Celebrating Independent Authors
As writers and readers, we know words have power. They mean things. Some words carry more weight than others. Anyone who has been bullied knows that. One pointed word, repeated over and over again, can be sharper than an army’s worth of swords.
Before you start talking about lightening up and censorship — let me tell you a story. Continue reading “Can We Stop Talking About Grammar Nazis?”
Guest Post
by Brenda Perlin
There was a time when I read for the pleasure of it. Back when I couldn’t wait to sneak away to the coolest coffee house in the city where I could find a comfy couch to relax with a fresh cup of sizzling hot coffee. I read for hours at a time. Excited about escaping into someone else’s life and visiting an unfamiliar city. Those days are long gone. I am still passionate about books and get goose bumps over beautiful writing but I can’t enjoy them the way I used to because I am too busy looking for typos and repetitive words. It’s almost become an obsessive compulsive disorder. Seriously. Continue reading “My Editing Compulsion”
You’ve worked hard on your novel. You’ve written and revised. You’ve gotten feedback from your beta readers. Now it’s time to give it that final polish.
I’m Kelly Cozy, founder of Bookside Manner Editing Services. I provide line editing, copyediting, and proofreading for all genres of fiction, and for select nonfiction categories. I’ve been an editor for more than 20 years, and hold degrees in English (creative writing) and journalism from the University of Missouri at Columbia. Let me put my expertise to work for your book.
Editing is one of the most crucial steps in publishing. Typos, grammatical errors, or inconsistencies will cause readers to put your book aside — and if these mistakes occur in the first few pages of your book, you may lose sales as well.
I know from experience how important editing is. I’m also a writer, and the author of four independently published novels. I know how much time and effort go into writing a novel, how difficult it is to self-edit your own work, and how important it is that your novel be polished and professional while still retaining your distinctive voice and style.
I also know that writers aren’t made of money, and that’s why I’m offering you a free sample edit. Send me a 2,000-word excerpt from your manuscript — I will line edit, copyedit, or proofread the excerpt and return it to you with edits, changes, and comments. You’ll be able to decide if Bookside Manner’s services are right for you without spending a penny.
Details about services, rates, and qualifications are available at Bookside Manner’s website. Together, we’ll get your novel ready for readers.
What customers are saying about Bookside Manner:
“Not only did Kelly finish her edit a full month and a half before my deadline, but when I got it back my manuscript was dripping with red. She’d caught every one of my cursed homonym mistakes, reined in all of the wayward punctuation, made innovative and informed suggestions based on an obvious grasp of my characters’ personalities, slashed the superfluous adjectives to ribbons, and trimmed the fat down to the bone. I’d never been so pleased with an edit in all my life. Thanks to her diligent efforts, I was able to easily turn that shabby draft into a clean, polished, and positively resplendent final version. I published this second book with confidence, but also waited to see if there would be any hidden mistakes that Kelly or I had missed. It’s now been a solid year and no one has mentioned noticing even the slightest typo.”
……………………………– Emily Thompson, Clockwork Twist: Trick
Indies Unlimited does not endorse or support any specific providers of products or services.
Long ago, before I’d thought about writing (and long before the internet and eBooks), I needed a spot of extra income. It had to be a job I could do from home at night, what with the whole single-parent thing, so I took a course in proofreading and copy-editing. Those were the days of the marvellous red pen and lovely squiggles in the margins…yeah, I took to it. I worked mostly with academic departments and non-fiction publishers in England, learned my trade, advanced to pukka editing and earned my extra pennies.
Years later, when similarly in need of a boost to the earnings, I thought about going back to the red pen. I was, however, resident in North America by this time and completely unaware that this might pose a problem beyond the bonkers spelling. I applied for a proofreading job at a local advertising company and toddled along to do their ‘little test’. Who knew? They used different squiggles! I failed utterly and decided that my editing days were over. Continue reading “Lessons Learned from Academic Editing”