotes or do you want them to be italicized and what’s going to look better for the reader?

And related to that is number eight, which is Google as a noun or google as a verb. Now if we take the example from before and we change it to “I Googled ‘how to fry an egg,’” in that way, googled should be lowercase because it’s a verb. But if you say “type it into Google and see what comes up,” that should be capitalized because Google in that instance is a noun. Again, stay consistent.

Number nine, “off of.” This is covered in CMOS 5.254, and I included this one because for whatever reason I always use “off of” in my own writing, and Bryan Garner in CMOS says to never put “of” after “off.”

I get why he says it, but I still do it anyway. So this is something that I have to check in my own writing a lot, and I’m more cognizant of it when I read it in other books because I do it. I do find that authors either do it all the time like me or they do it just a little bit. There doesn’t seem to be an in-between, like a medium. It’s either not at all or just a tiny bit or all the time, so keep an eye on that. That’s an easy one.

And last but not least is 911, either just the numbers or 9-1-1. I have actually also seen it spelled out, especially in dialogue. This is one where I would usually go with the numerals and just the numerals, not the dashes. 911.

I wouldn’t spell it out in dialogue personally, just because I feel like that’s clunky and I don’t feel like the dashes are necessary. But being a US-based editor, I thought, well, yeah, 911 is common and familiar to me. That’s not the emergency number everywhere in the world. So I asked editors who are not based in the US what they thought and if they understood what it meant or if the dashes made it easier to read, and not a single one of them said the dashes were easier to read. They knew 911 was an emergency number. I know 999 is an emergency number not in the US, and so did they with 911, and they didn’t need the hyphens.

So I go to their expertise and not mine on that one. Again, the author will have a preference, but usually we spell out numbers in dialogue, but in this case I would keep it just because that is very clunky. So no hyphens.

That is it. That was number ten. And we’ve covered ten more things that I look for when I copyedit books. I hope that helped you, gave you even more of a behind-the-scenes look into my copyediting process, maybe gives you something to think about with yours and what you can add or move around with your process.

And I mentioned this back in episode 22, but I did do a training inside the Freelance Editors Club, which was basically like an edit-with-me workshop, or a look-over-my-shoulder, where I did some of this live, which was very nerve-wracking, but I did it and members love it. So if you join, you get access to all of the recordings in FEC immediately, you can watch it ASAP, and you can sign up for free for 14 days. So you can head to TaraWhitaker.com/Club to join at any time.

I would love to hear if you have specific editing tips or what your process looks like, or if you have a suggestion for me on what you would like to see me talk more about in terms of copyediting and proofreading. You can always email me at Hello@TaraWhitaker.com and I would love to hear your thoughts.

So until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep those editing eyes peeled.

Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode. If you enjoy The Modern Editor Podcast, I would be so grateful if you left us a review over on iTunes. And as always, you can head to TaraWhitaker.com to connect with me and stay in touch. We’ll chat again soon.