let me first say this: I am not a copyeditor.

One of the primary struggles that I have as a freelance writer and editor is defining what it is that I do. Often totally random people will call (And how exactly do they get my number? I have no idea) and ask me to work on this or that. And I have to chat with them in order to discern what it is that they want. Because, trust me, it’s not obvious and they often don’t know what they want.

For example, do you want someone to check for typos? Do you want someone to compare a marked version of a document to a clean version? This is something a proofreader does. I rarely do this unless it’s part of a larger project, because I’m not great at it and it always happens last in the publishing process.

Do you want someone to make sure that your document hasn’t any grammatical or spelling mistakes? You need a copyeditor. Copyeditors can also check for style and use issues. Other types of editors do this all along, but it is really the job of the copyeditor to catch all mistakes to the narration (not to the math, not to the science, not to the reasoning, but to the actual prose).

Do you want to make sure your document is factually true? You need a fact checker. I don’t do too much of this because it’s all consuming work.

Do you need someone to shepherd you through multiple drafts of manuscript? Do you need a comparison of your product to others on the market? Do you need someone to work closely with the author to take ideas and turn them into content? This is often what a developmental editor does. I do a lot of this, primarily in science. It’s intellectually stimulating, the authors are usually fascinating (one way or another), and it’s primarily concerned with larger content issues rather than comma use. Though, as I mentioned, good developmental editors note that sort of thing anyway.

Do you need someone to actually generate copy? This is what a writer does, and I do a fair amount of this too though sometimes as a developmental editor, so this distinction can become a bit hazy.

Most publishing houses have a coterie of all types of these roles in-house and freelance. A copyeditor might do a freelance editor’s job, and a developmental editor might do copyediting, but the tasks are usually distinct and done at different stages. Developmental editing comes first, then manuscript might be handed off to a project editor (sometimes a developmental editor and project editor are the same person) and after much review from many different editors and authors a manuscript is just about finalized and given to a copyeditor and later to a proofreader to check that the copyeditor’s changes were implemented correctly.

Freelancing is different. Freelancing is messy.

I say this because often clients think that hiring an editor means an instant transformation of complete dreck into Pulitzer Prize material for $40/hour (but they only want to pay for 10 hours). That’s just not going to happen. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. But it does mean that an occasional comma might be misplaced, if I was hired to edit the content.

Because, as I said, I’m not a copyeditor.

Check the Editorial Freelance Association for more information on these tasks.