Editing
Services

Whether you have a rough draft or a near-finished manuscript, the most valuable tool you can acquire for yourself is feedback from others, especially professionals. A manuscript review is constructive advice on big-picture elements: structure, plot, character arcs, etc. It's the first round of edits for any book and imperative to turning a Word document into a print-ready masterpiece. When you request one from me, you'll receive an honest review of your project in the form of a four- to eight-page edit letter. I'll celebrate strong areas, identify weak areas, and explain which are which with intricate detail. I'll also return your digital manuscript peppered with comments, observations, and suggestions. Don't let all the red bubbles get you down. My advice? Change the Track Changes color to green. It's more calming.

If your structure is air-tight but you can't stop fussing with syntax, line editing is your savior. I'll take your manuscript one paragraph at a time (this usually entails reading it out loud while pacing around my home), suggesting tweaks and refinements to get your sentences flowing like a mountain stream. The worst part about writing is reading your own work a trillion times and never realizing you used the word "flummoxed" twice in one paragraph. Fresh, trained eyes are your solution.

So you had to change your main character's name because you accidentally borrowed the moniker of a celebrity. Ctrl F is handy for this, but it won't catch the time you doubled the vowels for drawn-out dialogue or the moment your character got interrupted by a pesky em dash. Lucky for you, copyediting is standard practice, and you can hire someone like me to fine-tune everything from names to style inconsistencies to the missing Oxford comma. Copyediting also consists of minor fact-checking and suggestions to improve readability. Typos and awkward phrasing can dampen your credibility, so a copyeditor is a must for everyone.

In traditional publishing, the proofreader (although there may be several) is the last person to see the book before it goes to the printer. If you have a print-ready file, the proofreader catches things like a missing page number, errors introduced in the copyediting stage, or formatting mistakes. The best person to proofread is someone who stares at book files all day, and that someone is me. I'll give you peace of mind that your book is as spotless as it can be.