You’ve just got your Word file back from the editor. You open the file and blanch at the number of changes they’ve recommended. Certainly you can just accept them all – but don’t. It’s your book and we editors don’t always get it right.
Based on Lisa Poisso’s much more detailed post, however, the following 7 steps will speed up the process of moving to the final version.
Before you begin, remember that you really can’t go wrong if you save early and often. Keep saving regularly as you go so that if you make a big mistake (easy to do in the era of global search and replace), you can step back to a recent version.
7 steps to easier editing revisions
- read your editorial report
- get ready for your first read-through
- learn how to use Word’s Track Changes. For help on this see Track Changes video tutorial
- save your edited document with a new name. Use a descriptive file name for your new file that includes the title, editing status, revision status, and date: GirlLineEditedRev1_0613
- turn off the Revisions Pane.
- change the colour of the edits. Set Insertions to Teal and Deletions to Grey – 25%. Then set Moved From to Grey – 25% and Moved To to Teal (this makes the grey deletions fade away and the teal insertions pop out).
- deal with your editor’s comments on a first pass through the manuscript
- on the second pass
- Reject any edits you do not want to keep (i.e. things you want left as you originally wrote them)
- revise edits your editor has made that you’d like a different way
- skip over the corrections and edits you like and want to keep. Simply pass them by with no action.
- accept All on the rest of the edits
- check for remaining comments and edits
- get a fresh set of eyes on the manuscript to proofread it before you publish.
For more information, with step by step guides, visit at Lisa Poisso’s original post.
