Let Me Be Your Editor

Are you trying to write a novel or a book on topic that’s important to you?

Do you need to write an article for a print magazine or an online site?

Are you trying to finish your thesis or dissertation?

Maybe your job requires you to write better?

And you’re tired of staring at that blank screen.

Send me an email query. You can phone me, too. Or if we live close enough (like, you’re in Los Angeles or Orange County), we can meet for lunch and conversation. I love to hear the voices of my authors or sit facing them for a conversation. This personal contact turns us from lines of words on a screen into real, live people. I’ve spoken with authors all around the planet. When my two Australian authors have phoned me, it was, like, Monday night when I answered the phone but Tuesday afternoon for them when they placed their calls. (Time zones are so much fun.)

What do you want to write? Do you have a great plot for a novel walking around in your head? Do you have political or philosophical ideas you need to share with the world? Do you want to write the story of your life to pass on to your grandchildren? I can help you create the best book you can produce.

I’ve edited more than 300 books. I’m good at it. I’ve edited fiction and nonfiction, theses and dissertations, website copy and blogs, articles on more topics than I can list, technical proposals, screenplays, poetry, and things I don’t even remember anymore.

I can help you, too. Together, we can brainstorm for ideas, structure, and outline. We can work to overcome your writer’s block. As your editor, what I’ll focus on is improving your grammar, punctuation, and English usage. I’ll help you prewrite, write, and rewrite. And I’ll metaphorically hold your hand till we finish the project.

What is my focus when I edit? You are. I won’t write your novel or thesis or article for you, but I will help you make it as good as can be. I’ll work hard so you won’t embarrass yourself in print. I will, so to speak, lend you my fresh eyes. Fresh eyes have not seen the same sentences and paragraphs umpteen times. Fresh eyes read what is really there, not what is remembered or expected. Fresh eyes catch simple, stupid finger errors that weary eyes swan right over. Fresh eyes see leaps of logic where weary eyes have blinked.

My fresh eyes look at what you really write, not what you think you wrote

I’ll usually spot details you miss simply because you wrote it and think you know what it says, even if that’s not what it really says. Maybe your mother and everyone else you know has read your book and they all think it’s the best thing ever to appear on paper. They love you. They want to support you. I want to support you, too, but you’re paying me to be honest and frank. You’re paying me to find and correct mistakes before the whole world sees them.

You also need to know what editing is not. I am not a ghostwriter. I won’t expand your outline and write a whole book for you. I do not give free professional advice to people whose work I have not already edited. I am not a literary agent. I am not a lawyer. I cannot negotiate contracts or practice law in any way. Please don’t ask. But I can refer you to a literary agent and a literary lawyer. They’ll give you good advice.