Services

Do You Need an Editor?

Sean Campbell of 90DaysNovel.com had this to say on Facebook:

“I’m shocked, delighted and ashamed this afternoon. Dead on Demand has been out since 2012, and it’s been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times in the last three years. It’s been read (and enjoyed, hated and everything in-between) by thousands of readers in that time.

We had professional editors go through it on release, after our big free run (the first 55,500 copies went in just 5 days in September 2012) and again when standardizing our formatting for the release of Cleaver Square.

Despite that I had an email from an eagle-eyed reader this afternoon with a laundry list of typographical issues to fix – which I’ve immediately done. My apologies for letting these slip through the net. We’re putting in place extra editing [me] for the fourth book to try ensure as little as possible slips through. It just goes to prove what I said in my last post – decent editors are worth their weight in gold.

I’m hoping Amazon will push the update out to existing readers, but if you’d like a fixed copy immediately please send me a message and I will email over a .mobi file.

As ever Dead on Demand is free so please feel free to share a copy with a friend. We don’t use DRM so the file can be converted for use on any ereader you like, and we have an audio version available on request if you need it.”

Free Samples 

I am happy to provide a free sample edit for any new author.  Please enquire: melanie@melanieunderwood.co.uk

Free Blurb

A free proofread of your ‘blurb’ is included with all projects.

Payment Terms 

No upfront fees.

Payment in full prior to release of fully edited manuscript—a sample of the edited document will be provided prior to payment if required.

Most Popular with Authors

As most of the authors I work with are independent self-publishers, my regular and most popular edit is a combined edit consisting of copy edit, line edit, and proofreading.  This involves not only the typical spelling, grammar, and punctuation checks that you would expect, but I will also highlight any areas of your story that need attention: sentence structure, discrepancies in continuity, lack of clarity,  etc.

My standard fee for this service is £3.75 per 1,000 words for a ‘single’ read-through and review of the manuscript followed by a simple spelling and grammar check after any changes by the author.  The fee for two passes of a manuscript is £3.75 for the first and £2.75 for the second.

Before you think to yourself—this is a lot of money—it’s really not!  Editing takes time, skill, attention to detail, and concentration.  Would you like your reviews to be about your story or the number of errors found by the readers, such as the examples below (copied from Amazon)?

 

I do love Michael Gallagher but I do wish he had good proof readers [sic]. In book one, 64, he kept jumping from past to present tense in the same sentence and now, right at the start of the book we are told that his chief is called Parker when he was called McElroy in first book…plus…Michael Jr is said to have been born after the tragic death of his daughter Megan, when Michael Jr was a young boy in the first book. Little things I know, however the little things niggle and spoil what should be a brilliant read

***

A good read with an interesting plot and characters. I agree with some of the other reviewers that the grammatical errors were a little annoying and a thorough proof read [sic] would not have gone amiss ie incorrect use of tense etc but these didn’t spoil the very good storyline and I very much look forward to meeting up again with Detective Blake Harte very soon.

***

I really wanted to love this, but I spend my entire life having to deal with very bad grammar issues. Please, please, please get this proofread, there’s a great story in there but I can’t cope with my ‘fun’ reading being worse than my day job reading. I know you can be a great writer [sic] Robert, please don’t give up! Learn to use the tools of your trade, grammar being one of them. Make me come back to this book and give you the five stars you’ll deserve. Good luck!

For anyone concerned about costs and time, ask yourself the following questions:

  • How long has it taken you to write your novel?
  • How long would it take an average person to read your book?
  • If it takes six hours to read from cover to cover – how much longer to edit?  A fair assumption depending upon the quality of the writing, punctuation etc is maybe ten times longer than sitting down to read a fully edited novel.
  • What is a decent hourly rate of pay?  The minimum wage in the UK is currently £9.50 per hour, and according to the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, the recommended rate of pay for editing in the UK is £27-£31 per hour. Society for Editors & Proofreaders

Proofreading

  • Articles
  • Reports
  • Marketing material
  • Theses

A standard proofread—spelling, punctuation, grammar etc is available for £3.25 per 1,000 words.

 

Poetry & Non-fiction

Please provide a sample for a quotation.

September 12th, 2018 by Melanie3101