Why are your prices cheaper than most?

I am in the process of getting my freelance business off the ground.  Once I am established, I will be more comfortable with prices comparable to other freelancers.  For now, I’m learning and growing.  Come learn and grow with me!  You can check my rates against the Editorial Freelancers Association.

What is your editing background?

I have edited for published authors, pastors, and writers who are just beginning their publishing journey. I have completed—and continue to pursue—certification training through the PEN Institute.

As a college graduate, I have also spent years writing academic papers in APA style, giving me a strong foundation in scholarly and professional writing. In addition, I am well versed in both the The Chicago Manual of Style and the Christian Writers’ Manual of Style, allowing me to edit with accuracy, consistency, and attention to industry standards.

You say you do not edit AI-generated material.  What does that mean?

AI-generated writing consists of any words a person copies from an LLM (large language model) like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, etc.

If we use an AI-generated description—even part of it—it’s AI-generated writing. We can’t claim any of the words were from our own mind. If we use some of ours and some of AI, that’s using AI-generated writing as well. As an example, We use six words of our own and thirteen that a machine produced. Only 31.5% of the writing is ours, and 68.5% is AI-generated. That’s just one sentence. If we use an LLM to “polish” our writing for an entire book, the percentages may increase even more.

As your editor, I will ask you approximately what percentage of the writing was AI-generated. Then I must decide what to do. Is it right for the author to claim all of the writing as their own? If you publish the writing under your name, you are saying you wrote all the words. But that’s not true, so is it plagiarism? 

I believe it is just better to stay out of that space.

Can I continue rewriting while you are editing?

Short answer is no.  I’m only responsible for what you sent me at the time of our signed contract.  I cannot do a proper edit and then have you adding and deleting in the process.  We would have a mess!  For a developmental edit, you need to provide what you feel is your best at that stage.  After I return it, you are free to take my suggestions, delete them, or rewrite them.  That is why a copyedit is crucial after that point.  It will ensure the story is cohesive and free of errors.  Once you get the copyedit back and make changes, NOT rewrites, then a proofreading edit will clean it up and you’re ready to publish.  If, however, at the copyedit stage you choose to rework and rewrite, you will need to do another copyedit before you have it proofed. 

Can I jump straight to just a proofreading edit?

Sure!  But most editors won’t take the job.  Proofreading is for a finished product.  It is simply the final cleaning before it is published.  That is why I give a two-chapter edit for free.  You can see how I edit, and I can see what shape your manuscript is in.

Even more serious, you need to check every fact or statement that declares something as fact. 

Expanding my example above, I might write, “Staring at the screen all day can leave your eyes burning, sore, and itchy. If so, you’re probably one of the millions of people who have bixonimania, an eye condition that develops from staring at a computer for at least nine hours a day.” I can cite a medical study on bixonimania from early 2024. But the study–and the condition–are completely made up! It was invented by a medical researcher in Sweden to see if she could fool LLMs. She uploaded two fake studies on it. And multiple LLMs started spitting out the information as fact, including Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and ChatGPT.

That’s the danger of using LLMs for information. This researcher made up a fake condition, fake lead researcher, fake university, and fake city. If a human read the papers, they would pick up the obvious lines she included such as “this entire paper is made up” and “Fifty made-up individuals aged between 20 and 50 years were recruited for the exposure group.” One paper thanked “Maria Bohm at The Starfleet Academy” for her contributions from the lab on the “USS Enterprise.” 

A human could easily look up the researcher, university, and city and find they don’t exist. They would know or discover the USS Enterprise is a 1960 aircraft carrier, Maria Bohm hid a Jew from the Nazis, and the Starfleet Academy is from Star Trek. It’s blatantly written in the paper that it’s “made up” and used “fifty made-up individuals.” But LLMs cannot think or reason. They scan what’s out there and present it as fact. They even elaborate on it! ChatGPT wrote that this eye condition was a “proposed new subtype of periobital melanosis.”

I personally do not edit AI-generated writing. If it’s not written by a person, I don’t believe a person should claim authorship. Plus I check every person, place, or thing in writing–even when a human wrote about it–to verify they aren’t using a bogus source as well as that they don’t plagiarize.

Being an editor today is a lot more challenging now that AI is being used.

How do I pay you?

I will quote you a price in the contract.  I accept PayPal and Venmo.  I would like half up front and then the remainder of the fee when I return the manuscript.  I do not do payment plans.

How many manuscripts do you edit at a time? One!  I want to give your story my undivided attention.  Generally, a developmental edit takes eight weeks to edit, copyedit takes four weeks, and a proofreading is two weeks