Gretchen Schmid – Editor

I'm a professional book editor with eight years of experience at two different Big 5s (Penguin Random House and HarperCollins), where I've worked on a variety of fiction and nonfiction, including memoir, history, philosophy, biographies, mysteries, romance, literary fiction, and thrillers. Multiple books I've edited have gone on to be NYT bestsellers or award-winners. I'm happy to offer developmental editing, line editing, copyediting, and/or proofreading for your manuscript.

I have a particular love for editing nonfiction—especially memoir, history, and anything about the arts (I'm a former dancer and musician!). I know writing memoirs can be vulnerable, and I try to approach those projects with special care.

I also have experience as both a translator (French to English) and an editor of translations (from various languages). If you originally wrote a manuscript in another language and hired a translator to bring it into English, or if you translated it yourself, and are looking for an editor to smooth out the language, we might be a great match.

As an editor, I believe it's important to tell authors what's going RIGHT in their manuscript as well as what's not there yet. I love to highlight places where their storytelling is particularly effective, and let them know when I laugh or gasp out loud. I also work hard to help smooth out and polish their writing while ensuring that it still "sounds like them," and point out any and every sentence whose meaning isn't entirely clear yet.

As a copyeditor and proofreader, I have a sharp eye for misplaced commas, improper capitalization, and spelling mistakes, as well as bigger-picture issues such as continuity errors.

One service I offer is what I have deemed "copyediting plus"—a combination of a copyedit (which focuses on grammar, punctuation, etc.) and a line edit (which focuses more on phrasing, style, clarity, and paragraph organization). This is essentially a copyedit in which I will edit a little more intensively than a traditional copyeditor and pay attention to issues normally outside the copyediting purview. It's a good option for writers who have already revised their manuscripts on the big-picture level and do not wish to do two separate rounds of editing on the line level, whether for time, cost, or bandwidth reasons.

Congratulations on making it this far in your writing process! Looking forward to chatting with you.