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“Let’s Skip the Copyedit”
What never to do when self-publishing a book
No matter how long I work as an editor, there are words I have to look up — either in Merriam Webster or CMS (Chicago Manual of Style) — to know how to treat them properly.
I recently had a client who thought we should skip the copyediting stage and I nearly gasped. For those out there who don’t know why copyediting is so important, here is a peek behind the curtain at my list of items to look up for the book I’m currently editing:
the Company, not the company (ref. the Dutch East Indian Company)
sir or Sir if in middle or end of sentence
crew member, one word or two
Italicize names of ships? Or put in quotes
ax or axe
blond or blonde
shift English spelling of words: sculls, canvass, towards
dress coat or dresscoat
Gentlemen capped if used as title in the court: i.e. Honorable Gentleman Crawley
pitch dark — hypen?
cell mate or cellmate
close-by not close by
if a proper noun ends in “z” how do I make it possessive?
Is the ’s italicized if the added to an italicized word?
