Once you submit your book manuscript to a publisher, you get a great feeling: You’re all done!

But not quite. Soon you’ll get your book back again. You send your writing way, but it keeps coming back. Your words leave like kids going to college. But before you know it they return, if a bit changed.

You may spend most of a year researching and writing the book, and then you send it off to your publisher to shepherd it to publication. What a relief! But the relief is temporary. The book comes back first from your editor with requests for structural changes. It comes back a second time from the copyeditor with requests for review and clarifications. It comes back a third time from the production team for proofing in “galleys,” or bound “uncorrected page proofs.”

When you start a book, plan for these repeat visits. A book isn’t mature enough to stand on its feet the first time you send it out. You have to keep after its upbringing.

How much time does all the back-and-forth take? I kept a tally for my book Merchants of Virtue, about 80,000 words: About five days to make editor-requested changes. About four days to read the copyedit and answer all the copyeditor’s questions. About three days to proof every word.

In the last proofing, I spent two entire days—about 16 hours—reading the text aloud. I read until I was hoarse. This may seem extreme, but reading aloud is the only to make sure you read every word and not overlook mistakes. Read aloud, extra words—a “the” here and a “didn’t” there—stand out. Aloud, missing words—a “but” here and a “not” there—draw you to a stop. Aloud, you hear your mistakes—like when I repeated an entire sentence in my second chapter.

After all these return visits, you get pretty tired of your text. But all the work is a good reminder: When you’re budgeting time for follow-up to your manuscript, leave a few days open to attend to your loving creation’s repeated return visits. And stay patient. The TLC you give your written child at the end really does make all the difference.

[Revised January 2020. Originally published May 18, 2011]