Jenny Rarden – Editor

I have been a professional fiction book editor for over 13 years, but I've been editing since 2008 when I began reading and writing fanfiction. I became the "beta" for friends, which then grew to over 25 fanfiction authors. In 2012, I decided that I enjoyed the work so much, I would put myself out there, and I applied to a small online publishing company. I was accepted immediately and thus began my professional editing career. In 2018, A friend I met through fanfiction who had already become a professional editor recommended me when someone came to her looking for an editor and she was fully booked. Since then, I've worked with six publishing companies and over 30 independent authors. I love it, because both companies and individual authors bring different things to the table, different kinds of books, so my job is never dull!

I am skilled at both proofreading and line/copy editing. I work primarily in Microsoft Word, although I do have experience in Google Docs and Adobe Acrobat. Unless an author has specific requests, I use Track Changes and utilize comments throughout: things I like, things that don't work with the reasons why I don't think they work, suggestions on different ways to word something specific, reasons for a specific edit, and so on. If a manuscript needs very involved edits, I will edit a chapter and then go back and listen to Word read it to me to make sure I didn't miss something. I am very familiar and use The Chicago Manual of Style routinely, as well as Merriam-Webster.