copy editing for fantastical fiction & outdoors literature
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Helping you craft stories that reach magical heights
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​This was my first experience of working with a professional editor and it couldn’t have been better. Philippa was prompt and clear in her communication and in setting timelines and expectations for what she could do for me. I especially appreciated her supportive tone when it came to certain aspects of my text which were not clear or well written, plus the excellent suggestions and feedback she came back with.  Despite her busy schedule she was able to quickly turn around an 60,000 word manuscript, providing not only style and grammatical edits but also really pertinent observations about the actual plot and the details of quite a complicated narrative which I found really impressive. Overall a really good and pleasant experience, thank you!

​Jessica Sallabank, translator

is my manuscript ready for this stage?
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Once you’re happy with the structure and writing of your manuscript, it’s time for a copyedit. This involves a close review of your writing at sentence level, so book this once you’re satisfied you won’t be making any more changes to the writing itself.

I’d recommend having some sort of feedback on your manuscript before moving to a copyedit – whether that’s booking a developmental edit or manuscript critique, or having a few trusted writer friends read through it for you. Once you’ve had the copyedit done, it would be a waste of your time and money to then decide you want to change the opening or ending or take out a minor character, so make sure you’re happy with the overall shape of your manuscript before booking this.
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what does this service involve?

In a copyedit, I’ll address areas like:

  • spelling, grammar and punctuation
  • consistency and clarity
  • factual errors
  • point of view issues
  • sentence- and paragraph-level edits to improve the flow of your writing
  • basic formatting, if required, using Styles in Word.

If you’re looking for line editing as well (suggestions to improve your writing style), I can do an in-depth copyedit reviewing this aspect as well – this will obviously push the price up, but tends to be cheaper than booking the two separately.

After I’ve been through your manuscript, I’ll send you a list of queries to resolve. Queries are for anything which is unclear, where the text could be strengthened, if there are multiple options for e.g. replacing a word, any conscious language suggestions, any issues with consistency… and anything else that I feel it’s best to check with you about rather than just changing directly. Once you’ve answered all of these, you’ll send the manuscript back to me and I’ll implement your responses and run some final checks for consistency.

I'll complete the copyedit on Word using Track Changes and Comments. You'll be able to approve every edit made, so you'll still have full control over your manuscript. 

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what will i receive?
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  • A list of queries to resolve
  • A copyedited manuscript, with changes tracked used Word’s Track Changes. I’ll use comments to explain changes where necessary. This enables you to have full control over your manuscript if you want to review each edit individually.
  • A copyedited manuscript with all changes approved.
  • A style sheet, which will show all the editorial decisions I’ve made for consistency and clarity when reviewing your manuscript.
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how much will it cost?
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Prices are around £13–18 per 1,000 words. For a personalised quote, please get in touch and send me your manuscript; each quote is influenced by several factors which means I can’t give you an accurate price without reviewing your manuscript.

Please note that short stories are priced differently.

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