Developmental, line, copy-editing and proofreading for Australian and New Zealand authors. One named editor reads the whole book before changing a word, every change arrives tracked, and you can reject any of it. Send the manuscript and we will edit 1,500 words free.
Most authors who ask for a proofread need a copy-edit, and most first drafts need structural work before either. Here is what each level actually does — including what it will not fix.
Not sure which one your manuscript needs? That is what the free sample edit is for. We will tell you if you need less than you asked for.
Not adjectives about our process: the real thing. Pick a level of edit, then switch between the marked-up version and the clean copy.
The book starts twice. Your prologue explains the sister’s disappearance before we have any reason to care about Nora, so the knock at the door in chapter three arrives with nothing to push against. Cut the prologue. Open on the knock.
The 1998 material is good, and it is in the wrong place. Move it to chapter four, where Nora has a reason to remember it and the reader has a reason to want it.
The middle sags for three chapters after the storm clears, because the investigation stalls and Nora has nobody to argue with. Constable Reddy does not appear until chapter eleven. Bring her forward: put her on the landing in chapter five and let her disagree with Nora about what the letter means.1
One structural warning. Two characters currently know about the envelope before the reader does, which makes the reveal in chapter nine feel withheld rather than earned. Pick one.2
It was in the month of February, and it wasFebruary, and hot enough outside to buckle the road. My fatherDad1 drove me in the car down the red dirt road that led out of town, which was about forty kilometres in lengthout of town, and neither of us really said very much of anything at allmuch.
The thing that I remember is that my motherMum did not come out to the gate to say goodbye to me. I think thatI still think she was standing behind the flywire door of the house, watching2, but at the time I did not look back at the house at all.
It was atAt Cobar that he pulled up behind the bus and he did not turn the engine of the car offleft the engine running.
Every 30 minutethirty-minute check-in asks the same three questions. The Managermanager listens first, writes nothing down, and askasks for one number.1
E-mailEmail can wait until 4pm4 p.m. In the teams I have coached, fourtyforty per cent2 of internal messages arrived outside the hours anyone had agreed to work.
The habit is not complicatedcomplex. It is simply unusual, and unusual is alota lot harder to sustain than difficult.
‘Ring your mother Sunday,’1 he said, and did not look at her.
Lena checked the ferry teh the timetable twice. 2The last boat left at four, which gave her threetwo3 hours to decide whether she was on it.
The paint tin was the blue of the bowl on the windowsill (see page 0001124), and she did not ask how he knew.
These samples were written by our editors to show the work. The books, extracts and queries are invented, not client manuscripts.
Four files, whatever level of edit you choose. Nothing is changed silently and nothing is held back for an upsell.
Every single change visible, so you can accept or reject any of it. Nothing is altered silently.
The same manuscript with all changes accepted, ready to hand to a typesetter.
The spelling, number, hyphenation and capitalisation decisions your book is now held to.
A numbered list of the things only you can answer, each tied to the spot in the manuscript it came from.
Five steps, the same for every manuscript. You know the price and the delivery date before any work begins.
Send your manuscript. We edit 1,500 words at no cost and tell you which level of edit your book actually needs, even if that is less than you asked for.
A fixed price in AUD based on your word count and the level of edit, with the turnaround in writing. No subscriptions, no per-hour surprises.
One named editor, matched to your genre, reads start to finish before changing anything. Structural problems are not visible a page at a time.
You get markup, queries and a style sheet. We ask rather than assume whenever a change would alter your meaning.
A senior editor checks the work, then you get the clean file. Follow-up questions after delivery are part of the job, not an extra.
A thriller and a business book fail in completely different ways. Your manuscript goes to an editor who knows what readers of your category expect.
Built on emotion, chemistry and characters readers fall for. Editors who read the genre keep the tension believable and the pacing tight.
Worldbuilding that has to stay internally consistent across 90,000 words. We track your rules and flag the moment the book breaks one.
