The Process

Inquiry

I’d love to hear from you! Contact me and tell me a little about what you’re working on. Include genre, brief summary, target audience, where you are in the process, and your main concerns. Feel free to tell me a little about yourself as well—whether you’re a first time author, what other writing you’ve done, and what kind of help you’re looking for. You can send a sample at this time or after I respond to let you know if it’s a project I’d like to take on. I usually use Microsoft Word’s track changes feature for all of my edits, but if you don’t have Word, you can put your manuscript in Google Docs or send me a Scrivener file if that’s what you use.

Sample Edit

You can choose to send me just the first couple chapters or the whole manuscript. I’ll sample edit the first two or three chapters and give you a price quote for your different options as well as a time frame.

While I’d like to be able to tell you whether or not you need a developmental edit or not, it’s impossible for me to tell you that from a sample edit. I recommend a developmental critique for every manuscript, no matter how much great feedback you’ve received from beta readers. I’ve been told more than once that the developmental feedback is exactly what the writer needed, and they all have me do it for their next manuscript.

Contract

We will both sign a contract outlining price, timeline, and expectations. I will collect a down payment through Paypal or Venmo, and you’ll send me your manuscript in Microsoft Word, Scrivener, or Google Docs.

Editing

Depending on what you decide to have me do, I’ll have your manuscript for 1-3 weeks. (For more on the different services I offer, see Services and Pricing.)

If I have any questions or big concerns during editing, I’ll contact you for clarification or for a heads-up on any major changes I’m suggesting. I try to be thorough and clear in my comments and edits.

I will send your manuscript back to you with edits, suggestions, and notes, along with an invoice for the balance due.

Revisions

Be prepared for revisions when I send back your work. For a developmental critique, you’ll receive a document outlining the strengths and weaknesses I see in your writing and overall suggestions for improvement. If you choose to send it again after you’re happy with the structure of your novel, we can move on to a content edit.

Content editing will give you concrete edits as well as suggestions that will be up to you to reject or implement. It may require cutting out or rewriting entire scenes, or it may be a matter of considering the suggested grammar changes, making your sentences more concise, or choosing more effective words. After finishing these and having any beta readers look over your work, you can send it back to me for a final check.

Proofreading won’t require a lot of work on your part other than accepting the changes I put in, as most corrections will be for typos, misspelling, punctuation, capitalization, and some grammar.

I’m always available for questions or clarifications during your revision process!