Four services, four different jobs

1. 01

   Developmental Editing

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

   This is the pass that answers why chapter nine drags, the midpoint lands flat, and why readers keep putting the book down in the same place. Bad pacing in chapter nine is rarely a chapter nine problem, so I trace the symptom back to whatever caused it and tell you where it entered.

   Most people assume this happens once, at the end. It works just as well chapter by chapter, alongside the writing, and for many authors that is the better way to do it. You send a chapter, I read it and come back with notes, we talk the revision through, and you carry what we worked out into the next one. Ideas get mapped before they cost you a month, and problems get caught while they are still cheap to fix.

   Let’s build your book the way you want it, together, not just the way it’s landed on the paper.

   You receive

   Notes on each chapter, calls to talk the revision through, and a running back-and-forth from first page to finished book.

   Ask for this

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

2. 02

   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.

   These used to be sold as two separate passes, and for most manuscripts that is a way of charging twice for one read. Anyone reading closely enough to fix a sentence is already noticing the capital that changed halfway through and the timeline that slipped, so this is one pass doing both jobs properly.

   Line editing works at the level of the sentence and the paragraph. I cut the filter words that put distance between the reader and the scene, “she felt”, “he realised”, “it seemed that”. I take out dialogue tags that strain for variety when “said” was doing the job. I vary sentence length where a paragraph has flattened into one rhythm, and I remove the throat-clearing and hedging you needed while drafting. I sharpen what you already sound like, and I will not replace it with what I sound like, which is what most authors are quietly afraid of when they hire an editor.

   Copyediting is the mechanical layer: spelling, grammar, punctuation, tense, and agreement, plus continuity of names, ages, distances and timelines across eighty thousand words, which is longer than anyone can hold in their head. For technical books it covers terminology used the same way throughout, code listings formatted consistently and matching the prose that describes them, and figure and table callouts numbered and pointing where they claim to.

   You receive

   Tracked changes through the manuscript, with a query at every point where the call is yours to make.

   Ask for this

   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. 03

   Proofreading

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

   Proofreading is a different job from editing, done at a different stage. The manuscript is finished, copyedited, and typeset, and this is the last look before it reaches readers. Buying it in place of an edit is the most common expensive mistake authors make.

   What I am hunting for here is small and unglamorous: a doubled word, a dropped quotation mark, a heading that has slipped to the bottom of a page, an inconsistent capital that survived three rounds. Errors introduced by the previous rounds are the most common thing I find, because that is where everyone has stopped looking.

   I will flag a genuine structural problem if I see one at this stage, but I will also tell you plainly if it is too late to be worth fixing. Knowing which is which is most of the value.

   You receive

   Marked proofs, or tracked changes if you are working in Word.

   Ask for this

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

4. 04

   Manuscript Development & Editorial Consulting

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

   Developmental editing works on pages you have written. This works on the plan before you write them. We build the outline together, settling what the book promises, what order the reader needs it in, where the weight falls, and what has to be true by the end of each part for the next one to work at all.

   For serialised fiction this is where escalation curves get planned, how power scales, what the reader is promised at each chapter break, and how you keep paying that off two hundred chapters later.

   Editorial consulting gives you a standing second opinion, a call when a decision is looming, a read of three chapters to check the arc is still holding, or a view on whether a proposal is ready to go out. Publishers use it for assessments and second opinions on submissions.

   You receive

   A structured plan you can write from, and consultation by email, chat, or call, whichever suits how you work.

   Ask for this

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

How it works

From first email to final pass

1. A sample edit, free

   You send 1,000 words. I return them edited to the standard a paying client gets, in about one week. This is the real test — of me, and of whether we read the book the same way.

2. A scope and a fixed quote

   I read enough of the manuscript to know what it needs, then tell you which pass to buy and what it costs. If you need a different service than the one you asked for, you hear that here rather than after the invoice.

3. The work

   Tracked changes and in-line queries throughout, plus an editorial letter on the developmental passes. We work at whatever pace suits your life. For serials and technical books that usually means chapter by chapter, matched to your release schedule instead of one block at the end. Some authors want a weekly editorial call over video to talk things through. Others want a short email summarising what changed and what still needs attention. And if you would rather hand the manuscript over and get it back finished, that works too.

4. A conversation afterwards

   An editorial letter you cannot ask questions about is half a service. A call is included — you should finish knowing not just what to change but why, so the next book needs less of me.