Editing & Coaching
What a freelance editor can do for you
A freelance editor can help you prepare your manuscript to impress an agent or a small press publisher, and can help you polish it if you decide to self publish. That preparation usually happens in layers.
Line editing
Attention to and correction of grammar, spelling, and some formatting of the manuscript — paragraph indentations, double spacing between lines, and the rest of the conventions a publisher expects to see.
Copy editing
Can include line edits, but also usually includes fact checking. This is the pass that keeps a reader who knows your subject from stopping short.
Manuscript critique
All of the above, plus my opinion on your ideas, on the execution of those ideas in the writing, and on specifics like the flow, chapter order, the plot, the characters, and the tone.
Developmental editing
A separate developmental edit usually only looks at the big picture of the manuscript: structure, form, characters, plot, and pacing.
Other things to think about
No editor can guarantee publication.
Including me. What I can do is make the manuscript the strongest version of itself before it goes out.
If you want it rewritten, you want a ghostwriter.
If you want someone to rewrite a manuscript, or to take your idea and write it for you, that is a different job than editing.
Agents and publishers will have their own notes.
If you go the traditional route, an agent may suggest edits beyond what your freelance editor suggested. If the book then sells, the editor at that house may ask for more.
Opinions differ, and the book is yours.
Any editor or reader who looks at your work may have a different opinion. It is up to you, the writer, to use or discard these opinions.