Gary Budden

Gary Budden – Editor

Experienced fiction editor, available for developmental editing and copyediting. Founder of award-winning publisher Influx Press

Overview

I am an experienced fiction editor based in London, UK, with fourteen years experience in the publishing industry, and the co-founder of award-winning independent publisher, Influx Press.


Influx Press has published over fifty titles since 2012, with many critically acclaimed novels, non-fiction works, and short story collections.


In 2018, Influx Press won the Republic of Conscious Prize for best small publisher.


In 2022, our title The Trees was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize.


My freelance editorial clients include Dead Ink, Titan Books, Unbound, among many others.


Some highlights from my portfolio include:


BOY PARTS by Eliza Clark. This has sold 60,000+ copies to date in the UK, is being developed for television, and is currently being translated into several languages.

LAMB – Matt Hill

WATER SHALL REFUSE THEM – Lucie McKnight Hardy

ESC & CTRL – Steve Hollyman

THE SERVICE – Frankie Miren

TERMINAL ZONES – Gareth E. Rees


Titles I have worked on have received significant national press coverage in publication such as The Guardian, Telegraph, VICE, The i, BBC, The Quietus, and many more. They have been translated and published in numerous countries outside of the UK, and launched the successful writing careers of several writers.


I have a passion for weird fiction, place-focused writing and literary speculative fiction and am always excited to work on manuscripts from new writers.


I offer development edits, copyedits, and proofreading, providing advice on structure, character and plot, copy-edits to address style, tone and consistency, and proofreading.


I like to work in dialogue with the author, offering sensitive and insightful feedback to help highlight your unique voice and to tell your story in the best way possible.


I look forward to working with you!


Gary

Services
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs History Travel
Fiction
Fantasy Horror Literary Fiction Science Fiction Short Story
Languages
English (UK) English (US)

Work experience

Titan Books

Feb, 2017 — Feb, 2019 (about 2 years)

I worked as an editor in the fiction department of Titan Books for two years, acquiring and editing science fiction, fantasy, horror and TV/film/gaming tie-in fiction. I worked with New York Times bestselling authors as well as emerging debut authors.

I worked with many established and emerging authors including Paul Tremblay, Nina Allan, Aliya Whiteley, M.T. Hill, Tim Major, Mark Morris, Gareth L. Powell and many more.

Unsung Stories

Oct, 2014 — Dec, 2016 (about 2 years)

Ambit Magazine

Jan, 2013 — Sep, 2016 (over 3 years)

Influx Press

Jan, 2012 — Present

I am the co-founder of award-winning independent publisher, Influx Press.

Influx Press has published numerous titles, including BOY PARTS by Eliza Clark, the James Tait Black Award-winning 'ATTRIB. AND OTHER STORIES by Eley Williams, and IMAGINARY CITIES by Darran Anderson.

Influx Press won the Republic of Conscious Prize in 2018 for best small publisher. In 2022, THE TREES by Percival Everett was shortlisted for the Booker Prize

Portfolio

LAMB

Matt Hill

Dead Ink

Developmental Editing
TERMINAL ZONES

Gareth E. Rees

Developmental Editing
Water Shall Refuse Them

Lucie McKnight Hardy

The heatwave of 1976. Following the accidental drowning of her sister, sixteen-year-old Nif and her family move to a small village on the Welsh borders to escape their grief. But rural seclusi... read more
Developmental Editing
Boy Parts

Eliza Clark

‘Hallucinogenic, electric and sharp, Boy Parts is a whirlwind exploration of gender, class and power.’– Jessica AndrewsIrina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men s... read more
Developmental Editing
The Breach

M.T. Hill

From Philip K. Dick Award-nominated author M.T. Hill, The Breach is a unique science fiction mystery set in the dangerous underground world of the urban exploration scene.Freya Medlock, a repo... read more
Developmental Editing
Developmental Editing Copy Editing
Service, The

