Goal: Make sure that all writing mechanics are properly followed.
Copyediting comes after line editing. Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, they are actually quite different. Line editing focuses on the sentence structure as part of the overall flow of a book. Copyediting focuses solely on the mechanics of each sentence.
In other words, copyediting doesn’t look at whether a sentence works with other sentences. This editing phase only looks at whether the sentence follows the proper writing rules. It’s actually similar to proofreading so I generally just do this single editing pass to comprise both types of editing.
- Correct misspelled words.
- Fix punctuation errors.
- Rewrite sentences to fix grammar issues.
You want to avoid embarrassing mistakes that are found in so many self-published books.