Services

What I Do

My specialty is editing fiction, specifically science fiction and fantasy. I could also edit mysteries, thrillers, and literary nonfiction. I am happy to edit romances, but do not accept erotica; if you are curious about where the distinction lies, please email me. I would be happy to edit/give comments on brief essays, short stories or books, serialized novels and so on. I have no preference for print content over online. I do not accept PhD theses, college papers, etc.; while I have studied the rules of academic writing and done well as a student in an academic institution, academic writing is not my specialty. I edit only in English, although if you want brief Italian → English translations you should let me know.

As a default, I will provide comments on content, style, and typos. I would prefer to give all three; if you only want one or two of the above, please contact me and we can discuss it, but I am somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of not notifying a client of important problems if I notice them.

Similarly, my default style of feedback is to return your manuscript with detailed notes and comments – “You used ‘beautiful’ six times in the last two sentences; you may want to find a different word or describe how the thing/person is beautiful in more detail” “I don’t understand why this character is taking this action.” “ ‘It’s’ means ‘it is’; ‘its’ means ‘belonging to it’. I think you want ‘it’s’ here” – rather than simply rewriting your manuscript for you. After all, I may not be right about what you meant, or you may prefer a different solution to the problem than the one I would suggest. If you would prefer a different style of feedback, again, please contact me and let me know – I can adjust my style somewhat to suit your preferences. And if you have strong preferences about any aspect of feedback – for example, explicit suggestions for fixes versus no explicit suggestions for fixes – simply let me know, so that I can adjust my feedback into the form most helpful for you!

I would prefer submissions in electronic format, ideally .odt, .doc or .docx. Please do not send me PDFs. Google docs are possible but non-ideal and will slow down timelines. My default is to use the comment function in common software such as OpenOffice to mark specific points that need correction, and to also send you a separate document with overall comments on plot/characters/grammar that are not specific to any one point in the document.

Pricing

I have a range of prices, depending on how much work your document requires (see below). For a first-time customer, I will provide a free copy-edit for the first five pages (~2500 words, since pages aren’t always consistent), so you can get an idea of what you’re buying; when I return those pages, I will also tell you what category your document falls into so you can decide whether you want to have the rest edited at that price. This offer does not apply to non-fiction which is 2500 words or fewer in total. For a second-time customer, just send me the document and I’ll send you back which category ASAP (I should know pretty much immediately.)

NOTE: Please do not request a specific level. The variable pricing is based on how much of my time it takes to produce a document with all the issues pointed out – if it takes two days, I’m not giving you the price for a document that takes five hours, and vice versa – though it’s nice of you to offer!

The five categories are defined below:

Fiction

Light Editing Required– $3.00/500 words (approximately equivalent to one page, Times New Roman, 12 point font).

Light means that your manuscript is close to ready to publish! It will usually have an average of no more than 10 comments/page, with occasional exceptions. A given page may go as high as 20-25 comments, or as low as none. I can probably return light work at a rate of 10 pages a day or higher, given no concurrent projects.

Medium Editing Required – $6/500 words.

Medium means that your manuscript will usually have an average of no more than 10-20 comments/page, with occasional exceptions. A given page may go as high as 25-30 comments, or as low as 5. I can probably return medium work at a rate of 5-8 pages a day or higher, given no concurrent projects.

Heavy Editing Required – $12/500 words.

Heavy means that your manuscript will usually have an average of 20+ comments/page. Heavy-work manuscripts may be returned at 4-5 pages a day or fewer. I’m not going to lie to you – heavy means that it takes a lot of work. But on the bright side, you will get a lot of useful commentary out of it.

At my discretion, non-fiction may occasionally qualify for the fiction price selection. This will only occur if the non-fiction is sufficiently entertaining to read to be, in that respect, equivalent to fiction. Don’t count on it. Possible examples of such non-fiction would include a history book meant to be read for fun, or an economics text ditto. Menus, theses, and commercial webpages need not apply.

Non-Fiction

Books or Articles – $18/500 words for lighter editing, or $24/500 words for heavy editing.

Websites, menus, etc. – $24/500 words + $25 flat cost for the setup. While with most projects I am willing to eat the non per-page costs, that stops working on very brief documents, and I end up doing quite a lot of work for twenty-four dollars. So all very brief documents in this category will have an extra $25 charge.

Additional Passes

Given that reading through something that I have already seen once is much quicker and easier, I only charge half price for successive full revisions; minor revisions along the lines of “does this paragraph fix the problem” do not need charging for. Precise due dates will need to be negotiated for any given project based on my schedule at that point (ie, whether I have other projects/commitments) and on how urgently you need it done. I would prefer to finish editing the entire manuscript and then return it to you, since this allows me to check for errors in chapter two that are not clearly errors until you read chapter sixteen, but if you are in a hurry I can also return your manuscript in sections (based on number of pages, internal divisions such as chapters, or whatever works for you) as I complete them. I am prepared to do multiple revisions and to work with you on specific problem spots. All commissions come with a default support package: if anything is not clear about the feedback, or you have questions that the feedback didn't answer (eg "did you spot the foreshadowing in scene X? Did development Y seem to come out of nowhere? Is Character A sympathetic? What was your impression of what character B was actually up to? Does the introduction drag?") just send the questions to me, and I'll provide answers. Support is available for the month following your manuscript's return; please let me know in advance if you expect to need it after that point. The longer it has been since I have worked on something the harder it is to offer useful commentary, so while I can make some adjustments if, say, you expect to be on vacation for two weeks immediately after I get back to you, if you do have follow-up questions you should expect best results from emailing promptly.

I accept payment either via PayPal or via a check mailed to my address.

Note: Terms and prices may be subject to change over time; however, preexisting commissions will not be affected.

Last updated 10/14/2021