Debbie Chapman – Editor

Hello! I'm Debbie, an editor, book coach and former Senior Commissioning Editor with 16 years' experience commissioning, editing, project managing and proofreading narrative non-fiction books.

My main passion is travel writing and memoir, but I've also worked on a wide variety of genres – everything from running books to medical memoirs to true stories about heroic cats.

I love nothing more than getting stuck in to a great manuscript, and helping authors create compelling, polished books. I take care to maintain an author's voice throughout a project. After all, your story is unique, and my job is just to help you make it the best it can possibly be. I pride myself on creating positive and professional working relationships with authors – editing is serious business, but it can also be seriously fun!

As a developmental editor, my approach is collaborative but thorough. I'll ask the questions you may not have thought to ask about your story and challenge anything that isn't working. I will help you make your manuscript clear, cohesive and compelling, focusing on character development, narrative arcs, structure, sense, pace and flow.

As a proofreader, I will make sure your book is free from mistakes, inconsistencies and grammatical/punctuation/typesetting errors. I have a keen eye for detail and believe there's no better feeling than fixing a typo. Yes, you could say I'm a word geek.

If this sounds like what you're after, get in touch to see how I can help! I can't wait to hear from you.

Testimonials:

"Debbie is not just a great editor. She is thoughtful, intuitive, precise, possesses a photographic memory and is possibly supernatural. She hears the heartbeat beneath the prose and gives it rhythm. She has helped me grow into the writer I hoped to become.” - Peter Barber, author of The Parthenon Series and the Zorba’s Taverna series

"As an editor with 30-plus years' experience, and having worked with a number of editors over seven different books, I can assure you that I have never met anyone more talented, dedicated and conscientious than you. What's more, even though you create an awful lot of work for your authors (!!!) through your insightful questions, it's always a fun process, and I'm always sad when our collaboration ends." - Lisa Jackson, author of Your Pace or Mine?

"Bloody lucky authors to get to work with you. Happy to provide a testimonial to what it's like to work with the best non-fiction editor in the UK. Not an editor really, more of a co-pilot." - Laura Coffey, author of Enchanted Islands

"Rare you get to work with someone where it is just unalloyed pleasure." - Peter Salmon, author of The Little Book of Ethics

"Debbie brought extraordinary care and precision to three full passes of a complex manuscript. She pushed me to write more clearly and more honestly, and the book is significantly better because of her." - Pragya Tomar, author of The Mind is Not You