Something important to remember is that your editor isn’t the god of style choices in your manuscript, you are, especially if you’re self-publishing.
An editor can advise you based on their knowledge of industry standards, suggest edits they believe benefit the reader, and ensure your style choices are consistent, but ultimately your manuscript is your manuscript. If you feel strongly that something should be done a certain way and you don’t like your editor’s suggestion, then you have the right to disagree. As long as style choices are implemented consistently, your editor should be flexible and ultimately go with what you want.
This is called pushback, and it’s actually a sign of a healthy author-editor relationship.
I received pushback in two of the manuscripts I most recently copyedited. In both instances I had suggested a change and explained why I was doing so, and in both instances my clients pushed back and explained why they preferred their original style choice. We then agreed to keep it the way it was after I verified it was handled the same way throughout.
There’s nothing wrong with this result. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad editor or you wasted your time. It’s simply an example of the author’s vision for their work becoming fully realized, which should be every editor’s goal at the end of the day.
Timothy