Erik PillarThe honest read
THE HONEST READ

Developmental Editing · Fiction & Technical Books

I help make your book better by finding the load-bearing problem in your draft.

Developmental editing for fiction and non-fiction alike, helping authors find their voice. I bring a decade of writing genre fiction, and a day job developing technical books at a working publisher.

Send 1,000 wordsA sample edit, without charge. Returned within a week.
Two line edits

Fiction

Kaelen felt a sudden surge of fear rise up within her as she realised that the shadowy figure standing in the doorway was none other than her own brother. In the doorway stood her brother.

Twenty-nine words to six. Cutting felt and realised hands the fear back to the reader instead of reporting it to them.

Non-fiction

It should be noted that the configuration file is able to be modified by the user in order to change the default behaviour of the system. Edit config.yml to change what the system does by default.

Twenty-six words to ten, and the reader now knows which file to open.

MFAEmerson College
ManningDevelopment Editor
1,000,000Readers reached
CMOS 17Chicago discipline

I. The Record

Books I have developed

All titles →

Development editor of record. Manning Early Access Program.

II. Two Doors

What are you working on?

For novelists

I am writing a novel

Fiction development for genre writers — epic and progression fantasy, LitRPG, science fiction, horror, romance. I read the genre you are writing in, and I write it too.

Fiction editing →
For publishers & authors

I am publishing a technical book

Chapter-by-chapter development for practitioner titles. Author coaching, structure, audience alignment, and deadlines that hold. Chicago 17th, in Word, Google Docs, AsciiDoc or LaTeX.

Technical editing →

III. The Offices

Four services, four different jobs

Most authors ask for the wrong one. I will tell you which you actually need before you pay.

  1. Developmental Editing

    Structure, arc, character, and pacing, worked chapter by chapter as you write or across a finished draft.

    Ask for this at any point, from a first chapter to a full draft.

  2. Line & Copy Editing

    Sentence by sentence for rhythm, clarity, and voice, with grammar, continuity, and house style checked and verified true in the same pass.

    Ask for this any time you have a completed draft, a chapter or a full book, when the content is final but the prose still needs work.

  3. Proofreading

    The last pass before it goes out, catching typos, spacing, bad breaks, and anything the previous rounds introduced.

    Ask for this last, on the laid-out proofs.

  4. Manuscript Development & Editorial Consulting

    Work at the outline and the plan before the writing starts, plus a standing second opinion once it has.

    Ask for this before you commit to a plan, or when you want judgement by the hour.

IV. The Audition

I write in the genres I edit

All fiction →

Genre fiction reads best to an editor who writes it. Here is mine, in the genres you are working in.

V. What Authors Say

In their words

Erik has helped me edit my first book from zero to launch. Throughout the process he provided great recommendations, in terms of content, style, and grammar. I can certainly say that I would not have finished my book, without his help!
Francisco TrindadeLeading Effective Software Teams

Send me a thousand words.

Any thousand — an opening, a chapter you cannot fix, the bit you already know is broken. I will edit them properly and send them back with real queries, free. One document is enough to tell whether we should work together.

Start a sample editRead the services