Book Editing
What Kind of Book Are You Working On?
My favorite genres include memoir and fiction, including romance, thrillers, adventure, fantasy, magical realism, suspense, literary fiction, and dystopian fiction. I love voice-driven, human-written manuscripts that make me lose track of time while I’m working because I’m not only enhancing them but enjoying them as a reader, too.
When editing nonfiction, I particularly love working with manuscripts that engage topics such as mental health, resilience, anti-racism, gender justice, disability, and personal finance.
If you want your book to help people, I find it meaningful to be able to support you in making it better and more effective. Many of my clients are helpers—therapists, physicians, advocates—and have powerful and impactful stories to tell.
I also have a soft spot for poetry collections, primarily free verse.
If you have completed a draft of your manuscript, congratulations! If it’s aligned with my skills, I’d love to help you take it to the next stage.
What Does Your Book Need?
Developmental Editing
I will provide feedback on your ideas, evidence, organization, characters, and plot. I’ll comment in the margins throughout the manuscript and provide a summary letter discussing both the strengths and suggested revisions.
Line Editing
Line editing includes the technical improvements of copyediting plus more significant enhancement of the style, flow, and syntax of a piece of writing. I’ll provide direct revisions in track changes mode, considering voice, continuity, and characters.
Learn more about my line editing.
Copyediting
Copyediting resolves errors in grammar, syntax, word choice, spelling, and punctuation. I apply Chicago Manual of Style grammatical rules, catch those sneaky homophones, and check your idioms. I ensure that tenses are consistent, subjects and verbs are in agreement, and proper nouns are spelled consistently. I also create a style sheet to document editorial decisions and manuscript details for consistency.
Learn more about my copyediting.
Proofreading
This service provides a final combing to resolve lingering grammatical mistakes and typos in manuscripts that have already been professionally copyedited and formatted in PDFs. Ideally, you’ll also have a style sheet from your copyeditor.
Learn more about my proofreading.
Not sure what you need?
I’m happy to review your manuscript and advise.
Contact me for a free sample edit.
Book Editing Rates
Please contact me so I can customize a quote based on the specific word count and needs of your manuscript. This allows me to tailor costs based on the scope of work and time required to achieve excellence in your project.
Note that poetry editing and picture book rates are based on estimated time rather than word count.
My rates are typically aligned with the EFA median rates. While they vary by genre, turnaround, and depth of editing, here is a sense of typical rates for different levels of editing that I offer:
Developmental editing: $.03 to $.06 per word
Line editing: $.03 to $.06 per word
Copyediting: $.02 to $.04 per word
Proofreading: starts at $.015 per word
You calculate the overall manuscript cost by multiplying the word count by the rate. Line and copyediting a 50,000-word novel, for example, at $.03 per word would mean 50,000 x $.025 = $1500.
