Editorial
First, do no harm
I work on all kinds of fiction and non-fiction. I have a particular affection for and deep experience in science fiction, mysteries, thrillers, YA, contemporary romance (both the sex-and-shopping chick lit variety, and various flavors of paranormal), and memoir. I also have a lot of experience with literary and mainstream fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy. I’ve edited a wide variety of non-fiction as well, including history, finance, science, and self-help.
If you’ve read How Not To Write A Novel, you probably have a good idea of what not to do. Once I’ve read your manuscript, I can give you more specific guidance as to what you should do instead.
I offer two basic services. I will read your manuscript and come back to you with an editorial letter, a long and thorough explanation of what’s working and what isn’t, and general suggestions about how to fix the latter. It will probably address plot, characters, structure, themes, pacing–all the macro issues. I follow that by citing specific instances of these problems and specific solutions, as well as specific instances of less general issues–a problem with a given scene, for example, or some bit of narrative logic that’s breaking down, or a drift in perspective. If there are issues of style that need to be addressed, bad prose habits you might have fallen into, I would discuss them as well, giving you examples, telling you what the problem is, and what you need to do to improve.
If you feel your book is largely in the shape you want it to be–the plot works, the characters are fully realized, all the scenery and furniture is in place–I would take a red pencil to your manuscript (or turn on Track Changes, if that’s how we’re working) for line editing. Line editing involves actual rewriting: fixing sections that aren’t working, moving passages as necessary, cutting things that aren’t helping, reworking sentences that could be doing their job better. Most first drafts benefit from some trimming, and it often takes an outside eye to see what’s essential and what’s excess. While I’m doing this, I’ll also take care of the copy editing: grammar, usage, spelling; the micro-issues.
Fees: For an editorial letter, as described above, I usually charge $1000 for a book up to 75,000 words, and $1500 for books that run between 75,000 and 125,000 words. Prices are set individually for partial manuscripts, shorter works, and books over 125,000 words.
For line-editing and copy-editing, the cost is $50/hr., unless you’d prefer to settle on a single price for the entire job, after I’ve had some time to look at the manuscript and get an idea of how much work is involved.
If you honestly cannot afford these prices, let me know what you can afford. If you make an offer that is both reasonable and sincere, there’s a good chance we can work something out.
Ghosting and straight-up rewriting are a somewhat different proposition. It’s harder to offer guidelines about fees for this sort of project; in fact, almost anything I say here would be so vague as to be meaningless. It depends on the book, on you, on how we’re going to work together. If you already have a contract, that’s going to be a factor, too. This doesn’t mean the cost is necessarily going to be prohibitive, it just means I’m going to need some information before I can start to discuss it.
For readers of Como No Escribir Una Novela and Come Non Scrivere un Romanzo
Unfortunately, I am not fluent enough in Spanish or Italian to be of much use with manuscripts in those languages. However, if you just have a general question or two, feel free to ask, and I’ll do my best to use Google Translate to come up with an answer in some sort of cyber-pidgin.
