After a long career of teaching Creative Writing and English and leading writing workshops and clinics, editing a magazine, and writing eleven books – a memoir, four novels, five non-fictions, and Write Great Fiction: Description & Setting for Writer’s Digest Books – and hundreds of newspaper columns I now enjoy working directly with individual writers of both fiction and nonfiction, including memoir and history (no poetry).

PLEASE NOTE: My options regarding my services have changed. I will no longer be doing copyediting and will now only do line editing. The New York Book Editors website differentiates between line and copy edits in this way:

“A line edit addresses the creative content, writing style, and language use at the sentence and paragraph level. But the purpose of a line edit is not to comb your manuscript for errors (which is the specific task of a copy edit) – rather, a line edit focuses on the way you use language to communicate your story to the reader. Is your language clear, fluid, and pleasurable to read? Does it convey a sense of atmosphere, emotion, and tone? Do the words you’ve chosen convey a precise meaning, or are you using broad generalizations and clichés?”    (nybookeditors.com)

After seeing a general overview – or an outline or plot graph of your project – and five to ten completed manuscript pages I will contact you and we can visit by phone, email or text.  This initial consultation is free; I charge fifty dollars an hour for all services after that. I keep precise records of the I time spend on a given project.

An average length book (seventy to ninety thousand words) will take me something like ten to fourteen hours to read it and write a detailed report in which I’ll offer general recommendations regarding its strengths and weaknesses in the plot, organization, flow, dialogue, characterization, and the other inner workings that make writing and storytelling work.  I’ll also, of course, be available to answer any questions you have via email or over the phone.

If you eventually place your manuscript with a publisher, they will provide a copy editor to get it in shape to go to press.  If you choose to self-publish I strongly suggest you hire a copyeditor to go through it carefully to ferret out misspellings, grammatical errors and technical glitches.

If I agree to take on your project, I assure you I will work diligently to help bring it to fruition as the best book you intend it to be.  I’ll be straightforward regarding what I think needs to be fixed and will point out the strengths and the weaknesses of the story and the writing. I’ll also be straightforward at the outset regarding weather or not I’ll be a good choice depending on the nature and content of your book, especially nonfiction.

You will need to send me, via email, any and all texts I’ll be reading during the entire process in Word documents (not PDFs) double-spaced in a crisp 12-point font (Arial, Times New Roman, and Book Antigua are good choices), aligned to the left margin with all pages numbered and all paragraphs indented.

I work with text only, not graphics, photos or layout concerns. Should we decide to move forward after our initial phone consultation I require a $250.00 retainer fee which will cover the first five hours of my time.

Whether your book is so far just an outline and a few pages or is completely finished – or anywhere in-between – I look forward to hearing from you.

Here’s how to reach me: phone 979-236-3695 (leave a short message) or email:  ronrozelle108@att.net.