Virtus Publishing

Menu
Get in Touch

Editorial

At Virtus, we place enormous emphasis on providing top-tier editorial services, which are often overlooked or neglected by both independent authors and publishing service providers alike. Too often, independent authors are left to seek out such services on their own, which can be risky in terms of the quality, and expensive in terms of the cost.

Virtus exclusively assigns work to tested and certified staff, experienced in providing editorial services for books. Each resource is tested and must be approved by our publishing director, who has tested over 7,000 candidates over the past 16 years.

The editorial services we provide include two separate phases: copyediting and proofreading.

Copyediting is typically done at the very start: A copy editor reads a raw manuscript file, word for word.

The copy editor’s focus will be on:

• Correcting faulty spelling, grammar, punctuation, and syntax

• Ensuring consistency in spelling, hyphenation, numerals, fonts, and capitalization

• Checking sentence structure, sense, and overall clarity of meaning

• Rephrasing of text as necessary rather than rewriting

• Creating queries for unclear statements

• Checking specific cross-references

Our default is what is known as a Level 2 copyedit. You can read more about this in our Author Resources section here.

The copy editor’s primary concern is the language and the way in which the matter is presented, rather than the content itself. We do not employ subject-matter experts (SMEs), because doing so can be detrimental to the outcome. An SME can often be too interested in the content to spot the flaws in the presentation.

Depending on the quality of the original manuscript, including whether it was written by a native-English speaker, the changes made by the copy editor can be extensive. For that reason, these changes must be made before the manuscript is formatted for final publication.

If a title requires more extensive editing, which may include some aspects of rewriting, Virtus can accommodate that need.

Proofreading is performed once the copyedited manuscript has been formatted into pages.

There are two primary types of proofreading: word-for-word and a “cold” (or “blind” read). As the name implies, word-for-word proofreading means that the page proof is read and compared word-for-word, against the original manuscript. This is more difficult than it may sound, because the proofreader is going back and forth and it takes experience and practice to master the skill required to not lose your place. Under this scenario the proofreader is usually only requested (and required) to make changes for anything that is in variance with the manuscript. This means that as long as the page proof matches the manuscript, the text can be assumed to be correct. This is the default proofreading process at Virtus.

You can read more about proofreading in our Author Resources section here.

We would love to hear from you – let’s keep in touch.

Learn more