Services

I offer a range of editorial services to publishers, businesses, charities, and directly to writers. I will work with you to establish which level of editing is most useful, depending on the stage you are at with your material.

It helps if I can see a sample of your text so that we can discuss what you would like, how best to work together and the ideal timeframe. My aim is to preserve your voice in your material, so I tailor my approach to your needs. 

Part of the discussion is to agree on fees for the work. Every project is unique, so I don’t publish set rates, but I prefer to agree a fee or rate upfront so we both know what to expect. I am happy to edit a short sample and give a no-obligation quotation for the work. My rates are roughly in line with the CIEP’s suggested minimum rates.

Copyediting

A range of editorial solutions to help your text shine
A book on a table with pages fanning out

After seeing a sample of your writing, I will discuss with you what is needed. I will carry out some or all of the following, depending on your requirements and the stage your text is at:

  • suggestions to improve structure, flow and readability
  • rewriting if unclear, or to suit a particular audience or to achieve a desired word count
  • spelling, punctuation and grammar checks
  • drawing attention to potential legal issues
  • ensuring consistency of style (following a house style if you have one, or creating a style sheet) for aspects such as capitalisation, punctuation, numbers, dates, formatting, layout, headings
  • checking and numbering tables, figures and illustrations
  • checking and formatting references, notes and bibliography
  • editing, cutting and fitting text in InDesign layouts
  • marking up using Track Changes in Word (and providing you with a “tracked” version and a “clean” version), or on PDFs or hard copy.

Developmental editing

Working with you from the early stages on the structure of your text
A blank page of a notebook with pens, ready to make notes in a developmental edit

What are your goals for your text? A developmental edit involves looking at your text to see whether it does what you want it to do.


In a full developmental edit I provide a comprehensive assessment of the manuscript to help you develop your work to offer the most impact to your readers. This may include comments on sentence-level style but does not include any detailed, sentence-level editing.

As an alternative, I offer a briefer manuscript assessment, producing a short report on the text, making recommendations in areas such as structure, clarity and flow. 

Proofreading

The final stage after your text has been copyedited and laid out into pages
A black and white image of an open book/dictionary with a pen

Corrections at this stage are usually minimal, but it’s the last chance to make sure your text is working well and looks how you want it to look on the page. I will carry out some or all of the following checks if they are relevant to your text:

  • correct essential spelling, punctuation and grammar errors
  • ensure style is consistent in accordance with style guidelines
  • layout looks correct and consistent
  • pagination and running heads are correct
  • tables, figures and illustrations all correctly numbered and positioned with captions
  • cross references are correct
  • finalise table of contents, list of figures
  • mark up corrections on PDFs or hard copy.

Web editing

Content editing for websites to ensure that the text is readable, clear and well organised 
An open laptop

I can work directly in WordPress to edit and publish pages of your content, or I can edit content for you to add to your site. Priorities are:

  • ensuring the text is clear and engages the reader
  • great organisation so the reader can navigate to the information they need
  • plain English to communicate your message quickly and in the most straightforward way
  • checking that links work and are up to date.