If you have a question about editing, publishing, or you simply want to share a great story, we’d love to hear from you.
Quotes depend on two factors:
– The type of edit you need
– The length of your manuscript.
When you use our submission form to tell us about your book, we will assess your needs and provide you with a proposal.
To get an estimate of your quote, use this online calculator.
Working with a top-tier editor is one of the best investments you can make as a writer.
The revision process always begins with a developmental editor whose responsibilities at a publishing house is included acquiring manuscripts and working with authors to refine and strengthen their content (their title was either Associate Editor, Editor, or Senior Editor). They help you improve aspects of your work such as plot development, pacing, characterization, and narrative voice.
An editor’s goal is to make your story more engaging. Editors may correct spelling and grammar here and there, but that’s not their role. It’s the job of a copyeditor to fix your grammar, and he or she steps in at the final stages of the process, once the content has been finalized.
If your goal is to publish traditionally, you probably won’t need a copyedit. Our Comprehensive Edit will prepare your manuscript for agent queries. Once you have a publisher, the publisher is responsible for doing a copyedit.
On the other hand, if you’re self-publishing, and you want to hold yourself to the same standards as publishers, you need a copyedit.
Unlike an edit, a copyedit does not alter the content. A copyeditor focuses solely on technical issues such as spelling, punctuation, grammar, syntax, semantics, consistency, numerals, fonts, and capitalization, as well as the continuity of plot, setting, and character traits.
At any publishing house, as well as at NY Book Editors, only dedicated copyeditors perform copyedits. It’s an entirely different role than a developmental editor’s, and requires its own specialized training and experience. We engage experienced copyeditors to help you with the grammar. It is a separate service from an edit, and we only offer it to manuscripts that are ready.
We only work with authors who are ready to engage an editor. In the earliest stages of a writer’s development, they may not derive as much value from working with a professional editor as they would after their own rounds of revisions and feedback from beta readers.
Instead, these authors can benefit from books or classes on writing, writers' critique groups, and the practice of continuing to write and read extensively. Whenever possible, we recommend a list of books to these authors in their genre to help them progress on their own.
Only authors who have spent a lot of time honing their craft are in a position to derive the most value from the highly specific advice of a professional.
We don’t publish books. We’ve chosen to focus on editing because we believe it’s better to specialize in one service and do it extremely well than tackle many services.
Once you have the finalized your manuscript, we’ll be happy to offer as much advice as we can on publishing or self-publishing, but our services don’t extend to that area.
If you’d like help preparing your pitch for potential agents and publishers, we offer query letter editing and drafting services.
Of course! Please ask us to put you in touch with one of our authors by using the contact form or emailing info@nybookeditors.com.
It’s essential that you have a good rapport with your editor. You may choose to schedule a consultation call with your editor as soon as you approve of their profile; you will also have an opportunity to speak to them in the Trial Edit follow-up.
When you schedule an edit, you may also select follow-up options which reserve time in the editor’s schedule for phone calls, in-person meetings, and/or email correspondence with your editor.
Please note that while most authors work with their editors remotely, in-person meetings must take place in the editor’s city. Most of our editors are based in New York, but some editors are located elsewhere. Please let us know if you have a location preference.
Actual timing depends on your editor’s schedule, but here’s a sense of our average timeframes:
Manuscript Critique: 5-7 weeks
Comprehensive Edit: 6-12 weeks
Copyedit: 3-5 weeks
If you have a deadline, please let us know that when you fill out our form.
When your manuscript is at an earlier stage of its development and has structural issues and other fundamental changes to address, your editor will recommend a Critique. A Critique consists of an Editorial Memo and, in some cases, margin comments. A Critique does not include a line edit.
The feedback you receive in a Critique will lead you to revise sections of your manuscript, make cuts, and restructure material. At that stage, it doesn’t make sense to get a line edit because significant portions of the text will change.
A Comprehensive Edit is a more intensive edit that’s only recommended when a manuscript is structurally sound and the editor feels it is at a stage where it's appropriate to incorporate changes into the text to improve the quality of the prose. A Comprehensive Edit always includes margin comments, an Editorial Memo, and a line edit.
We have meticulous, highly experienced copyeditors on our team for any author who’s ready for a copyedit. However, we’ve found that when the initial developmental edit isn’t done through NYBE, it can lead to issues on the copyediting side.
If you’ve worked with an editor who’s not part of the NYBE team, please let us know their professional credentials (i.e., the position they held at a publisher or other relevant industry experience).
We apologize for this verification process, but we must ensure our copyeditors work on manuscripts that are ready for this stage of revision. Otherwise, the result wouldn’t live up to our standards or yours.
You may send your editor’s credentials to info@nybookeditors.com, letting us know you’re interested in a copyedit. Please attach the final draft of your manuscript for review.
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You retain the copyright to all your work. This is the language in our contracts:
The AUTHOR hereby retains the copyright to the WORK, whereby the AUTHOR shall have the exclusive right to publish the WORK and translations of it wholly or in part in any medium, including electronic media, throughout the world during the full term of copyright including renewals and extensions and all subsidiary rights.