$35.00–$45.00 USD per hour.

There are three levels of copyediting, and depending on where your manuscript is at, you and your editor will need to decide which best fits your project. You may have also heard the term “line editing”. This term refers to edits being made to improve writing fluency (voice, organization at a sentence level, pargraph transitions, etc.) whereas “copyediting” refers to mechanical issues in writing (capitalization, puncuation, spelling, etc.).

• Light copyediting, your editor will correct mechanical errors in the text (spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc.), and query unfamiliar terms, factual inconsistencies, or suspected factual errors (the Indi Ocean should be the Indian Ocean). Bear in mind that at this level, your editor will not address sentence fluency or awkward sounding text unless it is very bad—in this situation a query will be made.

Here’s an example.

• Medium copyediting (involves line editing), your editor will address all the tasks from a light copyedit, but will also query at a sentence level for awkward or unclear text, gaps in logic, or faulty organization. Bear in mind that for the latter issues, the text will not be revised, but queried with a suggestion for revision.

• Heavy copyediting (involves line editing), your editor will address the tasks of a light and medium copyedit, but will actively fix issues in the text instead of simply querying. A heavy copyedit will also revise and correct factual inconsistencies or suspected errors that can be verified with a dictionary.

Here’s an example.