book coaching & editing SERVICES
I enjoy performing a wide variety of book coaching and editing services. Below, you will find descriptions of some of these services and their accompanying fees. If you don’t see the service you require listed, please contact me for a no-obligation quote of my availability and fee.
Please visit my Testimonials page to see what some former clients have said about my work. And get in touch with me through my Contact page if you’d like me to supply you with contact information so you may speak to a past client. I believe word-of-mouth is the most accurate form of advertising.
Book Coaching Services
You may have a great idea for a book but don’t know how to go about writing it. Or perhaps you’ve begun a novel and are stuck after drafting just a few chapters, unsure of where to go from there. Or maybe you’ve completed an entire manuscript and know it needs major revisions because it just doesn’t work. In any case, you should consider hiring me as your book coach. Together, we will devise a plan based on your individual needs and then work together to complete a polished manuscript.
When viewed as a whole, the process of writing a book may seem daunting. However, when divided into discrete tasks, with each task building upon the previous one, crafting a book becomes not only possible but also enjoyable. And in the process, by working with me as your book coach, you will learn how to write more effectively.
Regardless of whether you are writing fiction, memoir, or non-fiction, all books need to start with a solid foundation that includes such elements as its universal theme, universal point, and the reason you need to write this particular book at this particular time. Working together, we will identify these key factors and then move on to explore other aspects such as the book’s narrative arc, character arc, and sources of literary tension. Once we identify and clarify information like this, we will use it to craft and refine your rough draft. And then as you are writing each chapter, I’ll provide accountability and review your work to keep you headed in the right direction—toward a completed manuscript.
Book Coaching Fees: For book coaching services, my fee is based upon the frequency of our sessions: • Once a week = $1,000/month • Every two weeks = $600/month • Once a month = $350/month
Terms: Each book coaching session includes: • Up to 4 hours of review/editing of the author’s work • A 1-hour one-on-one coaching session via Zoom or phone call (author’s choice) featuring:
• A written review/critique of the author's work completed since the previous session • A conversation about the review/critique • A discussion of what the author will work on for the next session
Client Intake Form: If you are interested in exploring a book coaching relationship with me, please click below for a Client Intake Form. Submit the completed form and I will contact you to set up an introductory phone/Zoom meeting.
Manuscript Evaluation Service
One of my favorite freelance writing jobs is helping an author like you craft your work of fiction or memoir by reviewing your manuscript and providing you with a truthful evaluation.
For this service, I carefully evaluate your manuscript’s structure and content, provide you with detailed lists of your manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses, and recommend the level of editing or coaching needed to improve your work.
This type of evaluation may be performed on a portion of a manuscript, to help you determine if you are headed in the right direction, or on a completed draft of the entire manuscript, to assist you in deciding your next steps for revising your work.
Manuscript Evaluation Fee: If you are interested in having me perform this service, please click below for a Client Intake Form. Submit the completed form and I will contact you to set up an introductory phone/Zoom meeting to discuss a no-obligation estimate of my fee.
Manuscript Editing Services
Once you’ve completed all or a portion of your manuscript, you might appreciate some assistance determining the next steps you need to take on your road to the completion of your book. That’s where my manuscript editing services are helpful. Very often, I perform these three services as a package, moving from big-picture developmental editing to mid-level line editing to detail-oriented copyediting. However, in some cases, a writer only needs one or two of these services. If you are unsure what editing work your manuscript requires, please contact me for a free consultation.
Descriptions of each of these editing services:
Developmental Editing: This service involves the big-picture elements of your book such as its overall message or premise, its literary arc, its structure or organization, and its voice or tone. Do the subplots support the main plot? Are your characters interesting and believable? Is your story’s point of view clear and consistent? Is your dialogue realistic and optimized? While performing a developmental edit, I examine these—and many more—elements of your manuscript/partial manuscript, list their strengths and weaknesses, and give you helpful feedback on how to improve them and the overall manuscript. At the conclusion of my evaluation, I provide you with an annotated copy of your manuscript and a summary of my assessments and suggestions.
Copyediting: For this service, I look at the mid-level elements of your work to see if they are doing as much as they can to help you obtain your literary objectives. I begin with an examination of each chapter, then look at the paragraphs, the lines, and the individual words within that chapter, to make sure all are pulling their weight. Since I believe no one — not even your editor — knows your story as well as you do, I generally do not make changes to your manuscript. Instead, using comment bubbles off to the side of your text, I provide detailed notes pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the various elements of your writing, and offer helpful suggestions of ways you might consider improving them. I also furnish you with a summary of these edits in a separate document to provide you with an overall assessment of your work.
Final Editing: As the name suggests, I provide this service as the final stage of editing a manuscript for publication. When performing final editing, I check your manuscript’s overall consistency. Is it uniformly formatted correctly? Do you maintain a consistent POV? Are your chapters numbered correctly? Does each chapter flow smoothly into the next? I also do a complete review of spelling and grammar. If you want your work to be taken seriously by an agent or publisher, it must be free of these avoidable errors and I can help you accomplish that.
Fee: If you are interested in having me perform any of these editing services, please click below for a Client Intake Form. Submit the completed form and I will contact you to set up an introductory phone/Zoom meeting to discuss a no-obligation estimate of my fee.
