Alison Imbriaco – Editor

As a freelance copy editor and proofreader who has worked on more than 200 fiction and nonfiction books, I've developed great respect for authors who can imagine a story and shape it into paragraphs and pages, who can develop characters and give them conversations.

Let me show you what I do and how I work. When you request an offer from me, I'll use your attached sample to give you a sample of what I do. You'll see the kind of corrections I make and suggestions I offer, and you'll see how I use the Comment feature to explain the thinking behind suggested changes or corrections. You'll also see that because I work entirely in Word's Track Changes, you maintain complete control of your manuscript.

I love the challenge of working on fiction. With so many pieces, from point of view to timeline and from dialogue to action, making sure the details fit together is like doing a jigsaw puzzle. I'll check that time is allowed for the action, whether it's hours or months. And I'll help you give the reader a "moving" picture of what's happening, ensuring, for example, that you don't have a character leaning against the door and then suddenly getting up from a chair.

Fact-checking is a copy editor's primary responsibility. In fiction, it might be the name of a song a character remembers or the name of a town she visits. Historical fiction adds another layer of fact-checking because one anachronism can break the connection you've made with your reader. Did you know that a character from the twelfth century would not have had a pocket? I’ve become adept at recognizing what needs to be checked, from the types of carriages used in the nineteenth century to the type of currency used in the twelfth century, and then using the internet to find the facts.

After so many years working with publishers including WaterBrook Multnomah (a division of Penguin Random House), Kregel Publications, and Abingdon Press, as well as self-publishing authors like you, catching spelling and grammatical errors is almost automatic. Still, I'll go through your work meticulously, again and again--frequently checking Merriam-Webster online and the latest Chicago Manual of Style--to be sure I've done the best I can.

Coworkers have told me I'm a real wordsmith, and I'll bring that skill to your manuscript. I might suggest a slight rearrangement of words that will make a sentence clearer and easier to read. Perhaps a good word should be replaced with a great word in a key sentence. Or perhaps a good word is used a bit too often and becomes a dull one. Or maybe it's a sentence structure that's repeated too often. I'll suggest subtle changes to help you make your sentences vibrant and effective.

Let me have your back. I'm looking forward to working with you on your book.