A manuscript nobody has disagreed with is not finished: it is only written. Editing is the part where a book stops being yours alone and starts being readable by strangers.
You have invested months, and possibly years, in the manuscript. It would be a waste for it not to live up to what you can already see in your head, and that gap is almost never a talent problem. It is that you cannot read your own book cold, because you already know what it says.
That is the whole function of an editor. Not to correct you, and not to rewrite you, but to be the first person in the world to read the book without knowing what happens next, and to tell you honestly where they got lost. Everything else (the grammar, the syntax, the consistency) follows from that, and matters far less.
Editing is not one service, and most manuscripts do not need all of it. Tell us where you are and we will tell you which of these you actually need, including when the answer is the cheapest one.
- 01
Comprehensive editing
The deepest pass: grammar, syntax and structure together. Beyond fixing errors, it works on the flow, so the reading experience holds from the first page to the last.
- 02
Line editing
The finer detail. Every sentence read for style, tone and readability against your intention, until nothing on the page feels out of place.
- 03
Proofreading and polishing
The last pass before it goes out: typos, grammatical errors and inconsistencies, caught by someone whose only job on this read is to catch them.
- 04
Story building
Plot complications and character arcs, worked through with you. Structural work on what the book is doing, not on how its sentences read.
- 05
Manuscript enhancement
An editor's assessment of plot dynamics, character development and pacing, returned as suggestions you can act on or decline. Advice, not changes.
Four commitments, and the last one is the one most firms will not make.
- 01
Committed to the work
From understanding your perspective to polishing the last line, each stage is taken seriously. The habit of the house is to go past the brief rather than to the edge of it.
- 02
Reliable and fairly priced
Premium-level work at a price set by the manuscript in front of us rather than by a package tier. You will be told when you need less than you asked for.
- 03
Tailored to your voice
Each manuscript holds a distinct narrative style. The editing preserves your authenticity and emotional register while sharpening what surrounds it, the book still sounds like you when it comes back.
- 04
A guided partnership
Your creative input is fundamental, not tolerated. Open communication throughout means you understand every change before you accept it, and can refuse any of them.
Eight steps, and your feedback is built into the middle of it rather than bolted onto the end.
Detailed discussion
A conversation about your vision and your goals for the book, so the editing serves what you were trying to do rather than what an editor assumes you were trying to do.
In-depth reading
The manuscript is read whole, for accuracy and coherence, before a single change is proposed. Nothing is edited on a first impression.
The editorial plan
A roadmap for plot, character and pacing, what will be worked on, in what order, and why. You see this before the work starts.
The outline
The structural shape the edit is working towards, agreed with you. For a heavy structural edit this is the most important document in the project.
Initial editing
The first pass through the manuscript: the plot and the story reviewed, and the mechanical errors cleared as they are found.
Feedback and revisions
The edited manuscript comes to you with the changes visible and the reasoning attached. You accept, reject or argue: all three are normal.
Finalisation
With your feedback applied, the edit is carried through the whole manuscript to the deadline agreed at the start.
Your book is ready
The finished manuscript comes back to you. You can take it anywhere from here, the house publishes, but it does not require you to.
A few of the people the house has worked with, in their own words.
I had eleven years of notes and no book. What I got back read like me on a good day, my turns of phrase, my arguments, and none of the padding I would have added myself. The first chapter arrived and I stopped worrying.
Marianne ElleryIndependent author The structural edit was not comfortable reading. It told me the second half started in the wrong place, which I had suspected for a year and nobody had said out loud. Moving three chapters fixed a problem I had been trying to solve with better sentences.
Devon AlukoIndependent author What sold me was being told I did not need half of what I had asked for. I came in wanting the full package and left with a cover, a proofread and an honest explanation of why the rest would not have helped yet.
Priya RaghunathanIndependent author Three cover directions, all of them plausible, none of them the thing I had described. The one I picked worked at the size that actually matters, I could recognise it in a list of forty other books, which is more than I can say for my first attempt.
Tobias HearnIndependent author I own the book outright and that was written down before I paid anything. After two years of being quoted percentages by people who would not put them in writing, that was the whole reason I stayed.
Cecile MarchandIndependent author The audiobook took longer than I expected and they told me why each time rather than going quiet. The narrator they cast got my grandmother's accent right, which I had assumed would be the thing I had to let go of.
Nathan BoakyeIndependent author
What authors ask before handing over a manuscript, answered plainly.
A comprehensive read of the manuscript addressing grammar, syntax, structure, style, coherence and overall readability. The work is to take a draft to a finished piece of prose that communicates what you meant it to, not to make it conform to a house style you never asked for.
It does more than correct errors. An editor fixes the grammar, punctuation and spelling, then does the harder part: making ideas flow from one paragraph to the next and holding tone, style and formatting consistent across a whole book. The result is a book a reader can move through without friction, which is not something an author can reliably produce alone.
Substantive editing reviews content, structure and coherence, with feedback on plot development, character arcs and narrative flow. Copyediting handles grammar, syntax and style. Line editing refines sentence structure, tone and readability. Proofreading is the final pass for remaining errors in grammar, punctuation and formatting. Most manuscripts need two of these, not four.
No, preserving it is the constraint the work operates under. Editors here are briefed to improve the technical quality of the manuscript while leaving the voice that makes it yours. Your individuality as an author is a significant part of what makes the book worth publishing, and an edit that sands it off has failed regardless of how clean the result is.
It depends on the length of the manuscript, the depth of editing required, and the current schedule. A structural edit of a long book is a different undertaking from a proofread of a short one. You will be given an estimated timeline for your specific project before you commit, and told if it changes.
Not only welcomed, expected. You will be given opportunities throughout to give input, share insight and push back. Your perspective as the author is the thing the editor is trying to serve, so a project where you go quiet produces a worse book.
As a revised version showing the changes made, together with the editor's comments and suggestions in the margin. The comments explain the reasoning behind the decisions, so you can see how the manuscript was refined and disagree with any of it on an informed basis.
You do, completely. The author holds 100% of the rights to their work, in every format, for its whole life. The house is paid for the work it does, not with a share of the book. That is the arrangement the house reopened in 2008 to offer, and it does not change with the tier, the price or the point at which you come to us.
Yes. Your name is on the cover and in the record. Everyone who works on the book (writer, editor, designer) works on your book, and none of them is credited on it unless you ask for them to be.
Yes. Your story is yours, and nothing about the project leaves the house. We will sign your NDA before you send anything, or supply ours if you would rather use one.
No. Six disciplines are available and you take the ones you need. Authors arrive here at every stage (with an idea, a half-draft, or a finished manuscript that only needs a cover and a shelf) and the work starts where you actually are.
It depends on the work: length, how much research is involved, how much of the book already exists, and which disciplines you need. There is no list price for a book, and any firm who gives you one before reading your material is quoting something other than your book. Tell us where you are and we will price the actual job.
Move the marker. You do not need to know what to call it: you only need to know where you are.
Tell us where your manuscript is, where you want it to go, and we'll show you what's possible.