Editing assignments serve many needs of a book. Development means creating a full draft. Editing means making that draft better. There’s a good line from the movie Genius, about the legendary editor Max Perkins. The man who edited F. Scott Fitzgerald said that editors carry the hope that “we do more than make books different. We make them better.”
The line edit that you purchase could be full of changes to the prose. Some of those are closer to a copyedit. The sentences are correct, but the idea might be clarified by a line edit. You can get away with a line edit and skip a copyedit — if each of your editing pros goes beyond their scope. The line editor will have to be doing copyedits that require styling and redrafting. Your proofreader is going to give you a light copyedit. Nearly all of the proofers do that. Good editors can’t help themselves.
Development editing is a co-creation of sorts. A book is often incomplete when it gets a development edit. Development edits include revising by the editor, reordering, cutting, or expanding material. They can supply notes to clarify plot, characterization, or thematic elements, or write original material.
As the author, you’re always in charge of what gets submitted to the publisher. A good development editor can help carry you to that magic moment of acceptance. Either you accept that your self-published book is as good as it can be — or your publisher accepts the book that you’ve submitted on contract.