Frankie Miren

Developmental Editing
ESC&CTRL

Hollyman, Steve

Developmental Editing
Polluted Sex

Lauren Foley

Developmental Editing
Exercises In Control

Banks, Annabel

Developmental Editing
Developmental Editing
Lairies

Hollyman, Steve

Developmental Editing
Absorbed

Whitehead, Kylie

Developmental Editing
In the Pines

Scraton, Paul

Developmental Editing
Nettles

Scovell, Adam

Developmental Editing
Developmental Editing
Ways of Living

Seltzer, Gemma

Developmental Editing
Glitch

Lee Rourke

After two decades spent in the US, L-J is on a flight back to his native Suffolk to visit family and his childhood coastal home. His flight is straightforward, as per design, until it hits a g... read more
Developmental Editing
Hope Island

Tim Major

A gripping supernatural mystery for fans of John Whyndam's The Chrysalids from the author of Snakeskins.Workaholic TV producer Nina Scaife is determined to fight for what remains of her family... read more
Developmental Editing
All My Colors

David Quantick

From Emmy-award winning author David Quantick, All My Colors is a darkly comic novel about a man who remembers a book that may not exist, with dire consequences. A bizarre, mind-bending story ... read more
Developmental Editing
How the Light Gets In is the debut collection from award winning short story writer, Clare Fisher. A book of very short stories that explores the spaces between light and dark and how we find ... read more
Developmental Editing
Berlin: long-celebrated as a city of artists and outcasts, but also a city of teachers and construction workers. A place of tourists and refugees, and the memories of those exiled and expelled... read more
Developmental Editing
"The idea was lost but the memory was here." Phyllis Ewans, a prominent researcher in lepidoptera and a keen walker, has died of old age. Thomas, a much younger fellow researcher of moths firs... read more
Developmental Editing
Car Park Life

Gareth E. Rees

CAR PARK LIFE is a psychogeographic exploration of the UK's retail chain store car parks by the author of MARSHLAND and THE STONE TIDE. These commonplace urban landscapes are little-explored, ... read more
Developmental Editing
A HOLY MYSTERYIt is 1891, and a catholic priest arrives at 221b baker street, only to utter the words “il corpe” before suddenly dropping dead.Though the man’s death is attributed to cholera, ... read more
Developmental Editing
Developmental Editing
Attrib. and other stories

Eley Williams (author)

Attrib and Other Stories
Developmental Editing
Signal Failure
Developmental Editing
Twenty-five writers, twenty-five different perspectives on the rapidly changing London Borough of Hackney. From gentrification to supermarket sandwiches, Turkish Alevism to inner-city river li... read more
Developmental Editing
A DARK PAST It is 1894, and Sherlock Holmes is called to a Covent Garden art gallery where dozens of patrons lie dead before a painting of the Undying Man. Holmes and Watson are soon on the tr... read more
Developmental Editing
Ghosts on the Shore
Developmental Editing
An Unreliable Guide to London

Gary Budden, M. John Harrison, Chloe Aridjis, Courtt Kit Caless

AN UNRELIABLE GUIDE TO LONDON brings together twenty-six stories about the lesser known parts of a world renowned city. Stories that stretch the reader's definition of the truth. Stories that ... read more
Developmental Editing
Developmental Editing
Skein Island

Aliya Whiteley

From the award-winning author of The Beauty, Aliya Whiteley, Skein Island is a powerful and disturbing look at the roles we play, and how they form and divide us. "Aliya Whiteley is one of the... read more
Proofreading
Marshland

Gareth E Rees

Marshland is a deep map of the east London marshes, a blend of local history, folklore and weird fiction, where nothing is quite as it seems. Cocker spaniel by his side, Rees wanders the marsh... read more
Developmental Editing
Imaginary Cities

Darran Anderson

Inspired by the surreal accounts of the explorer and 'man of a million lies' Marco Polo, Imaginary Cities charts the metropolis and the imagination, and the symbiosis therein. A work of creati... read more
Developmental Editing
Developmental Editing
Ghosts of Empire

George Mann

The latest installment in acclaimed Ghost series from Sunday Times bestselling author George Mann In the aftermath of the events seen in Ghosts of Karnak, and with the political climate somewh... read more
Developmental Editing
Embers of War

Gareth L. Powell

From BSFA Award winning author Gareth L. Powell comes the first in a new epic sci-fi trilogy exploring the legacies of war.The sentient warship Trouble Dog was built for violence, yet followin... read more
Developmental Editing
A new stunning epic fantasy for readers of Brandon Sanderson, Michael J. Sullivan and Brian Staveley.In a world where magic has disappeared, rival nations vie for power in a continent devastat... read more
Developmental Editing
Originators

Andrew Lane

"It’s plausible, unpredictable, and thoroughly entertaining” Publishers Weekly on NetherspaceIt's half-way through the twenty-first century.Contact with alien races was made forty years ago, b... read more
Developmental Editing
Metronome

Oliver Langmead

You and I, we wear our wounds. I wear my scars, you wear your tattoos, and we don't forget who we are.' It is for the entities known as Sleepwalkers to cross the doors between dreams, and hunt... read more
Developmental Editing
From Aliya Whiteley, author of the critically-acclaimed The Beauty, comes a genre-defying story of fate, free-will and the choices we make in life. In the aftermath of the Great War, Shirley F... read more
Developmental Editing
The world is a far stranger place than we give it credit for. There, in the things we think familiar, safe, are certain aspects. Our fears and desires given form. Moments that defy explanation... read more
Developmental Editing
The Record Keeper

Agnes Gomillion

The Record Keeper is a visceral and thrilling near-future dystopia examining past and present race relations. After World War III, Earth is in ruins, and the final armies have come to a reluct... read more
Developmental Editing
The Predator

Christopher Golden

The official novelization of the summer blockbuster The Predator, Shane Black’s new movie with a screenplay by Shane Black and Fred Dekker.For centuries Earth has been visited by warlike creat... read more
Developmental Editing
New Fears

Ramsey Campbell

WINNER - 2018 BRITISH FANTASY AWARD FOR BEST ANTHOLOGYFEAR COMES IN MANY FORMSThe horror genre's greatest living practitioners drag our darkest fears kicking and screaming into the light in th... read more
Developmental Editing
Snakeskins

Tim Major

An SF thriller examining the repercussions of rejuvenation and cloning on individuals’ sense of identity and on wider society. Caitlin Hext’s first shedding ceremony is imminent, but she’s far... read more
Developmental Editing
Zero Bomb

M.T Hill

From Philip K. Dick Award-nominated author M.T. Hill, Zero Bomb is a startling science fiction mystery that asks: what do we do when technology replaces our need to work?The near future. Follo... read more
Developmental Editing

Gary has 36 reviews

Professionalism

Quality

Value

Responsiveness

David P.

David P.

Aug, 2024

Gary is awesome, precise, focused and very fast. He delivered ahead of deadline and although I asked for story editing, he polished the document with copyediting too :-D I have worked with Gary before and will do so again. Good to know: He writes his comments during the first read-through, which means that some of the comments become redundant (when plot-points are resolved, or when answers ...
Read more
Jacob B.

Jacob B.

Jun, 2024

Direct and concise.
Eddy S.

Eddy S.

Jun, 2024

Gary did a wonderful job on my novel. His professionalism and promptness were excellent. It is my pleasure to recommend him to everyone.
Michael L.

Michael L.

Apr, 2024

Gary was professional, communicative and courteous. I was very happy with the notes he gave on my work which gave me the confidence I needed to take it to the next level.
Neal S.

Neal S.

Jan, 2024

Gary is a honest and robust editor, and I feel his comments and suggestions will just make me a better writer. I couldn't recommend him highly enough.

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