Allyce Amidon – Editor

I'm a copyeditor and proofreader with over a decade of experience both freelancing and serving as in-house editor for a traditional publisher and a review journal. I've edited everything from children's picture books to academic monographs. I'm most interested in, and have the most experience editing, books about travel, ancient history, religion and spirituality from an academic perspective, and education and reference books (yes, I do weirdly love editing reference books), as well as children's picture books and early readers. My favorite style guide is Chicago.

I've worn a lot of hats during my career in publishing, which means I've run the same gamut as your books, from the day you hand your manuscript over to be edited, through the marketing and book reviews, all the way to the bookstore. I know how stressful, and how rewarding, the publishing process is. It can be an alarming prospect, handing your book over to an editor. I'm here to promise I don't want to murder your darlings, only clean your book up and make it the best version of itself it can be. All of my edits are merely suggestions based on a style guide; it's entirely your call if you want to accept or reject them.

It takes me about 2 weeks to edit books under 90k words, 3 weeks for books that are 90k-180k words, and 4+ weeks for any books over that. I typically work in Microsoft Word using track changes but have also done editing directly in Google Docs if that's your preference. I like to edit the whole thing before I send it back to you with edits and clarification questions, at which point it's entirely up to you if you want to accept/reject changes and move on or send it back to me for another round. Typically if we're doing copyedits and you've had to rewrite more than a few sentences, I recommend sending it back to me for another edit for those specific sections. If it's a proofreading job, I rarely find authors needing to rewrite anything. Whether you send the work back or not, I'm always available to answer any questions or explain any of my edits via email.