Last reviewed by Robert Prime — March 2026
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Editing is the part of self-publishing that costs the most and that authors most often try to skip. Both reactions are wrong: skip it and you get bad reviews and refunds; treat all editing as one undifferentiated service and you’ll pay for the wrong things in the wrong order.
This guide explains the four kinds of editing, current UK rates, how to choose what you actually need, and where to find an editor without getting scammed.
At publishing.co.uk we work with UK indie authors across every stage, so this guide reflects what we’ve actually seen succeed (and fail) rather than recycled advice.
The four kinds of editing
1. Developmental editing (also called structural, content, or substantive editing).
The editor reads the whole manuscript and assesses whether the story works. Are the stakes clear? Does the protagonist have an arc? Is the middle saggy? Is the climax earned? Are subplots resolved?
Output: a 5-15 page editorial letter + margin comments. You then revise. This can mean cutting substantial parts of the book and rewriting whole arcs.
Cost in UK (2026): £0.020-£0.036 per word. For a 90,000-word novel: £1,800-£3,240.
2. Line editing.
The editor goes paragraph by paragraph improving prose — sentence rhythm, word choice, pacing within scenes, voice consistency. Not about errors; about elevating the writing.
Cost: £0.020-£0.040 per word. 90,000 words: £1,800-£3,600.
3. Copy editing.
The editor catches grammar, punctuation, spelling, consistency (UK vs US spelling, character names, timeline), and applies a style guide (often New Hart’s Rules or Chicago).
Cost: £0.014-£0.030 per word. 90,000 words: £1,260-£2,700.
4. Proofreading.
Final sweep before publication — typos, formatting glitches, missed errors from earlier passes. Not about content; about the last 1-2% of polish.
Cost: £0.006-£0.017 per word. 90,000 words: £540-£1,530.
Which order they happen
Developmental → Author revises → Line edit → Author revises → Copy edit → Author revises → Proofread → Publish.
You almost never do them out of order. There’s no point copy-editing a chapter you’re going to delete in developmental.
Which ones you actually need
For commercial fiction (first novel): all four. Skip any and you’ll see it in reviews.
For commercial fiction (5th+ book by the same author): often dev + copy + proof. Experienced authors internalise line editing.
For non-fiction (how-to, business, memoir): dev + copy + proof. Line editing is sometimes skipped or rolled into copy.
For short stories, novellas, blog-post-style books: copy + proof minimum.
For experimental or literary fiction: dev + line + proof. Copy edit can be combined with proof if the editor’s flexible.
Total cost reality check
For a 90,000-word first novel, all four editing passes:
| Stage | Lower estimate | Higher estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Developmental | £1,350 | £3,150 |
| Line | £1,080 | £1,800 |
| Copy | £720 | £1,260 |
| Proof | £450 | £900 |
| Total | £3,600 | £7,110 |
This is real money. It’s also why some authors skip editing or try to do it themselves. The result is the books on KDP with mediocre review averages and readers repeatedly flagging that they “needed editing.”
If you can’t afford all four, prioritise: developmental first (the editing that most changes the book’s quality), then copy, then proofread, with line editing optional.
If your total budget is £1,500: get developmental + proofread.
If your total budget is £500: get a beta-reader pass and a proofread.
If you have £0: accept the book will be visibly under-edited and either delay publication until you can afford editing, or publish knowing reviews will reflect it.
Where to find editors
1. The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) — formerly SfEP.
UK’s professional body. Directory at ciep.uk. Members are vetted by membership grade — Professional and Advanced Professional require evidence of training and experience. Insurance is not part of it: the CIEP Code sets no insurance requirement at any grade, so ask the individual. Higher quality, higher prices. Best for serious commercial fiction.
2. Reedsy.
Reedsy.com — global marketplace, lots of UK editors. Quote system; you brief the project and editors quote. Reedsy takes a cut from the editor (which gets added to your price).
3. Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA).
US-based but has UK members. The-EFA.org/find-an-editor/. Useful for finding editors familiar with both US and UK conventions.
4. Recommendations from other indie authors.
Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) members swap recommendations freely. UK indie Facebook groups (UK Indie Authors, KDP Authors UK) have weekly threads about editors.
5. Fiverr / Upwork.
The £0.001-£0.004/word range. Quality is highly variable. Sample edits essential. Mostly unsuitable for developmental; sometimes acceptable for proofreading basic work.
