Editorial Services

NOTE: Starting January 1, 2010, the number of edits I do a month will change indefinitely. One or two edits will be done per month (and no books over 200,000 words). I will not be doing edits in May, September, or December 2010. If you are interested in my services and wish to reserve a spot for 2010, spaces are available; however, they do go quickly because I have many repeat clients, and new clients crop up weekly.

You will need to reserve a space at least a month in advance. When you reserve a spot, you will be required to put down a $50.00 deposit on editorial services (paid through PayPal ~ will be applied to overall editorial fee); the remainder balance will be paid according to a fee schedule you and I set up.

I will contact all scheduled clients at least two weeks before an edit to insure you are still interested in the services. If for any reason you wish to cancel or postpone editorial services, the deposit will not be refunded.

Vacant spots not filled within two weeks before an upcoming month will be deleted from the editing queue.

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Over the last eight years, I have edited numerous novels, short stories, novellas, articles, essays, interviews, and the occasional screenplay.

Depending on the publication-readiness of a manuscript, I perform three types of editing:

Proofreading [recommended only if you have received a thorough editing of manuscript prior to purchasing a CLG-E service] focuses on two types of problems: 1) details that have been missed in the editing stages, such as spelling, punctuation, and serious grammatical errors and 2) glitches that have been introduced during layout, such as errors in headers/footers, page numbers, widows/orphans, and bad hyphen breaks at line ends.

Copy editing tackles the manuscript line by line, paying attention to the small details: grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, passive voice, word choice, consistency of detail, spelling, consistency of style, clarity, etc.

Substantive Editing [especially for works that have not been edited at all] seeks to achieve clarity of subject, logic, and consistency. Confusing and awkward writing may be reworked. Sentences are analyzed for structure/syntax. Long sentences may be enumerated or separated.

Though some of the issues that are present in the proofreading and copy editing stages are handled in a substantive edit, please keep in mind that I will not conduct all three of these forms at once. Editing is an important process in getting your manuscript to shine; as a result, you should make sure you have your work edited more than once. In the initial stages, having a strong story is important; hence, you would look at substantive editing. As the story becomes perfected, you would look toward getting your manuscript copy edited, and in the final stage, once the manuscript is in layout form, you would seek someone to proofread your manuscript.

In addition to editing your manuscript, I also offer manuscript evaluations where I rate various components of your manuscript [such as plot, character, dialogue, and general writing style] and state strengths and weaknesses of the work with suggestions.

Many of my past clients have nothing but praise for my work on their manuscripts; you can head to the TESTIMONIALS page to see what they have to say.

If you are looking for an editor and would like more information regarding fees, please e-mail me. In your e-mail, provide me with the following information:

Project name
Genre
Brief book description
Word count
When you want to have your work edited
What stage is your work in (never edited, edited once for story development, ready for a proofreading, etc.)

NOTE: Please don’t expect me to rewrite your novel/story for you; that’s ghostwriting, and I rarely do it as it is time-consuming. No matter the stage of your manuscript, you want to have it “clean” in some aspects before submitting. What does that mean?

Make sure your novel is in the correct format – 1″ margins, Times New Roman or Courier font size 12, double spaced, new chapters starting on new pages.
Indent paragraphs (including dialogue) and use quotation marks
Skim a few books to see how taglines (he said/she said) work, to see where commas go within quotation marks with dialogue, etc.
Do SPELL CHECK – cannot, unfortunately, stress this enough.

On the right hand side of this page, you will see a box titled CLG WRITING COLUMNS. Definitely take the time to check out articles in my The Write Life for You series and from The Blood-Red Pencil where editors talk about what writers should know about writing. A writer who wants to become good, great, excellent should always aspire to learn more about the craft of writing. Why not do it now?

Below are just a few of the books I provided editorial assistance for clients.