Publishing Services
The kind of service your book may need depends on where it is in development.
Developmental Editing
An in-depth report on your first draft to help prepare you for revision, including a reader letter with big-picture reactions and advice on the plot, characters, and organization; chapter-by-chapter notes taken during the read; and highlighting and comments throughout the manuscript.
Line Editing & Copy Editing
Line editing is paragraph- and sentence-level suggestions to improve readability, clarity, and style, ensuring that setting and character details are consistent throughout the manuscript. Copy editing addresses the finer points of grammar, syntax, spelling, and typography, usually in adherence to an established industry style guide. I often perform line editing and copy editing in the same pass.
Fact Checking
Ensures that all factual statements made in a nonfiction work are accurate by verifying them against reliable published sources (not Wikipedia and not ChatGPT).
Book Design
Translates the manuscript from a Word file into a PDF that displays the text (and any art) exactly how it will appear in the printed book, including any front matter (copyright, dedication, epigraph) and back matter (acknowledgments, about the author). Creates print-ready interior and cover files for your self-publishing service of choice (Amazon Kindle Direct, IngramSpark, etc.).
Proofreading
Once the first draft of print-ready PDFs are finished, this step checks that all text and any art have been correctly set and formatted, reviews typographical elements such as hyphenation, line breaks, and letter spacing, and serves as one last check for any errors not caught in previous steps.
What I work on
My first love and most extensive experience is in young adult and middle-grade fiction across all genres. I particularly enjoy fantasy, science fiction, and literary realism. I also have many years of experience editing lifestyle magazine articles and science communication for both general audiences and industry professionals.
How I work
For independent authors, I usually begin with a sample edit of the first few pages of a project, so we can work out the direction, degree, and style of editing you’d like for the full manuscript. I work with Track Changes on so any of my suggestions can be easily accepted or rejected, and I leave questions about more subjective matters as comments. I also provide a style sheet tracking global style decisions, spelling choices, unique terms, character and location details, and timeline notes.