Writing and Publishing: Finding an Editor Part 2
As you know, the more and more I learn from the publishing world, the more I find I am lacking. One of the things I think I’m missing the most is an editor.
Ever since first publishing The Recruit back in February 2017, I started looking for an editor; only to find they are very expensive. Regardless, I knew since then I would one day need to hire someone to help me fix things I simply can’t see in my books. Besides, I got a few mentions of the lack of editing in my books by some reviewers on Amazon. Eek!
After I got a little bit more budget, I began to look for an editor, beginning with my short stories.
I tried two, the first one I reviewed in this post. The second one is Belle of the Books.
QUALITY
I have been very pleased with Belle of the Books Editing Services. The two ladies I have worked for are very polite and the one story I have received back had more than I thought I would get from a copy editing service. Not only that, their service includes three looks over. So once they go over it once, you can send them your manuscript two more times to see if they catch anything else (already included in their price).
Edited 6-27-18: I need to add a comment about the quality. Unfortunately, there are two ladies who handle editing services for this company. The first one I worked with was fantastic, very thorough and only added changes in the comments. The second lady I worked with did not deliver good work. She changed the original document, so it was hard to tell where she had made the change. Unlike the first professional, she did not offer any information on why she suggested most changes. Overall it was very hard to follow her comments where they all said deleted: x word. Basically she deleted a lot of words and wrote what she thought were the right words in the original document. Bottom line, if you want a job well done, ask for Jessica, not Jennifer.
PRINCING
Belles of the Books is a great option for your budget. They charge by page, instead of by word count, and it is one of the most affordable editing services I have found. All you have to do is turn your manuscript into a word document with 12 Times New Roman font, 1” margins all around, and double spacing. However many pages you get, you multiply by the cost of each service.
I used their copyediting services, but they offer much more than that should you choose to pay:
