Donna Hillyer – Editor

I'm a fiction and non-fiction editor with 20 years' experience, having climbed the ranks from editorial assistant to editorial director/company board member, and my skills are subsequently wide-ranging.

I’ve commissioned and grown authors (both mainstream and genre) to bestselling and award-winning status, and I now work in various capacities with publishing companies, literary agents, private authors and writers'/literary festivals. Publishing clients include: Bookouture; Elliot & Thompson; Hachette Ireland; HarperCollins; Little, Brown; Orion; Pan Macmillan; Penguin Random House; Transworld and Whitefox.

I work on fiction and non-fiction, across all editorial areas, e.g. >

- query letter review and advice

- manuscript assessments

- structural/developmental edits

- line-editing

- copy-editing

- proofreading

Do get in touch about your project; I'd love to hear from you!

Some titles I've worked on as a freelancer:

* John Marr's sci-fi hit The One (now on Netflix)

* The Summer of Impossible Things by Rowan Coleman and Killer Intent by Tony Kent, which were both chosen for the 2018 Zoe Ball TV Book Club

* Two of the six WHSmith Richard and Judy Book Club summer 2019 titles - How to be Famous by Caitlin Moran & Marked for Death by Tony Kent

* The No.1 bestselling novel (Ireland), Hungry Road by Marita Conlon-McKenna (2021)

* Winner of the Romantic Novelists’ Association Popular Fiction Award 2022 (voted for by librarians, book bloggers and reviewers, and booksellers): The River Between Us by Liz Fenwick; and the Festive Holiday Romantic Novel Award 2022: Winter at Cliff’s End Cottage by Sheila Norton

* Sunday Times Bestsellers:

- Lucky by Ed Jackson (rugby union player turned Paralympics presenter)

- Get Divorced, Be Happy by Helen Thorn (award-winning comedian and podcaster)

- Knee Deep in Life by Laura Belbin (author of the Knee Deep in Life blog)

- Hear Me Out by Sarah Harding

- Friend Request by Laura Marshall

- Midnight in Everwood by M.A. Kuzniar

- A Different Kind of Happy by Rachaele Hambleton (aka Part-Time Working Mummy)

- With This Kiss by Carrie Hope Fletcher

- No Shame by Laura Belbin (author of the Knee Deep in Life blog)

- Be Yourself and Happier: The A-Z Guide to Wellbeing by Will Young

- Springtime at Cannon Hall Farm by The Nicholson Family

- Ten Things I Hate About Me: How to Stay Alive With a Brain That's Trying to Kill You by Joe Tracini

- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros