No matter what level of editing your project needs, I begin by learning more about you and your work from a questionnaire I’ll ask you to fill out. I then do a very slow read of your work, paying attention to each and every word, punctuation mark, and paragraph break.
When I read and edit your work, I do it through two lenses: your goals for your work and your intended audience. It’s important to know your goals for your work so that I can gauge how successful you’ve been. I also keep the audience in mind while I read, and I gear my editing toward that audience. Even if I am not the ideal audience for your book, I will have their wants and needs in mind as I edit.
Manuscript Evaluation
In a manuscript evaluation, I evaluate the manuscript as a book in terms of its story and in terms of the market. Would this picture book be better as a chapter book? Does your story follow the basic arc of a story? Does it make any unforgivable (and unpublishable) sins?
Process: For a manuscript evaluation, you will submit your manuscript as a Microsoft Word file. You will receive a long letter (a Word file) that evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of your manuscript and offers suggestions for next steps in your revision or rewrite.
Editing
Different manuscripts need different levels of editing, depending on where the author is the process (still brainstorming, for example, or ready to publish).
Developmental Editing
In developmental editing, I pay attention to big-picture elements like plot, characters, and pacing.
Line Editing
In line editing, I polish your prose on the sentence and paragraph level. I focus on tightening and clarifying the language while maintaining your unique voice.
Copyediting
In copyediting, I work with the following elements:
- spelling, grammar, and punctuation
- treatment of numbers
- treatment of special terms
- hyphenation
- abbreviations and acronyms
- headers and the table of contents
- clarity, continuity, and correctness
Process: For developmental editing, line editing, and copyediting, you will submit your manuscript as a Microsoft Word file and receive it a back as a redlined document with Track Changes and Comments.
Proofreading
During proofreading, I catch any errors that were either missed by the copyeditor or introduced during design.
Process: For proofreading, you will submit your page proofs as a PDF file and receive them back with the corrections placed in comments. Page proofs that have more than three errors per page may need to be resubmitted for copyediting.
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