Services
on Feb 12 inJODIE RENNER’S FREELANCE FICTION EDITING SERVICES:
Jodie offers a full range of editorial services, from “big-picture” advice and content editing through stylistic editing, line editing / copyediting, to final proofreading, as well as detailed critiques of the first 10, 20 or 30 pages and your plot outline, including premise, plot, characterization, point of view, writing style, pacing, and more.
Jodie also presents workshops to writing groups or at writer’s workshops or conferences. For more info on this, go to: www.JodieRenner.com/workshops.
Jodie specializes in thrillers, romantic suspense, mysteries and other crime fiction, as well as mainstream, YA, middle-grade fiction, and historical fiction.
All editing, copyediting and proofreading are done byJodie, on-screen and online, using Microsoft Word Track Changes, with additions and deletions in red, and comments in the margin; and include additional comments and suggestions by email. Documents are sent as attachments by email, and payments are generally through PayPal.
Jodie’s editing process is instructive, interactive and collaborative, with lots of teaching moments,links to related articles and other suggested reading. See the Home page for the kinds of issues I look at when I’m editing fiction. (Scroll down there.)
EDITING SERVICES:
I offer a free sample edit of about 6-12 pages for stories that interest me and that are ready for the copyediting stage (many aren’t ready yet). If we end up working together, those pages get counted in my overall fee. If I edit your manuscript, I also edit your query letter for free.
FEE RANGE FOR CONTENT EDITING AND COPYEDITING:
OR FIRST 20, 30, or 50 PAGES ONLY:
SHORT STORIES (see down)
IT’S AN INTERACTIVE PROCESS, NOT A ONCE-OVER OR A QUICK FIX:
For more detailed information on manuscript critiques or my editing services, please contact Jodie at info@JodieRennerEditing.com, or j.renner.editing@hotmail.com.
If your writing intrigues me, I’ll be open to negotiation on the price.
Developmental and structural editing is $50 per hour. Telephone consultations are $60 per hour or $1 per minute, rounded to 10 minutes.
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FEE RANGE FOR CONTENT EDITING AND COPYEDITING:
My fees start at $0.012 per word (about $3 per page, or about $960 for an 80,000-word manuscript) for already very good writing that needs some tightening up, smoothing out of the sentence structure, and some help with pacing and voice/tone, as well as querying of character motivations and actions, flagging of any plot holes, inconsistencies, discrepancies and implausibilities, and finally, light copyediting and proofreading. Prices go up to 2.5 cents ($0.025) per word ($6.25 per page or $2000 for 80,000 words), for a very comprehensive edit, including deep content editing, with big-picture advice first, offering lots of specific resources tailored to your needs (referrals to articles and books), as well as ongoing comments, suggestions and questions re: effective fiction techniques, character motivations, and general logistics, then stylistic editing / heavy copyediting to smooth out and tighten your writing, with the sections going back and forth, then final proofreading.
Most manuscripts I edit these days fall in the $0.012 to $0.02 per-word range (from $960 to $1600 for 80,000 words).
For manuscripts that need a lot of big-picture advice or developmental editing, I will choose to work by the hour. My hourly rates range from $35 to $50, depending on the needs of the manuscript and the amount of higher-level thinking and analysis required.
Even for a light, final edit, I always pay attention to what’s going on in the story, the logistics of the plot and character motivations, and the effectiveness of the fiction techniques used, not just grammar and sentence structure, so my editing is always content editing, too. If something doesn’t make sense to me, I’ll mention it.
My editing process is instructive, interactive and collaborative, with lots of teaching moments and referrals to other resources.
OR FIRST 20, 30, or 50 PAGES ONLY:
If you’re on a tight budget, you may opt to have me do a detailed edit and critique of the first 20, 30, or 50 pages (double-spaced) and a critical reading with advice on your half- to one-page synopsis. This thorough edit of your first 5,000 words, 7,500 words, or 12,500 words includes big-picture advice on fiction-writing techniques such as your opening, characters, plot, point of view, pacing, showing instead of telling, dialogue, etc., will help you bring your characters and scenes to life. It also includes comments about your character motivations and story logistics, advice on streamlining your writing to improve the flow of ideas, and finally a detailed, comprehensive line edit and proofread of the whole section.
The fee of $100 for 20 pages, $150 for 30 pages, or $250 for 50 pages ($0.02 per word) will include both a marked-up copy using Track Changes, and a “clean” final copy, plus of course detailed comments and suggestions and links to relevant articles. Then you can use my advice on that section to guide your revisions and even rewriting of the rest of the manuscript. Or, if we decide to continue working together on the rest of your manuscript, my fee for the rest will be lower, depending on the extent of your subsequent revisions/rewrites on future chapters before you send them to me.
SHORT STORIES:
I edit short stories for contests or publication. My fees for a thorough, comprehensive edit of your short story, including big-picture advice on fiction techniques, content editing, stylistic editing and a final proofread, with several rounds of back-and-forth until we both feel it’s ready, start at $0.015 per word and go up to $0.025 per word, depending on how much work the story needs to bring it up a competitive level, so from $75 to $125 for a 5,000-word short story, or $150 to $250 for 10,000 words.
IT’S AN INTERACTIVE PROCESS, NOT A ONCE-OVER OR A QUICK FIX:
Please note that editing and proofreading a book manuscript usually takes between 3 weeks and 3 months, depending on the amount of editing needed and the length of the manuscript, and how long it takes you to get your subsequent revisions back to me for each section, so please don’t expect a rush job. My goal is to work closely with you, with plenty of communication, editing and revisions going back and forth, to polish up your manuscript until it’s ready for publishing. However, I may be able to edit the first three chapters quite quickly so you can send them on speculation to an agent or publisher, while we take our time with the rest.
Also note that the editing and revising will require time and effort by you, too. There’s no “magic fix.” I’ll likely recommend a good book or two by experts in the field, on writing and revising fiction, and will no doubt send you a number of my published craft of fiction articles, and it’s important that you take the time to follow up on this advice. Ultimately, it’s your final revisions and rewriting that will make the difference. And remember, we both have the same goal: to get your book published!
PAYMENT TERMS:
For copyediting a manuscript, I prefer payments of about $100–$300 at a time, through PayPal to my email address, j.renner.editing(at)hotmail(dot)com, in advance as we go along, just before I complete each section. For manuscript critiques, payment must be made in full in advance.
For more detailed information on manuscript critiques or my editing services, please contact Jodie at info@JodieRennerEditing.com, or j.renner.editing@hotmail.com.
If your writing intrigues me, I’ll be open to negotiation on the price.