The sample-edit step (skip this and you’ll regret it)
Before committing to a full project, ask the editor for a sample edit — typically 1,000-2,000 words of your actual manuscript, edited the way they’d edit the whole thing.
Most professional editors will provide a sample for free or for a small charge (£20-£60). Editors who refuse to sample-edit are a red flag.
Read the sample. Does the editor:
- Catch real issues you’d missed?
- Suggest changes that improve the writing without erasing your voice?
- Explain their reasoning?
- Match your tone (some editors are gentle; some are blunt — you need to know what you can take)?
If three editors do sample edits and one clearly outperforms, commit to them. The sample-edit step costs a few hours and £100 worst case, and it prevents £3,000 mistakes.
How to brief an editor
A good brief includes:
- Genre + sub-genre (specific Amazon category)
- Word count + chapter count
- Target reader (age, sub-genre fan profile)
- What editing you want (dev, line, copy, proof)
- Your concerns (e.g. “I think the middle drags but I can’t see how to fix it”)
- Your timeline (manuscript ready by X, publish by Y)
- Comp titles (helps editor understand the genre conventions)
- House style preferences if any (UK spelling, Oxford comma, etc.)
Editors who understand the brief charge less and deliver better work because they’re not guessing.
What to do before you pay an editor
Self-edit first. Editors are expensive; using them to fix things you could have fixed yourself is wasteful. Before sending to a dev editor:
- Write a one-page synopsis of your own book. If you can’t, the structure is unclear and the developmental edit will be brutal.
- Read the manuscript aloud, start to finish. Catches voice issues, awkward sentences, and pacing problems.
- Run it through ProWritingAid or Grammarly. Catches the bulk of grammar issues so the editor isn’t billing you to find missed commas.
- Use the “tell me what’s wrong” beta-reader round. Three beta readers in your target genre, with a structured questionnaire. Costs £0-£50. Catches developmental issues for a fraction of the dev-edit cost.
- Apply beta feedback before paying for editing.
This sequence — beta readers + self-edit + ProWritingAid → developmental editor — gets you far more value from the developmental edit because the editor isn’t fixing the obvious stuff.
What the professional floor actually is
CIEP publishes suggested minimum hourly rates, not per-word ones. From 1 March 2026, read from CIEP’s own page on 19 September 2026:
| Type of work | Suggested minimum, per hour |
|---|---|
| Proofreading | £31.92 |
| Copyediting | £37.11 |
| Substantial editing, rewriting, development editing | £42.66 |
| Project management | £46.19 |
| Indexing (Society of Indexers, from 1 January 2026) | £34.00 |
CIEP is explicit that these are advisory: it “does not have the authority to recommend or tell people what they should charge or pay.” Treat them as the floor a trained professional needs to cover holidays, pension, insurance and software — not as a price list.
And what UK providers actually publish
Per 1,000 words, each read from the provider’s own page on 19 September 2026:
| Provider | Service | Published price |
|---|---|---|
| Grosvenor House | Proofreading | £6.00 (minimum £60) |
| Grosvenor House | Copyediting (includes proofreading) | £8.00 |
| Proofers | Proofreading | £10.00 |
| British Proofreaders | Proofreading | £12.00 |
| London Proofreaders | Proofreading | £14.00 |
| proof-reading-service.co.uk | Proofreading | £16.49 (+20% VAT for UK customers) |
| Reedsy marketplace | Proofreading, 80,000 words | $1,600 |
| Reedsy marketplace | Copy editing, 80,000 words | $2,160 |
| Reedsy marketplace | Developmental editing, 80,000 words | $2,880 |
The number worth staring at. Grosvenor House’s £6.00 per 1,000 words works out at roughly £2.10 an hour if a proofreader reads at a typical 3,000 words an hour. CIEP’s suggested minimum is £31.92. That gap is not a bargain — it means the work is being done very fast, offshore, or largely by software. None of those is automatically wrong, but you should know which you are buying, and ask.
Note also that Grosvenor House’s own two pages disagree with each other: its services page lists proofreading and copyediting as “POA”, while its FAQs publish the £6.00 and £8.00 figures. We quote the FAQs because they carry actual numbers.
Editing is usually the biggest cost, but not the only one. How much it costs to self-publish a book in the UK puts it next to the cover, formatting and ISBN, with a calculator.
UK-specific considerations
- UK rates are often somewhat lower than US rates for the same quality of editor.
- Most UK editors invoice with VAT if they’re VAT-registered. Add 20% to quoted rates if so.
