Book editing & coaching
The honest read your manuscript has not had yet
Developmental editing, coaching, and ghostwriting for people who are serious about the book. Send me your first ten pages and I will edit them properly, free, before either of us commits to anything.
“The edit letter told me my book started ninety pages in. I did not want that to be true.”
Why Ninth Draft
Everyone who has read it either loves you or lied
Your partner says it is wonderful. Your writing group is careful with your feelings. Agents say nothing at all, which you are left to interpret. None of that tells you whether chapter eleven is working, and all of it is easy to mistake for information.
What is missing is a reader who takes the book as seriously as you do and has no reason at all to be gentle about it. That is the entire job. Everything below is a different amount of it.
See the edit before you buy the edit
Send your first ten pages and I will edit them properly and send the notes back, free. Not a summary of what I would do, the actual marked-up pages. If those notes are not worth having, we both learned something cheaply and you owe me nothing.
What I do
Five rungs, cheapest first
Most editors will not tell you what things cost or which one you actually need. Here is the whole ladder, in order, including the ones that are probably wrong for you.
- 01 Explore developmental editing →
Developmental Editing
The structural read. What the book is doing, where it stops working, and what to do about it.
- 02 Explore book coaching →
Book Coaching
For the book that is not finished yet. Regular calls, deadlines that are real, and someone waiting for the pages.
- 03 Explore line & copy editing →
Line & Copy Editing
Sentence-level work once the structure is settled. Rhythm, clarity, and the errors that undermine you.
- 04 Explore ghostwriting →
Ghostwriting
For people with a book worth writing and no intention of writing it themselves.
- 05 Explore workshops →
Workshops
Six-week small-group sessions. The cheapest way to find out whether you want the rest of this.
Also
One thing that is not about books
College & Grad School Essays
A different job for a different person: helping a student find the one true story worth telling.
Explore application essays →It is a completely different job for a completely different person, and it runs on its own calendar, so it lives on its own page rather than pretending to be step six of writing a book.
The work
Thirty-one of these started as a rough draft
Editing does not photograph. What it produces does. These are client books, and every one of them arrived as a manuscript somebody was not sure about.
How it goes
- 1
Ten pages, free
You send the opening. I edit it for real and send the marked pages back within a week.
- 2
A call about the whole book
We talk about what the manuscript is trying to do and whether I am the right editor for it. Sometimes the answer is no.
- 3
A written scope and a flat price
One number, one delivery date, in writing. The price does not move once we start.
- 4
Notes, then a conversation
You get the edit letter and the marked manuscript, then we spend an hour on the phone going through it.
Who I work with
Three people, three different fears
A first-time author is afraid the book is bad. A working writer is afraid of being flattered. A founder is afraid of the four hundred hours. Those need different answers, so they get them.
- First-time authors. You have finished something and have no idea if it is any good.
- Working writers. You do not need encouragement, you need a reader who will push.
- Founders & professionals. You have a book worth writing and no intention of writing it.
In their words
What writers say afterwards
★★★★★
Developmental Edit“The edit letter told me my book started ninety pages in. I did not want that to be true. It was true, and the book sold eight months later.”
★★★★★
Sample Edit“She sent back ten free pages that were more useful than the six hundred dollars I had spent on a different editor the year before. That is when I stopped shopping.”
★★★★★
Book Coaching“I had been at sixty thousand words for two years. Someone expecting pages on the fifteenth turned out to be the entire missing ingredient.”
The editor
One editor, a small number of books
I take somewhere between eight and twelve manuscripts a year. That is not scarcity marketing, it is arithmetic: a developmental edit done properly means reading the book twice and thinking about it for weeks, and there are only so many books a year a person can hold in their head that way.
It also means I turn work down, including work I would enjoy, and including work from people I like. If your book is not something I can be useful on, I would rather say so in week one than take your money and be vaguely encouraging for three months.
Working in Memoir, Literary fiction, Poetry collections, and Business and professional books.
Start with ten pages
Send me your opening and I will edit it properly and send the marked pages back within a week, free. You will know exactly what working together looks like before you spend anything.