Editorial Services

Ben W. Gardner
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So your manuscript is finished...or is it?

Well, you've gone over it a dozen times, rewritten it twice, and agonized over your opening paragraph for four months.  You've carried your baby for nine months (or longer) and finally delivered it. You've even had your wife or girlfriend (or both) read it over and they tell you love it.

Will an agent or publisher?

If you've already signed with Penguin Putnam,  Daw, or Random House, they have a full editorial staff that will be more than happy to rip your manuscript apart for free, so you won't need me.  If not, you're faced with several choices.  You can start sending out query letters to agents and publishers along with samples chapters and wait for the inevitable rejections; join a writing or critique group and hope someone will read your manuscript and give good feedback and advice; bite the bullet and start checking up on subsidy publishers who could care less as long as your check doesn't bounce; or

hire me.

There are several reasons for you to consider for bringing me on to work on your manuscript; I've been editing and critiquing manuscripts for others for over three years now; I'm good at it; I don't have a life, so the turnaround is quick; I've been editing between eight and ten short-stories a day and averaging a novel every other month for several years; I enjoy it; and I'm cheaper than most services that have a humongous overhead to cover.

There are three ways we can do this: I can perform line editing, full editing or major rewrites at a competitive rate so that your book will be all that it can be (without having to join the army). 

LINE (Standard) EDITING

This covers basic grammar, punctuation and spelling (U.S. English - we'll negotiate for the Queen's English). Minor suggestions for lay-out changes. When I'm done you'll get an an email backup of your original as well as a copy with my suggestions embedded (along with at least one page of analysis).

$0.50 US per page based on standard 8.5 x 11, double-spaced MS-Word doc, 12pt Courier font, with 1" margins all around (standard publisher's requirements).  This works out to an average 250 words per page.

It should only take 1-2 weeks to finish.

FULL EDITING

Basic & advanced grammar changes (using either the Chicago Manual of Style or Lynch's Guide to Grammar and Style), punctuation and spelling corrections, and some paragraph rewrites if required, but not more than 30% of the entire manuscript. Includes disk sent by regular mail, plus E-mail backup file. 3 consultations by E-mail after completion, if needed.

$1.25 US per page based on standard 8.5 x 11, double-spaced Word document as above

We're probably talking 3-4 weeks for completion.

MAJOR REWRITES

Every so often, a book may come along that has a great premise, but there's just something not quite right with it. If your book falls in this category, you may be in need of a major rewrite. This service includes email and telephone consultations (if needed/or requested), a CD-ROM or Floppy Disk, hard copy printed out, shipped USPS Priority 2nd-day mail, and E-mail backup files.

You're going to have to sign a separate editing contract, no exceptions.

$5.00 per page based on standard 8.5 x 11, double-spaced document.

You and I will probably take 6 months to do this right.  For major rewrites, I'm going to ask for 15% of the total up-front.


What? You only asked for an up-front payment for rewrites -- what gives?

No strings. You trust me with your baby, I'll trust you with my money. If you don't like what I do, we're even (not really, I got to read some really neat stuff). 

Stupid business model? No, confidence.  I know I can help like I've helped others and I'm confident that you'll find the service of value.

In the end, I'll accept PayPal, personal checks or money orders.

To make arrangements (or just send the manuscript) click here to get my attention

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

I prefer Microsoft Word, but will accept Word Perfect or Rich Text Format. These may be sent as E-mail attachments (doggone right I'm going to scan them first!).
 

Standard publisher's format:

Generally, a manuscript page resembles a typeset book page in several ways.  There is equal spacing (double-spacing in manuscript) between every line and the next. (The exception is a scene break, shown as a centered # in manuscript, and shown many ways, including a blank line, in typeset material.)  Each new paragraph is indented typically one tab setting or five blanks.

Use a fixed-pitch font like Courier, not a variable-pitch font like Arial or Times Roman.  It should be 12-point (which works out to 10-pitch).  Point is the height of the characters; pitch is the horizontal spacing.

Do not right-justify the margins; leave the manuscript ragged right.

Words to be emphasized are shown with underlining.  (The typesetter will convert this to italics.)  Don't use italics in your manuscript even though your word processor is capable of it.  Emphasis is typically not indicated with ALL CAPS.  Don't use the comic-book style of multiple exclamation points.  (Use ! or ? or whatever's applicable; avoid ?!, ??, !!, and variations.)

Page one typically includes your name and address in the upper left.  In the upper right, put "Approximately X words" where X is your word count rounded to the nearest thousand or hundred or ten, depending on how long the manuscript is.   Contrary to what Writer's Market says, don't write what rights you're wanting to sell; generally this is understood, and no rights are conveyed until you sign a contract.

Your title goes about half-way down page one, centered, and followed by "by (your name)."  This is an indication that you are not using a pen name.  (Using a pen name should be avoided if you possibly can.)

Each page after page one should include a header, ideally consisting of your last name, a key word from the title, and the page number.  They should all be in the upper right, or they should be spread across the line so the page number is in the upper right.   The position of the page number allows a flip through the manuscript to reveal pages numbers.  The extra information is in case the manuscript gets dropped at the same time another manuscript is dropped.  Page numbers are sequential, not restarting at 1 for each new chapter.

Use a one-inch margin all the way around.  Use only one side of the paper.   Do not staple.

Put "End" or "The End" at the end. Make it easy for the editor to know all the pages are there. This is particularly helpful if you like to write ambiguous endings.

Don't hyphenate at the end of a line.  Use a hard hyphen or other method of forcing hyphenated phrases to be kept on the same line.  Otherwise, a typesetter is left having to decide if the hyphenated word or phrase requires a hyphen, or if it was used here just because of the line break.