The service I provide is pretty broad and I offer everyone the same set of skills. I look for:

• Grammar and punctuation issues
• Misspellings, usage errors, and clarity in your writing
• Continuity - ie. if Joe went to work, why is he now in the room with the protagonist?
• Pacing considerations
• How a sentence reads (ie. Is it clunky? Dialog stilted?)
• Character development
• Plot issues

So, what's the difference in pricing? (I can hear you thinking that!) It depends on the level of revision and editing your book has gone through before it reaches me.

If I'm the first person to look at your manuscript other than yourself, you probably need "heavy" editing. If, on the other hand, you've worked with beta readers, a line-editor and a copy-editor, you probably just need "light editing," and might even be ready to jump to "Oops Detection."

Send me a portion of your book and I'll give you a sample of my editing and a quote for your entire project.

Guideline:

• Between $.0075 per word and $.015 per word

Sample

A big part of choosing an editor isn't just skill - it's also determining whether or not you'll be able to work with the person. In order to let you get an idea of both factors I'm happy to offer you a free sample. Send me your manuscript (or just the first five pages, if it's still a work in progress) and I'll happily edit the first five pages and send it back to you. This will also let me give you an accurate quote as well as estimate project length and turnaround time.

• Gratis

Please note:

• Oops Detection is not meant to be a shortcut around editing, nor is it even meant to replace proofreading. It is a LAST check, meant to catch that pesky handful of "oopses" that always manages to slip through. For more information about the production process, I invite you to read Courtney Milan's excellent article about the subject.
  
  
• Oops Detection is a service that I provide in my spare time - ie. my free time. That is why I am able to keep my rates low. I make no secret about the fact that I am currently a one-woman shop. Depending upon my work schedule (ie. manuscript editing), school, family obligations, and how many books are in the queue, turnaround time on Oops Detection may vary.
  
  
• If I feel your book needs proofreading, I will immediately stop reading and notify you. I'll generally write up an Oops Report on the part of your manuscript that I did get marked up, but, again--Oops Detection isn't meant to replace other parts of the editorial process.

Reading Fee

This is a flat fee that covers the time spent reading your book. It is assessed based on length and is non-refundable once I have started reading.

"Oops Detection" is affordable and it's great for:

• Putting that last bit of polish on your book.
• Giving yourself peace of mind that it's ready, already.
• Evaluating your freelance editor / proofreader.
• Fixing Optical Character Recognition (OCR) conversions - That's when a print document is scanned in preparation to convert it to digital format. OCR software can, will, and does do wonky stuff to text, such as replacing letters with numbers, dropping punctuation, and changing some words completely.

• .001 cents per word -

  
  

  Example:
  50,000 words x .001 = $50.00

Charge per "Oops"

I look for errors such as missing words, double words, misspellings, homophones and usage errors (loose instead of lose, for example), and obvious punctuation errors (such as a missing period, a question mark instead of a period, missing dialog tags, etc.). I'll also point out any really strange formatting issues that I spot, though I won't necessarily look for chapter breaks and such.

Hyphenation issues: I won't flag hyphenation problems with compound adjectives, but I will flag words that should be hyphenated (or one word, or open) according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Before I start reading, I'll ask you what the limit is on the number of Oopses your budget will cover. I'll let you know if I get close to that limit (and how far into the book I am), and we can decide how to proceed at that point. You can have me continue, or you can opt to switch to manuscript editing. If you switch to editing, your reading fee will be credited toward the initial deposit on editing work. Alternately, you can pay the invoice as it stands and will hopefully make other arrangements for editing.

• $1.00 / "oops"

Guaranteed Priority Turnaround (Optional)

I'll start on your book immediately upon receipt and will have it back to you within 24 hours per 25,000 words. (A 30,000 word novella would be finished up within 48 hours, a 125,000 word epic would be back within 5 days.) Turnaround times are business days, so not necessarily consecutive.

Note: This service may not be necessary, even if your book is an add-on. It all depends on my current workload. I'm always happy to share my projected timelines with you, so feel free to ask what my schedule looks like.

• $.001 / word

Sample

Curious what an "Oops Detection" entails, what a report looks like, and how you'll be billed? Debora Geary has kindly given me her permission to post her report for A Modern Witch.

Here's the pricing break-down for Debora's book: