How to Edit Your Book: A Practical Guide for Writers on a Budget

Writing a book is hard. Whether it’s getting into the habit of writing, coming up with ideas, or just finding the time. But it’s also the fun part—the creative part—and once that’s complete comes the phase every writer dreads (and if they don’t, they should): editing.

On one hand, editing is empowering. It forces you to identify and solve problems, taking your book to the next level. It transforms your story from a messy manuscript into a (hopefully) polished novel. But it’s also a long, tedious process that doesn’t exactly scream “fun” for most writers, who’d rather stay in the realm of creativity and self-expression.

But if you ever wish to publish your work, or just be able to share it with friends without being embarrassed or receiving a ton of criticism, you’ll need to edit your first draft.

The 5 Circle of Hel—I Mean Editing

Developmental Editing

Sometimes referred to as Structural Editing, this is a high level look at your work.

I like to think of developmental editing as drawing a process flow for your book—you set lanes for the different players (your characters) and map out their journey step by step, from that strange amulet they found in their Tim Horton’s coffee cup to the goblin they ended up falling in love with after the mushroom war was over.

This is where the overall story arc, character development, and plot are examined.

You might have a brilliant writing style and a natural gift for descriptions, but if your plot is too jumbled or dull, your arc lacks tension, or your characters never develop, your book isn’t likely to appeal to readers.

Line Editing

After developmental editing comes line editing. And just as the name suggests, this is where you go line by line to improve the style and tone of your story.

The goal of this type of editing is to ensure your tone and voice remain consistent throughout your book—that you’re not writing a serious war drama using street slang or a comical fantasy described through the lens of Crime and Punishment.

Copyediting

Once your plot is airtight, your tone consistent, and your characters more developed than Pokémons, it’s time for copyediting. This is the technical process of catching grammar, punctuation, and usage errors (like referring to a goblin as frog-like too many times).

Proofreading

This is the final stop on the editing express and usually takes place after the book is formatted.

Think of proofreading as a last touch up: making sure no letter is out of place, no page is blank, and no typo has gone missing.

Traditionally, the author wouldn’t go through all of these editorial phases alone. After a few self-edits, they’d send their work to a professional editor. Each editor would specialize in one type of editing, and once all phases were complete, the book would be ready to see light.

Hiring a professional editor is the surest way to ensure that your book meets the market standards, gains legitimacy, and reaches its potential (given that your editors know what they’re doing).

But what if you can’t afford hiring five different editors?

Self Editing

A good editing process starts with the author polishing their work to the best of their ability. You might not be professionally trained, but with some practice you can pick up the tools you need to improve your story.

Learning about the story structure and character development helps you spot weak areas. Stepping away from your work lets you return with a fresh perspective, and reading your text out loud makes it easier to catch awkward phrasing or overly complicated sentences.

You can even take a few courses on editing and learn to act as your own first editor.

A little Help From Friends

No one can accomplish everything alone, and who better to provide a second opinion on your manuscript than the people around you?

Sharing your work with someone who doesn’t live inside your head can help put your story to the test and answer questions like:

1. Are the descriptions clear?

2. Do the characters’ actions make sense?

3. Is the pacing too fast or too slow?

4. Is the plot engaging?

5. Are the characters likable or relatable?

The key when letting friends review your book is to be open to criticism and make sure they know they can be honest. Close friends might be reluctant to be fully candid if they’re worried about offending you.

Be upfront—tell them you want their genuine impressions, even the harsh ones.

When listening to feedback, stay curious and detached from your ego; defensive reactions might make them hold back the next time, and you’ll miss out on valuable insights.

A bonus tip is to find readers who are writers themselves. They’ll read with a more critical eye.

The Artificial Editor

Beyond professional editors and helpful friends, there’s another powerful tool at your disposal—AI.

AI tools, though frowned upon by some authors, can be surprisingly advanced and valuable during editing.

ChatGPT+ allows you to upload a full document of your work and analyze it at a high level. You can ask questions about structure, character arcs, consistency, and plot.

For styling and line edits, you can work paragraph by paragraph, asking it to keep the style consistent and suggest improvements to language and descriptions.

You’ll need to mind the trap of making your writing sound generic and maintaining your unique voice, but you might find better phrasing or clearer descriptions through the process.

Automating the Technical Bits

While formatting isn’t something AI can help you with (at least not yet), proofreading is another story. When it comes to catching grammatical errors and punctuation mistakes, AI excels.

Humans tend to miss small details. Even the experienced editor can find it hard to catch every odd swicth bewteen letters or tyipo (see what I did there?).

AI, on the other hand, doesn’t get tired, distracted, or bored, and if used correctly, won’t let any mistake slip through unnoticed.

Conclusion

Am I saying editors aren’t important, or that you can replace them with feedback from friends—or worse, AI? Not entirely.

Editors bring experience, friends bring honesty, and AI brings precision (and relieves your bank account of more stress than it can handle). But whichever approach you choose, you’re the one who ties it all together. And one approach doesn't exclude the other—you can handle some of the editing yourself while hiring professionals for others.

The goal isn’t to replace editors—it’s to use every tool available to make your story shine and to share your creativity with the world, even on a tight budget.