For Authors

It’s an incredible achievement to have finished the final draft of your manuscript. We’d love to help you bring it to the next stage. 

If you’re looking for an experienced editor,

Barrett Editing can:

  • Review your manuscript and give you an experienced and objective opinion on your work.
  • Edit your text – after a discussion with you on whether a copyedit, structural or developmental edit is needed.
  • Proofread your book.
  • Talk you through the publishing process and how the industry works.

We have over 25+ years of experience:

  • Writing, editing and fine-tuning text including:
    • Helping to build your characters.
    • Reworking your book’s entire structure if necessary.
    • Focusing on plot development.
    • Ensuring continuity when working on books in a series.
  • Working on a range of different books, from true crime, biography and memoir to literary fiction and children’s books.
  • Producing the highest quality, reader-friendly material.
  • Working with a network of designers and illustrators – if that’s what you are looking for, we can organise it.
  • Meeting deadlines within an agreed budget.

It’s a great feeling when your manuscript goes through the editing process and moves on to the typesetting and layout stage. In no time at all, after a final proof, it’s ready to be a book.

At Barret Editing we have a track record of helping you to get to that point – we’ve done it before on a range of publications [LINK].

What we can do for you: 

  • Reader’s review– let us take a look at your final draft before you send it out into the world to publishers and/or literary agents.
  • Editing– there are different types and levels of editing and it can be confusing trying to distinguish between them.

Structural/developmental editing – this is more about the structure and content of your manuscript as a whole. It often involves:

  • Analysing the overall set-up and flow of your book.
  • Discussing possible character issues.
  • Applying agreed changes after evaluating plot development.
  • Moving text around, either within chapters or throughout the manuscript.
  • Querying any material that might need substantiation.
  • Highlighting possible libel issues and directing you to a libel lawyer.
  • Suggesting a need for additional text or areas where text should be deleted.

The structural/developmental editing process is always two-way and we use MSWord Track Changes so you know exactly what’s happening to your text.

 

    Copy-editing – this is where we make sure that your voice is not obscured. It is an in-depth examination of the manuscript, including:

    • Checking consistency of character names/backgrounds.
    • Scrutinising your punctuation and language usage.
    • Ensuring every sentence/paragraph makes sense.
    • Testing that dates are consistent.
    • Marking headings/subheadings for the typesetter and so on.

    Copy-editing is a vital stage your book needs to go through before you send it out into the world. For example in one book we worked on recently a character died in Chapter 3 only to re-appear again in Chapter 6, two years after his supposed death! This is the type of thing copy-editing helps to avoid.

    • Proofreading– after your book has been edited, proofreading will guarantee that there are no mistakes in the final publication. In publishing companies the proofreader often just checks that all the typesetting corrections and marked-up changes have been made.
      For proofreading your type of manuscript, in other words before it goes to a publishing company or you self-publish, a proofreader can also check spelling, punctuation, grammar, query obvious inconsistencies and verify artwork placement.
      All changes are marked-up onscreen, either using MSWord Track Changes or Adobe Acrobat PDF editing tools, so you can clearly follow any corrections that have been made.

     

     

    For a quote we need: 

    • A MS Word or text file with two sample chapters – they don’t have to be sequential but Chapter 1 is a must.
    • A synopsis of your book.
    • The word count – this gives us an idea of how long the editing/reading process might take.
    • A few lines on what you’d like to get out of the process.

    You can read about possible fees and rates or get more information on what we do  and on how to Contact us.

    We’d love to hear from you!