Although you might hear the terms used interchangeably, proofreading and copyediting (or line editing) refer to different services. Most professional texts will go through both services before publication.

A copyeditor will help to improve your writing by aiming to enhance the clarity, flow and tone. While a copyeditor will also catch typos and grammatical mistakes, that’s not all they’re looking for and they’ll often suggest larger changes to improve your text.

A proofreader offers a final chance to catch spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and layout issues before you make your work public. Since proofreading occurs right at the end of the publication process – after a copyedit – a good proofreader will avoid making substantial changes to the text, which run the risk of introducing new errors. Instead, a proofreader will only change that which needs changing.

In short, if your writing hasn’t been professionally copyedited yet, it probably isn’t ready for proofreading. Copyediting is a service I aim to provide in the future, but until then you can find many professional copyeditors in the CIEP directory.

A copyeditor is likely to make substantial changes to your text, such as restructuring, rewording or rewriting entire passages. These large changes often introduce new errors that the copyeditor won’t catch because they’re focused on perfecting the big picture elements.

You need a proofreader to come in at the end as a fresh pair of eyes to spot these new errors, and any others the copyeditor missed.

What’s more, a copyeditor typically works on the text before it has been formatted for publication, so they won’t be able to find any problems with the layout. As a proofreader usually works on the edited and formatted text, they’re perfectly positioned to highlight these issues as well, such as a single word appearing at the top of a page, inconsistent chapter headings or missing page numbers.

If you’d like to work with me, fill in the contact form below to let me know what your project is, what the word count is and when you’d like to have it completed by. I’ll get back to you with a free quote and any follow-up questions I have about the project.

I may also ask you to send me a sample of your work, which I will proofread for free to ensure my quote is as accurate as possible.

When you’re happy with the quote, we’ll arrange a timeframe for the proofreading, settling on dates for you to send me your writing and for me to return the finished proofs to you.

We all know that a long book will cost more to proofread than a short book. But the subject matter, the quality of the manuscript, the turnaround time and a range of other factors will also have a big impact on proofreading costs.

It’s difficult to give an accurate proofreading price without more details about your project.

That said, for a rough ballpark figure, you can usually expect proofreading to cost somewhere between £7.50 and £17.50 per thousand words. So proofreading an 80,000-word novel, for example, would typically cost between £600 and £1,400.

Much like with costs, it’s hard to give an accurate estimate of how long proofreading will take without more information about your project. However, as another ballpark figure, you can usually expect an 80,000-word novel to take between one and four weeks to proofread.

For a more accurate estimate, and to find out how soon my next available proofreading slot is, please fill in the contact form below.