Period detail, dialogue that does not sound modern, and the research queries a careful reader would raise before a reviewer does.
Clues, timelines and the order the reader learns things in. We map what is known by whom, chapter by chapter, and find the leaks.
A promise on the cover the chapters actually deliver, with claims sourced and the framework consistent from first page to last.
Magic systems, invented names and epic scale. We build a proper names list so your spellings hold across the whole series, not just book one.
Poetry, children’s books, academic theses, memoir and technical writing are all edited here too. If your book does not fit a category above, it is still work we do.
Editing is a trust exercise: you are giving a stranger years of your work. These are the terms we hold ourselves to.
You keep full rights, full copyright and full credit. We are hired help, and an edited manuscript is still entirely your work.
You know who is reading your book and you deal with that person, not a queue. The same editor sees it through to handover.
Everything arrives tracked. An editor who overwrites your voice without asking is doing the job badly, so we query instead.
The delivery date goes in the quote. If a manuscript needs more time than we quoted, that is our problem to absorb, not yours.
Editing is quoted per word. It is the only basis that lets you compare two editors honestly, because an hourly rate tells you nothing about how fast either of them reads.
Rates start at AUD $0.03 per word. A proofread on a clean manuscript sits at the bottom of the range; a developmental edit on a first draft that needs structural work sits well above it. We quote after the sample edit, when we know which one your book is.
Nothing on this page is a subscription and there is no retainer. You pay once for the level of edit you agreed to, and follow-up questions after delivery are included rather than billed.
Send 1,500 words and an editor will mark them up properly, queries and all, at no cost. It is the only honest way to judge an editor before handing over a manuscript.
The things authors ask before they trust anyone with a manuscript.
Editing is priced per word, starting at AUD $0.03 per word, because that is the only fair way to compare quotes. What moves the figure is the level of edit and the state of the manuscript: a proofread on a clean 60,000-word novel is a fraction of a developmental edit on the same book. You get an itemised quote in AUD after the sample edit, not a range before it.
That is exactly what the free sample edit answers. Most first drafts need structural work before anything else, and most authors who ask for a proofread are really asking for a copy-edit. We will tell you if you need less than you asked for.
No, and you would be right to walk away from any editor who did. Every change arrives tracked so you can reject it, and anything that would alter your meaning is raised as a query instead of a silent edit.
A copy-edit on a 70,000-word manuscript typically takes two to three weeks; a developmental edit takes longer because the editor reads the whole book before writing anything. Your date is confirmed in the quote before you pay.
Microsoft Word is what tracked changes were built for, so .docx is ideal. We also accept Google Docs, Pages and rich text, and proofreading is done on the typeset PDF because that is where the errors live.
Yes, and it is the default: Australian spelling, Macquarie as the reference and AUD conventions for figures. If you are publishing primarily into the US or UK market, tell us and we will hold the book to that standard instead.
Yes. We edit 1,500 words of your choosing, with tracked changes and queries, at no cost and with no obligation. It is the only honest way for you to judge an editor and for us to price the work.
Yes. Plenty of authors come to us with a book that has already been edited and only needs the final pass. We will say so if the manuscript needs more than a proofread rather than take the smaller job and leave you with a tidy but flawed book.
Yes. Academic and business editing follows the same levels, with the style guide you nominate — APA, Harvard, AGLC or your institution’s own. Tell us the guide and the word limit and we will work inside them.
You reject the change. It is your book. Where a disagreement is about something structural, your editor will explain the reasoning in the edit letter so you are deciding with the argument in front of you.
We can, and you are under no obligation to use us for it. Editing, cover design, formatting, distribution and audiobook production are all available separately, and you keep your rights and royalties either way.
You do. Editing does not create any claim over your work. The copyright stays in your name, and we do not take a share of anything the book earns.
We will edit 1,500 words of it free, tell you which level of edit the book needs, and put a fixed price in AUD in writing. If the manuscript is not ready for an edit yet, we will tell you that instead of selling you one.