March 4 is National Grammar Day in the U.S. To celebrate, in the midst of this endless winter, I’m offering a sweet, limited-time deal for new clients: Take 30 percent off my regular editing rates! This applies to short jobs as well as long ones, but does not apply to proofreading. New clients only, please.
So, check my Rates page and contact me for a quote. I’ve also updated my Testimonials page as well.
The birthday cake in the pic marks Edit for Indies‘ first five years in existence! I realized when I looked at my records just now that I did my first real freelance job under the Edit for Indies name in May 2012. I have also recently passed invoice #300, another milestone!
It is true that the self-publishing scene has changed a lot in the last five years. Some wonderful outfits have gone out of business (Self-Publishing Roundtable, for example), while small presses that once flourished have fallen by the wayside, most notably All Romance eBooks but also including Samhain.
To generalize, it seems as if most indie authors at this point are either doing quite well or are feeling discouraged about their prospects. There isn’t very much upward momentum except for people who carefully plan out their series and write to market in a small number of categories. There are also shady promoters out there…a recent lengthy thread on Kboards.com entitled “Box Set Scams” reinforces this point.
I want to thank the loyal clients who have stuck with me this far. Thanks for your trust in my work, and I look forward to working with some old AND new faces in 2017!
Greetings! I tend to mostly post here in spring and fall, for some reason. This is my “fall” post and I have done some much-needed housekeeping on the site. Updates included minor tweaks to my rates (non-fiction editing is now one cent per word), though I have kept my rates stable, as I know this is a challenging time for my fellow independent authors. I’ve also added the option of a second proofreading pass for a flat fee of $200, when I’ve copyedited your manuscript, or another editor has worked on it.
I updated the Resources page. I had to remove a few dead links (sadly, Kate Genet is no longer doing blurbs), but I added Amy Martin’s manuscript critique service and the wonderful Self-Publishing Roundtable interview podcast, which I enjoy weekly. (Update: This podcast is sadly defunct…) The good news is that I have plenty of availability from now till the end of the year, so I encourage you to contact me for a quote. You can reach me at editforindies@gmail.com. Thanks!
PS. The results of my poll showed that Romance and Sci-fi are by far the top two genres that people who visit the site write. Mystery came third. I enjoy editing mysteries and would like to do more of it!
Thanks to everyone who participated in the writers’ poll! The results stayed fairly steady: Sci-Fi/Fantasy was number one and Romance came in at #2, followed by a tie between Literary Fiction and “Other.”
I realize that I didn’t set an option for nonfiction books, which probably make up a large chunk of the “other” responses. Due to several recent inquiries I received about working on nonfiction, self-help books particularly, I changed my rates to clarify that I charge .008 a word for these jobs. Nonfiction is very welcome—but it takes a bit more time and effort to edit, and I wanted to make sure my rates reflect that.
I hope everybody has been having a good summer! Several clients of mine released books this summer that I copyedited, including R Weir‘s first full-length mystery/thriller, “Tracking a Shadow” and Donna Flynn‘s action-packed sequel to “The Dragon’s Gem,” “Aurora’s Dragon.”
The fall should be quite busy (especially with the rollout of the new Kindle Unlimited program on Amazon), so I encourage you to contact me soon if you need editing work for fall or winter releases.
And so does the Chinese New Year. Happy Year of the Horse! I found some beautiful and diverse horse images today on the CBC’s blog and thought I would share them. Looks like we are in for a dynamic and creative year, doesn’t it?
So, what has Edit for Indies been up to? I am currently editing two full-length vampire novels (both over 90K words!) by novelists Donna Flynn (Blood-Red Tear) and Melinda Killen (Tangled in Blood)—quite a change from the last few months, when clients have typically brought me shorter works. (I did just edit Aditi Chopra‘s latest short romance novel, House of Love, though.)
On that note, I will now be charging a flat rate, starting at $99 (my new minimum rate) and going up to $279, for books under 50,000 words (see the Rates page for more detail). I know that my rates are still on the affordable side, and I strive to keep them that way.
I wanted to share a nice testimonial that Erika Trevathan, author of several new adult contemporary romances, sent me last year. (I never got a chance to put it on my Testimonials page.) The points Erika highlights are exactly the ways in which I hope my copyediting work helps clients and offers value. I hope and intend to continue doing good work in 2014 for both new clients and old friends.
Gabriella,
Thank you again for working me in on such a short notice. You did a fabulous job and I am so pleased with your work!! It’s amazing how many mistakes I missed when reading through the manuscript on my own. I will definitely be getting with you for my next book. Also, thank you for the suggestions you made in your email. They were very helpful and very much appreciated.
Thanks so much,
Erika T., April 2013
