Rates and Services
Discount bundles are available on a per-project basis. Rates are broken down by overall genre of manuscript or editing specialty and are based upon level of difficulty and amount of work involved.
Copyediting Services
Each copyediting project involves 3 full passes of the manuscript with queries, comments, and brief explanations as comments on the document alongside the manuscript passage it references. Copyediting is unique among the editing fields as there are three different levels of editing: Light, Medium, and Heavy. All copyediting includes mechanical editing, which specifically addresses punctuation; spelling; capitalization; hyphenation; treatment of quotations, numbers and numerals, and special elements; use of italics and bold type; and formatting of footnotes and endnotes. Additional editing is determined by the level of copyediting requested. All copyediting services will include a style sheet that explains any choices made during the editing process.
A Light Copyedit is still a copyedit, but it doesn’t dive very deep–I’ll correct any indisputable errors in grammar or syntax, but I will not do any rearranging, rewriting, or adjusting of phrasing. Anything that catches my attention but doesn’t fall under the umbrella of a Light Copyedit will be noted in a query on the manuscript but not corrected.
A Medium Copyedit is one step more involved than a Light Copyedit. It includes everything in a Light Copyedit as well as checking for parallelism; rewriting awkward, confusing, or wordy sentences; and editing for jargon, clichés, and biases. Any sections that need extensive reworking or areas that are unclear will be noted with a query on the manuscript but not corrected.
A Heavy Copyedit is the deepest dive of copyediting. It includes everything in Light and Medium Copyedits as well as editing to improve flow; checking facts; ensuring consistency in style and tone; and rearranging to improve readability. Some passages may be rewritten to ensure they meet these criteria, although all rewritten sections should be understood to be suggestions and not required corrections.
Copyediting, fiction: $0.022 per word for a light edit, increasing for a medium and heavy edit as determined by individual manuscripts.
Copyediting, nonfiction: $0.032 per word for a light edit, increasing for a medium and heavy edit as determined by individual manuscripts.
Copyediting, academic psychology: $0.045 per word for a light edit, increasing for a medium and heavy edit as determined by individual manuscripts.
Copyediting, business: $0.043 per word for a light edit, increasing for a medium and heavy edit as determined by individual manuscripts.
Additional Services
Developmental Editing, fiction: $0.03 per word.
Developmental editing is performed after the author has completed their manuscript. It can be done before querying publishers and agents or afterwards, and is done to tighten the manuscript and bring it up a notch or two. The developmental editor works closely with the author to address issues with plot, characters, setting, story structure, or anything else “big picture relating” to the story.
Indexing: $0.02 per word
Indexing is performed after the manuscript has been through a proof process and has page numbers finalized. The indexer builds an alphabetical reference list of important terms, concepts, names, and acronyms found in the text.
Fact Checking: $0.05 per word
Fact checking is an in-depth verification of each statement in the manuscript. This is especially important for academic and non-fiction manuscripts.
Sensitivity Reads: $0.01 per word
A Sensitivity Read is a review of a manuscript for any phrases, biases, portrayals, or perspectives that might be considered offensive or a misrepresentation. It is done to avoid misrepresentation of groups of people, spreading of misinformation or stereotypes, and biased language.
Transcription: $37/hour (average rate of 4-6 pages per hour)
Transcription involves listening to an audio recording and converting it into text.