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Copy Editing Books
Showing 1-50 of 65
The Copyeditor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, with Exercises and Answer Keys (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.25 — 1,462 ratings — published 2000
The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 6 times as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.20 — 1,820 ratings — published 2009
The Chicago Manual of Style (Hardcover)
by (shelved 4 times as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.30 — 6,185 ratings — published 1906
What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)
by (shelved 3 times as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.15 — 840 ratings — published
The Elements of Style (Hardcover)
by (shelved 3 times as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.18 — 87,503 ratings — published 1918
Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)
by (shelved 2 times as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.01 — 369 ratings — published 2009
Copy-Editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers (Hardcover)
by (shelved 2 times as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.17 — 65 ratings — published 1975
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English (Paperback)
by (shelved 2 times as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.94 — 4,415 ratings — published 1996
Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing (Paperback)
by (shelved 2 times as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.82 — 374 ratings — published 1985
Not Your Final Girl (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.59 — 97 ratings — published 2026
The Midnight Muse (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.02 — 198 ratings — published 2026
How to Copyedit Your Own Writing (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.00 — 1 rating — published 2014
A Writer's Reference with Exercises with 2016 MLA Update (Plastic Comb)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.80 — 5 ratings — published
Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.10 — 415 ratings — published
Kalivas! Or, Another Tempest (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.14 — 22 ratings — published
Give Me Danger (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.16 — 68 ratings — published
But Can I Start a Sentence with "But"?: Advice from the Chicago Style Q&A (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.27 — 132 ratings — published 2016
Lover Girl (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.01 — 253 ratings — published
On Submission (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.28 — 43 ratings — published
The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.70 — 213 ratings — published
A Play About a Curse (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.45 — 137 ratings — published
Eminence Front (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.58 — 209 ratings — published
The Queen of Saturn and the Prince in Exile (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.95 — 58 ratings — published 2025
Her New Eyes (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.10 — 42 ratings — published
The Art of Academic Editing: A Guide for Authors and Editors
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.29 — 7 ratings — published
The Copyeditor's Workbook: Exercises and Tips for Honing Your Editorial Judgment First Edition (Spiral-bound)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 0.0 — 0 ratings — published
Goodbye Hotel (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.71 — 1,908 ratings — published 2025
Below the Grand Hotel (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.29 — 185 ratings — published 2025
Garner's Modern English Usage (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.68 — 213 ratings — published
The McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.17 — 355 ratings — published 2004
Strange Stones (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.36 — 137 ratings — published 2025
Gigantvm Penisivm: A Tale of Demonic Possession (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 2.07 — 14 ratings — published
The Grammar Daily: 365 Quick Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.70 — 53 ratings — published 2023
Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.94 — 2,375 ratings — published 1999
The Complete Canadian Book Editor (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.67 — 6 ratings — published
Last But Not Least: A Guide to Proofreading Text (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.80 — 5 ratings — published
New Hart's Rules: The Oxford Style Guide (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.49 — 73 ratings — published 2005
Second Sight: An Editor's Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.51 — 423 ratings — published 2011
The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.14 — 832 ratings — published 1983
The Fiction Editor, the Novel, and the Novelist: A Book for Writers, Teachers, Publishers, and Anyone Else Devoted to Fiction (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.78 — 120 ratings — published 1988
Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.37 — 5,901 ratings — published 2020
The Six Figure Freelancer: How To Find, Price And Manage Corporate Writing Assignments (Unknown Binding)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.60 — 10 ratings — published 2007
Grammar for Smart People (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.18 — 33 ratings — published 1992
Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.34 — 9,448 ratings — published 2019
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language (Hardcover)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.23 — 28,955 ratings — published 2019
Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 3.61 — 6,548 ratings — published 2015
Practical Grammar: A Canadian Writer's Resource (Paperback)
by (shelved 1 time as copy-editing)
avg rating 4.02 — 42 ratings — published 2006
“There should be no crying in copyediting.”
― The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago
― The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago
“We copy editors sometimes get a reputation for wanting to redirect the flow, change the course of the missile, have our way with a piece of prose. The image of the copy editor is of someone who favors a rigid consistency, a mean person who enjoys pointing out other people's errors, a lowly person who is just starting out on her career in publishing and is eager to make an impression, or, at worst, a bitter, thwarted person who wanted to be a writer and instead got stuck dotting the i's and crossing the t's and otherwise advancing the careers of other writers. I suppose I have been all of these.
But good writers have a reason for doing things the way they do them, and if you tinker with their work ,taking it upon yourself to neutralize a slightly eccentric usage or zap a comma or sharpen the emphasis of something that the writer was deliberately keeping obscure, you are not helping. In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process. They weigh queries, and they accept or reject the for good reasons. They are not defensive. The whole point of having things read before publication is to test their effect on a general reader. You want to make sure when you go out there that the tag on the back of your collar isn't poking up—unless, of course, you are deliberately wearing your clothes inside out.”
―
But good writers have a reason for doing things the way they do them, and if you tinker with their work ,taking it upon yourself to neutralize a slightly eccentric usage or zap a comma or sharpen the emphasis of something that the writer was deliberately keeping obscure, you are not helping. In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process. They weigh queries, and they accept or reject the for good reasons. They are not defensive. The whole point of having things read before publication is to test their effect on a general reader. You want to make sure when you go out there that the tag on the back of your collar isn't poking up—unless, of course, you are deliberately wearing your clothes inside out.”
―
