Definition
A copy editor is the detail-obsessed professional who combs through your manuscript looking for every misplaced comma, misspelled name, and timeline inconsistency. They check that your character's eyes don't change color between chapters, that your semicolons are used correctly, and that you haven't switched from Oxford commas to no Oxford commas on page 200. They work with a style guide (usually the Chicago Manual of Style for fiction) and create a style sheet specific to your book to track every decision.
Why It Matters
Readers notice errors even when they can't name them. A typo pulls someone out of an emotional scene. An inconsistency makes them flip back to double-check instead of staying immersed. Copy editing is the invisible work that keeps your reader's trust intact. Even the best writers produce manuscripts full of small errors, and no amount of self-editing catches everything.
Types of Copy Editor
Famous Examples
The New Yorker's copy editors are famous for their obsessive attention to detail. Their style decisions have influenced American punctuation and usage standards for decades.
Norris spent decades as a copy editor at The New Yorker and wrote this memoir about the craft, proving that copy editing can be genuinely fascinating.
Common Mistakes
Even professional editors hire copy editors for their own work. You can't objectively proof something you wrote. Fresh eyes catch what yours skip over.
If you're still making big changes, you'll undo the copy editor's work. Save this step for when the content is locked and you're only cleaning up the surface.
Copy editing happens on the manuscript before typesetting. Proofreading happens on the formatted, nearly final version. They catch different things at different stages.
Try It Yourself
Create a style sheet for your current project. List every character name (with correct spelling), every made-up place name, any unusual capitalization or formatting choices, and your preferred rules for things like numbers, dialogue formatting, and internal thoughts. This is exactly what a copy editor builds when they start working on your book.
Catch inconsistencies before your copy editor does
Novelium's Consistency Guardian flags character detail changes, timeline conflicts, and factual contradictions as you write, so your manuscript arrives at copy editing already clean.