Sometimes you don’t need a Story Gardener; you’ve got your own green thumb. You’ve taken the time to develop your story, nurturing its plot tendrils and encouraging its most fragrant blooms that will enchant readers as they stop to smell the prosies. Now it’s our turn. Let us come in with our red pens to prune and arrange your manuscript into a market-ready bouquet.
What It Entails
The Florist package consists of a copy edit and proofread. The editing services are performed by different editors on the Rooted in Writing team. Why different editors? Because we believe that the more eyes on a project, the better. We recommend hiring a typesetter for the book’s formatting and layout between the copy edit and proofread. This way, we can check the formatting and page spread aesthetics in addition to grammar in the proofread. We happily work with third-party designers, but we also offer a typesetting and design service for our authors.
As a package, the services are discounted by 10 percent from their a la carte counterparts. The total invoice for the editing package is broken up into two installments: 50 percent due upon booking and 50 percent due at the end of the project.
Service Definitions & Deliverables
COPY EDIT
We look at the grammar, style, word choice, and other “gritty details” of the prose. This edit should be done only after you are happy with the structure and development of the book’s content. The focus on our copy edits is to perfect the mechanics of your content without sacrificing your personal voice.
We edit all novels in Chicago Manual of Style, the most commonly used style guide in publishing houses. Decisions on Oxford commas, hyphens, citations, and other major grammar points will be based on the most recent edition of CMOS. We use Microsoft Track Changes in our copy edits, so you can see everything we’ve changed in your manuscript. Each of our copy edits comes with one complimentary revisit of the material after we’ve returned the final draft to you.
Resources included: Edited manuscript, style sheetGeneral turnaround: Two to four weeksSample edit: Free up to 500 words. Or, $50 for the first 3,000 words. (A paid sample edit is credited to your project invoice if you decide to use our services.)
PROOFREAD
A proofread is performed on manuscripts that have already been copyedited and laid out for publication. This is the final pass to look for any last-minute or tiny mistakes.
After your book has been copyedited and laid out for print (either on paper or digital), a proofreader will do a final pass to search for any lingering spelling or grammar errors while ensuring that nothing was missed or corrupted in the design process. We care about the aesthetics of each page we proof in addition to the mechanics.
Resources included: Editorial comments on a typeset PDF
General turnaround: two to four weeks
Sample edit: Free up to 500 words. Or, $30 for the first 3,000 words. (A paid sample edit is credited to your project invoice if you decide to use our services.)
✨ SCI-FI & FANTASY AUTHORS ✨
For speculative fiction novels, we also do a world-building continuity check during our editing passes to make sure your second-world physics and magic systems are logical within themselves and don’t contradict themselves in descriptive detail or execution. Our findings are recorded in the project's style sheet.
Sending your writing to an editor is always nerve-racking, but Rooted in Writing made it painless. Their suggestions were thoughtful without being harsh, they picked up consistency errors no one else noticed, and they guided me in the right direction for future manuscripts. It was wonderful to work with a team of editors who could fix the issues, yet leave my voice intact. I’ll definitely use Amber and her team for projects in the future!
Workflow
(1) GETTING STARTED: PROJECT CONTRACT AND INVOICE
We’ll send you a proposal with the exact details on the depth and scope of our project together. When you’re ready, you’ll sign the project contract, pay the invoice deposit, and send us your edit-ready manuscript as a Word document.
The total invoice for our project together is divided up into two payments, paid at the start and completion of the project. If you’re booking a project with us more than three months in advance, you’ll be asked to pay a nonrefundable 10 percent booking fee.
(2) GETTING STARTED: PROJECT CONTRACT AND INVOICE
We’ll send you our base style sheet (PDF) for our copyediting service to show you our house rules on grammar, style, and formatting. If you have any special style rules your book needs outside of standard Chicago Manual of Style rules and our style sheet (such as hyphenating a world-specific term or requesting a certain term to be capitalized), let us know at this time.
**Most books do not need special style requests from the author upfront. The editor will take into consideration your unique manuscript needs and customize the style sheet based on your book’s contents. When in doubt, don’t request special style updates.**
We’ll perform a calibration edit on the first two-thousand words of your manuscript within 3 business days of receiving your manuscript file. If there are any style tweaks you’d like made (that’s within the scope of a copyediting service) that better serves your authorial voice, let us know. Otherwise, we proceed to the next step!
(3) COPY EDIT
Now, copy edit begins. This service typically takes 2–4 business weeks, depending on the length of your manuscript. The project contract will include the dates for all deliverables based on your provided word count.
You’ll need to pay your next invoice installment before the copy edit deadline date.
Once you receive the files, you’ll have 1 business week to review the manuscript and make sure you’re all good with the edits made. We’ll send more instructions on the purpose and process of this step at that time.
Send us back your reviewed copyedited manuscript and we’ll incorporate your changes before sending you a clean, final file back.
(4) BOOK LAYOUT
At this time, you’ll need to send your clean manuscript file to your book designer to receive its layout. (Rooted in Writing also offers layout services.) Let us know what date you’ll be ready to start the proofread. Typically, we expect the book layout to be completed in 1 business week. Need more time than that? No problem! Let us know as soon as possible and we’ll try to accommodate your designer’s schedule to our editorial calendar.
(5) PROOFREAD
When the book is all typeset for your print and digital editions, send us the print edition PDF and we’ll begin the proofread. This service typically takes 2–3 business weeks to complete. The turnaround speed for this service will be determined at the start of the copy edit service, so you’ll know weeks in advance how long it’ll take to complete this service. After you pay the final installment of your invoice, you’ll receive the PDF proofread document with comments that denote the changes needed before your final file export. If we’re your designer, take a look at the changes and let us know if you’re okay with all the suggested edits and then we’ll incorporate these changes into your final files. This process typically takes 1 business week to complete. If you are using a third-party designer, ask them for their process in incorporating the proofread changes. If they have any questions about our proofread suggestions, they are welcomed to email us.
Get Your Custom Quote
Fill out the inquiry form and I’ll be in touch to discuss your custom quote and project needs.