So, I Read This Book Today . . .
Editing Fees and Guidelines
As my editing jobs have become more numerous, I have updated my Editing Fees and Guidelines. My editing and proofreading includes checking for grammar, sentence structure, misspellings, and pointing out plot inconsistencies, etc. At this time, my base charge is $0.008/word, with a minimum of $50, payable via PayPal. Editing jobs I am currently working on, received before May 1, 2014, will continue to be edited at the old rate.
If your manuscript is less than 5,000 words please let me know and we can work out pricing. I prefer to set up appointments for your manuscript, but please, send your manuscripts to me as early as possible. I can often work them in sooner than they are scheduled, but advance notice is much easier.
I use Microsoft Word 2013. I use the Track Changes application while I edit and leave the decision as to whether or not to accept those changes to you. I also tend to leave extensive notes outlining the reason for specific changes, noting uneven or awkward sentence or paragraph flow, or even if I noticed something that just doesn’t feel right.
Full editing is completed in one of two ways. The first choice is that I completely edit the book and provide you with a corrected copy, highlighting changes and corrections and making when appropriate extensive notes. Your second choice is full editing. I take the book in hand, do all corrections and changes and provide you with print ready copy. The charge for print ready copy is $0.010/word.
Please note: Books from authors who speak English as a second language, hence requiring a great deal more correction for grammar, or books with extensive re-write may be significantly more. You may send me your book for pricing if you feel there may be extensive work needed on the book. Pricing available upon request.
After I have edited a manuscript, I will send it back to you. Once you have made changes, you can always send it back to me for a second pass at no charge. Please note: If second-pass changes are truly extensive, I will reserve the right to bill a second payment for the second pass. I want to be fair to you, but I also want to be fair to myself. Just as writing is difficult, though rewarding, editing a book in a manner that will make you proud of your final product is a lot of work.
For available books on which I have worked, please see my “i-edited” shelf on Goodreads. You may contact any of the authors with whom I’ve worked for a reference. I am also very willing to provide you a sample of my work to see if we are a comfortable fit. I can be easily contacted through Goodreads or by e-mail at soireadthisbooktoday@centurylink.net
I look forward to working with you!
Nighthawks at the Mission
Okay Hunter S. Thompson. Keep up with me.An Adderall and alcohol fueled, dangerous dream of a novel, in a nightmarish paean to Waits and Kerouac, Burgess and Kubrick, Forbes paints a LSD fueled journey down the rabbit-hole with his stunning brilliance of imagery, drowning in surreal pageantry. He drags you, literally, into a different world, a world of multi-coloured dragons and breathtaking vistas, where nothing is ever what it seems. Or is it?
Forbes’ prose is brilliant, a searchlight reaching across a blasted land. Sandpaper sliding across exposed nerve endings, the frisson of dread before the beast of the night explodes from on high. The smell of carrion upon the night wind, sliding across the senses. As Michael Bunker puts it, (http://alturl.com/v78g3) Nighthawks at the Mission is "an epic, fantasy, sci-fi, tour-de-force." I don’t know whether to hug Michael or hit him – his review of Nighthawks is everything I wished to say about the novel. Drat him, anyway, for stealing my thunder! (Yes, I now have a crush on him for reaching into my soul . . .)
Visualize, please, a world of seven moons. A world of light and storms, of death and life carried out on an unimaginable scale. A world where nothing, and everything is, and is not, what it seems. Nighthawks reads like the bastard offspring of A Clockwork Orange and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls." All consumed on the deck of the Queen Mary as she sails towards a new and shocking world of dreams and illusion.
Not everyone is going to love this book as I do. It is a twisted and bacchanalian view into a quirky, funky and totally surreal mind, a mind not everyone will enjoy or appreciate. Pity. If you require all the little bunny-rabbits to have lovely, silky brown fur, don’t bother. These bunnies have brilliantly coloured fur, warping and twisting through serpentine mirrors, razor-sharp teeth reaching out through blood-stained maws. They are shockingly alive, reaching into your mind to dazzle and tease, leaving you breathless and dazed, deep beneath the sea of darkness within your own mind.
And the tail-lights dissolve, in the coming of night, and the questions in thousands take flight…
Very, very highly recommended – buy the ticket, and take the ride, a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label and a vat of colourful pills by your side . . .