SERVICES
DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING
Don’t sweat the big stuff. We’ll do it for you. If you have issues with plot, characterization, or structure, developmental editing is probably where you want to start. We’ll put our years of writing experience to work for you and your story.
COPY EDITING
Perhaps you feel confident that your book or story is sound in the big-picture sense, but you need someone with the right know-how to comb through the manuscript for typos, grammatical errors, and confusing or muddy syntax. We offer this service so that the most creative elements of your work (character development, story arch, dialogue, etc.) do not get lost in translation.
FULL MANUSCRIPT CRITIQUES
You have a completed draft in hand (perhaps following some developmental editing work) but want an objective editor to line edit the manuscript, as well as evaluate individual scenes, characters, and plot points for effectiveness and flow. This service is recommended particularly to writers still in search of an agent and/or editor for their book.
PITCH & QUERY LETTER CRITIQUES
The importance of making the right first impression on a potential agent or editor cannot be overstated. People in the publishing industry and in the fast-paced world of print and Internet journalism are incredibly busy. Lackluster letters that fail to strike the right note often produce radio silence. We’re here to help make sure your pitches and queries do not go ignored but instead end with publication and a paycheck.
FREE SAMPLE EDITS
Send us up to 10 pages of your work and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can with line and copy edits of the first three pages and a short letter critiquing the big-picture issues contained in the full document. This is meant to serve as a microcosmic model of the services we provide and to help you decide whether or not Windlass Editing is the right fit for you.
“Half my life is an act of revision.”
John Irving
VIRTUAL SWAG
YOU’LL FIND HERE:
– Writing advice via our blog
– Links to other sites helpful to writers and editors in this amazing profession
– Access to bits of writerly wisdom, humor and pathos at our Twitter feed and Facebook page
RATES
Sample edits are available free of charge. Simply send in ten pages of a work-in-progress and Windlass Editing will do a line-by-line edit of the first three pages and a more general, big-picture critique on the full document.
Should you decide to work with Windlass, we will provide a custom quote for your project based on standards set by the Editorial Freelancers Association, charging either by the hour or wordcount. Half of the agreed upon payment is due when the contract is signed. The other half will be collected when the edit is complete.
Windlass welcomes long manuscripts – novels, memoirs, collections – as well as shorter works (stories, children’s books, etc.) and pitch and query letters. Manuscript critiques will run $1,200 per 100,000 words. The rate for polishing letters to agents and similar work is $70 per hour.