Thank you for your interest in my editorial services!
If you'd like to explore having me copyedit or proofread your project, e-mail me a little information about ...
Your topic: What is the work about? If it's a nonfiction book, include the table of contents. (I primarily work on nonfiction, but occasionally accept fiction projects.) See my Selected Projects and Selected Books pages for some of projects I've worked on; this may give you a sense of whether your project is a good fit for me, and vice versa.
Your schedule: Let me know the size of the work (ideally, the word count, which Microsoft Word can tell you). I'd also like to know your approximate deadline for having the editing completed, to make sure that I will be able to fit your project into my schedule. For book-length projects, it works best if you contact me at least a month or two in advance; smaller projects require less advance notice.
Level/type of edit needed: As a copyeditor and proofreader, I usually work on material that is nearly ready for publication, although I often help writers who need just a little extra assistance to bring their work to that exalted state. If a piece needs major rewriting, reorganization, cutting or adding of material, adjustments in tone or voice, or other larger fixes —
or an overall evaluation to determine if it is publishable or worth going forward —
you may be in need of substantive editing and/or manuscript evaluation, which is outside the scope of what I do. I may be able to recommend another editor, or I may refer you to the Northwest Independent Editors Guild (www.edsguild.org) to find the right editor for your project.
If we determine that your topic, schedule, and level of edit seem to be a good fit for me, when you have finished your writing and are satisfied that it is as good as you can make it, e-mail me a few pages, ideally from the middle of the work. I'll edit a page or two and e-mail it back to you, along with an estimate of how long I think the whole project will take to edit and how much it would cost (usually a range). I'll use the Track Changes feature in Word to make my edits, so you'll be able to see them and accept or reject each one (or accept or reject them all as a whole).
If your document is available only in hard copy, you can fax me a few pages, and I can edit a page on paper and fax or mail it back to you. This generally works well only if the document is nearly perfect, though.
As a very general ballpark estimate, I usually edit from 1,000 to 1,500 words an hour, and I charge $40/hour and up depending on the complexity of the material, the deadline, and other factors.
For book authors, an average 250-page book is usually around 60,000 to 80,000 words, which means a professional copyedit can take 40 to 80 hours. It's a substantial investment, but good copyeditors bring a great deal of expertise to the table that can benefit a project enormously.
