STEP 2: WORKING WITH YOUR COPYEDITOR Once you’ve found the right copyeditor, you’ll need to assign them the job and work with them. We spoke to our team of professionals to gather feedback on what they need out of a job assignment. Here is their advice: 1. Define the Role: As one of our editors said, “Copyediting is rarely just copyediting, no matter what the client calls it.” There’s a lot of responsibility that can be put on a copyeditor, and it’s important to be clear about what that responsibility is. Traditionally, a copyeditor’s task is to find any mistakes, incon- sistencies, and errors, like typos, and grammatical and spelling mistakes. However, it’s not uncommon (because they’re the last line of defense against a faulty manuscript being released) for them to take on more responsibility. 2. Explain the Audience: Not every book is written in the Queen’s English. For a copyeditor to accurately distinguish between what to edit and what’s an intentional style choice, it’s important for them to understand the audience for the book and the message it’s trying to convey. This can be as high level as whether or not profanity is okay, or as specific as the country of origin, to make sure that the sayings and spellings are correct. 3. Point Out What Needs Work: You can often (although not always) anticipate issues. For example, we recently worked on a book that was written in such a way that it jumped back and forth between past and present tense. We fixed this problem in the manuscript, but it was worth explaining the situation to the proofreader so that she, too, could be on the lookout for similar mistakes. You can apply this strategy, too. If you know you have a tendency 236 · ThE SCriBE METhOD