- BACS bank transfer is a common payment method. Many UK editors prefer it over PayPal because of the fees.
- UK English style — most UK editors default to UK English (colour, organise, full stops outside quotes). Specify if you want US English.
- CIEP membership is a training and standards signal, not an insurance one. The CIEP Professional Practice Code (June 2024) does not require members to hold professional indemnity insurance — the word “insurance” does not appear in its 42 pages, and its only indemnity clause (4.2.5) puts insurance on the client. If you want your editor insured, ask; do not assume a membership grade covers it.
- What CIEP membership does bind an editor to is its Code, which is “considered binding on members and Corporate Members” and can be enforced by sanctions up to expulsion. Clause 3.1.12 is the one worth knowing: a supplier “should not subcontract work to others without the knowledge and consent of the client”. If you hire an editor and someone else does the work, that is a breach you can raise.
- VAT note: if your editor is under the £90,000 turnover threshold (raised from £85,000 on 1 April 2024), they likely aren’t VAT-registered — no VAT on their invoice.
Common mistakes
- Skipping the sample edit. Saves an hour upfront; costs thousands.
- Hiring a friend or relative. Family editing destroys family relationships and produces worse books.
- Asking for “editing” without specifying which kind. Editors will charge for whichever pass you describe in detail. Be specific.
- Hiring four different editors for the four passes. Coordinating across editors is a logistics nightmare. Many editors do dev + line, or copy + proof, as packages. Use packages where you can.
- Editing as the manuscript is being written. Editors edit finished drafts. Don’t pay them to edit half a book.
- Treating editor feedback as suggestions. A good developmental editor’s notes need acting on. Ignoring them wastes the money.
Red flags when hiring
- Refuses to do a sample edit. Hard pass.
- No portfolio, no testimonials, no Goodreads/Amazon books. Hard pass.
- Quotes wildly above or below market range. Below = quality risk. Above = vanity pricing without portfolio justification.
- Promises bestseller results. Editing doesn’t sell books; quality + marketing + cover + genre fit sell books. Editors who promise sales are charlatans.
- No contract. Get every job in writing. CIEP provides standard contract templates.
The bottom line
For a first commercial novel, plan for £3,500-£7,000 in editing across four passes. Get a sample edit before committing. Self-edit and beta-read first so you maximise the value of the paid editing. Use CIEP, Reedsy, or word-of-mouth to find editors — not Fiverr for anything other than proofread.
The temptation to skip editing is strong. The reviews on KDP for books that skipped editing are universal: “great story, needs editing”, 3 stars, and the author quietly stops promoting.
Related guides
Frequently asked questions
Can AI replace an editor?
AI tools (Grammarly, ProWritingAid, Sudowrite) accelerate self-editing but don’t replace developmental or copy editing for commercial work. They handle 60-70% of basic issues; the remaining 30-40% is where reviewers notice.
How long does professional editing take?
Developmental: 2-4 weeks. Line: 2-3 weeks. Copy: 1-2 weeks. Proof: 1 week. Plus your revision time between each pass. Total project time: 3-5 months.
Should I pay editors upfront or on delivery?
Standard: 50% upfront, 50% on delivery. Some editors prefer milestone payments for long projects. Don’t pay 100% upfront unless you’ve worked with them before.
What if I disagree with the editor’s suggestions?
You’re the author; you decide. A good editor explains their reasoning, and you take what serves the book. Most authors accept 80-90% of suggestions; the rest is creative choice.
Do I need an editor for my second book in a series?
Yes — but often less developmental editing because the series is established. Many series authors drop to copy + proof only after book 1.
Read next
This is one of four pages on getting your book edited. The others cover line editing vs copyediting, and which one your manuscript actually needs; proofreading before you publish, the final sweep and what it does not catch; and the self-editing checklist — thirty things to fix yourself before you pay anyone, which is the cheapest money you will save.
Who wrote this, and what we sell. I am Robert Prime. I run publishing.co.uk, a UK book formatting service. We do not sell editing or proofreading, so nothing on this page is us quoting our own rates — every figure here is a price published on somebody else's page, with the date we read it. I am not an editor and do not claim to be; what I do is spend the week inside KDP's upload screens with other people's manuscripts, which is where you see what an unedited book costs its author. I was a guest on the Alliance of Independent Authors' Self-Publishing Advice podcast in July 2026. If a price here has moved, tell me and I will correct it and say that I have.
