This is the second part in a series about how my next book, Hunger and Thirst moves through the process of editing to arriving onto bookshop shelves. The first part covered structural and line edits with my UK and US editors at Fig Tree/ Penguin and Tin House / Zando. And in this part I’m going to be looking at copyedits which I’ve just finished checking for my US editor.

What are copyedits?

Copyedits are done on a novel to check for inconsistencies, missing words, repetition of words, that the publisher’s house style is being used, and many more things. Is a character’s eyes blue at the start of the book and brown at the end? Are capital letters and italics used in the right place? I’ve even had a copyeditor spot a plot hole in a previous book that no one else had. They are life savers.

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