Do you have a manuscript that needs editing before publication? We offer a fiction editing service, detailed below, and also a style sheet–only service for those who are on a tight budget.
Manuscripts we can help with
– We specialise in fantasy, science fiction, and romance. However, we are open to editing other genres.
– We edit prose, not verse, although small amounts of verse within a larger prose narrative are within our abilities.
– We are open to manuscripts of varying lengths, from flash fiction up to sprawling epic fantasy tomes.
– We can edit non-traditional story formats, so long as you can paste the text into a Word document for us to work on. For example, we can edit Twine games and other interactive fiction projects.
What is included in our editing service
We specialise in copyediting, which is editing for errors, spelling, grammar, consistency, style, and so forth. Copyediting is done late in the process, shortly before publication, and can be thought of as ‘polishing’ the text. We also offer a non-fiction editing service if that would be more appropriate for your manuscript.
As part of our service, we construct a style sheet for any manuscript over 20,000 words in length (that doesn’t have one provided). A style sheet is a document that is used in the editing process, but which is also valuable to the author later, particularly if you are working on a series. If you are on a tight budget, we also provide a style sheet—only service.
We can edit for either UK or US English. When editing for UK English, we use the New Oxford Style Manual (2014) and the Oxford Dictionary of English iOS app unless requested otherwise. For US English, we use The Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary iOS app unless requested otherwise.
Price
We don’t give a fixed price for our editing service here on the website as some manuscripts need a heavier edit than others. Instead, we evaluate the manuscript and quote for the work depending on how many hours we think it will take to complete. But as a rough guide, we aim to charge about NZ$50 an hour.
The process for editing fiction
– We receive your query.
– If we have space in our schedule, we invite you to send your manuscript to us for evaluation. (Read our privacy policy for more on how we handle and store your files.)
– We send you a quote for the work. Also, for any manuscript over 20,000 words we will return a sample edited chapter or scene to help you decide if you want to accept the quote.
– If you accept the quote, we will invoice you for a 50% deposit.
– We construct a draft style sheet (if manuscript is over 20,000 words) and run it by you before finalising.
– We edit the manuscript.
– We return the manuscript and the style sheet to you and invoice for the remaining balance.
– You may send a series of questions to us regarding the changes. Please send them all at once, as subsequent rounds of questions will be billed at NZ$50/hr.
If you are interested in this service, please send a query using the form below.
