If I'm going to hire a copyeditor, do I need to do any proofing myself?

Question

For my book I'm planning to self-pub, I aim to hire a copyeditor / proofreader at some point.The question is this: Should I do any proofreading myself, other than using a spell checker? Currently, my eyes hurt from trying to find small mistakes (things using 'their' for 'there' etc).I'm wondering if there is any harm in just throwing the whole thing over to someone else? Is there an advantage in me doing a typo edit pass myself? I mean, will it help reduce cost (as I've done a lot of work myself), or make the quality better (as 2 people have gone over the text)?

Answer 1

No good freelance editor will quote you a price without first asking exactly what you want (full copy editing with fact checking? proofing for grammar errors?) and also seeing a sample of your draft.

Once the prospective editor has seen your draft, it will absolutely change the quoted price if there are a lot of mechanical errors to clean up.

That said, if your brain and eyes hurt from trying to locate your own slips--and I know this feeling well--then it might just be worth it to shell out the extra money :)

Best wishes