Four different jobs, often sold as one word

Developmental editing judges the book: structure, pace, character, whether the promise of chapter one is paid in chapter thirty. It returns a letter and notes, not a clean file.

Line editing works sentence by sentence for rhythm, clarity and voice. It is the most expensive per hour of attention and the one readers feel most.

Copyediting enforces grammar, consistency and a style sheet. Proofreading is the last pass on the typeset file, catching what everyone else stopped seeing.

An editor who offers all four for one low per-word rate is offering one of them and naming it generously.

What a 90,000-word novel costs at each pass

Developmental: $2,700 to $8,100. Line edit: $1,800 to $5,000. Copyedit: $1,080 to $2,700. Proofread: $720 to $1,800.

Most independent authors buy two passes — usually a line edit and a proofread — and spend $2,500 to $6,000 on a full-length novel.

Hourly quotes exist and run $40 to $120. Ask for an estimated hour count in writing, or the quote is not a quote.

How to spend less without publishing something worse

Fix structure before you buy sentences. Paying for a line edit on a book that still needs a rewrite burns the money twice.

Ask for a sample edit on 1,000 to 2,000 of your own words. Every editor worth the fee will do this, and it tells you more than a testimonial page.

Self-edit the mechanical layer first — filter words, repeated beats, inconsistent names. What you clean is not billed.

What this house charges, and why it is separate

The Scriptorium — the editing bench here — is commissioned at 3% of word count, and one chapter is judged free before you commit a coin.

Editing is not bundled into a production price. An audio book is a $5,000 studio floor plus $0.08 per word beyond 30,000 of the count and a film book a $15,000 studio floor plus $0.25 per word beyond 30,000, and neither one silently pays for an edit you did not receive.

A performed edition exposes weak prose rather than hiding it. Edit first, then perform.

Asked and answered

Do I need all four editing passes?

No. Most books need honest structural feedback, one careful sentence pass, and a proofread before release.

Is a cheap $0.005-a-word edit worth taking?

Occasionally, from someone building a portfolio. Usually it is a light proofread being sold as an edit. Request the sample edit and judge the marks, not the price.

Can AI replace an editor?

It can catch mechanics and flag repetition. It cannot tell you that chapter nine has no reason to exist, and it will confidently smooth your voice into no voice at all.