Due to the upcoming birth of my son, I will not be taking projects for the months of September and October. Please get in touch via the contact page for more detailed availability questions.
Editing is important for all professional writing. Whether you’re preparing to self publish or getting ready to submit to agents and editors, an editing service can give you the knowledge and the skills to get your manuscript in tip-top shape. Not only will you end up with a stronger work, you’ll end up a stronger writer.
Manuscript Editing
I work with fiction and nonfiction, and have a soft spot for kid lit and mysteries, historicals, or general-audience nonfiction for any age. Full or partial manuscripts are welcome. I’m a professional and an educator, and I take my educator mindset into everything I do. The focus is on your manuscript and on you. I want you to be the best writer you can be.
But don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what Sally has to say:
“Connie’s keen editorial eye made all the difference for me. Her comments and suggestions were exactly what I needed to ready my novel for the submission process, and I know she played a big role in my success. Her generosity in answering questions after the read was every writer’s dream. A “Connie read” will always be a non-negotiable step in the revision process for me from now on.” —Sally Hepworth, author of The Secrets of Midwives, forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press
Additionally, to ensure we’re a good fit, I do short sample edits for clients looking to work on long pieces (10K or more). Just tell me a bit about your project on the contact page for more details. If the contact page gives you trouble, email me (again, with the sample pasted into the body of the email) at cgbdowell (at) gmail (dot) com.
See below for the different types of manuscript services I offer and my (very affordable) rates. I hope to hear from you soon!
Evaluation
Often called a substantive, content, or developmental edit, this service looks at big picture concerns, like plot development, pacing, and character development in fiction, and argument development and organization in nonfiction. This type of edit doesn’t look at sentence level concerns. It’s perfect for the writer who expects some revision and isn’t ready for copyediting or line editing just yet. Evaluation is $3 per 1000 words. Manuscripts over 60,000 words get a discount. Additional 1000 word blocks beyond 60,000 are only $2 each.
Line by Line
Line edit: This type of edit focuses on sentence structure, eliminating redundancy, concise language, and working on any sentence-level telling vs. showing concerns that weren’t dealt with in earlier stages. I can include a copyedit along with this pass. Line edits that include copyediting are $5 per 1000 words up to 60,000 and $3.5 per 1000 word block after 60,000.
Copyedit: This edit covers grammatical and punctuation concerns and wrong-word errors that can often slip through spell-check. It also covers consistency issues, things like characters naming the day of the week Tuesday and only a few hours later referring to it as a Wednesday. Finally, the copyedit will also check some formatting issues, particularly ensuring a consistent format throughout. I’ll check for extra or missing spaces, paragraph styles, “smart” quotation marks vs. straight quotes, etc. Copyedits without line edit elements are $4 per 1000 words up to 60K and $2.75 per 1000 words after 60K.
Please note: While line by line edits can comment on minor structural issues, it isn’t often a good idea to get a line by line edit before having someone evaluate the structural issues of a novel. That way you are edited more efficiently and don’t pay for detail work only to rewrite or heavily revise large sections later.