Katie Salidas – Editor

With over ten years in the indie publishing industry, I know what goes into the production of a novel. I understand the financial burden of editing, formatting, and covering a book. You're not just the author; you are also a project manager, overseeing the entire process of bringing your book to market.

You need someone who has been in the trenches to help you see a project of this magnitude through to the end.
I live and breathe books and I’ve been there done that when it comes to self-publishing. For the past ten years, I have built an independent press publishing label. In that time I’ve produced more than twenty of my own books and helped countless others achieve their dream of holding their book in their hands.

I want to be there help others see their dreams of being a published author come true.

An extra set of eyes, impartial to the story, is exactly what you need in the final stage of writing to produce something for public consumption. Authors are too close to their work to see the mistakes. Our brains play a little trick on us when we read our own writing. We know what we meant to say, so our brain puts that filter on as we read the brilliance we’ve slaved over. I can provide that extra set of eyes needed to catch plot holes, inconsistencies, and grammatical mishaps.

There are two levels of editing every manuscript should go through before being published.

Developmental—Corrects content. Content level editing that focuses on plot structure, characters and their arcs, consistency in characterization, dialogue, and believability. A developmental edit will generate considerable revisions and sometimes rewriting.

Copyediting—Corrects language only. Spelling, capitalization, punctuation, verb tenses, sentence structure, paragraph lengths, echoes, word choices, & missed words. A copyedit will generate a grammatically clean manuscript.

Editing should ideally be a two-pass approach. The first pass is strictly development of story with revision notes. After those are turned in, the author is free to make their revisions before having the final manuscript looked at for the copyedit. However, authors sometimes opt for only a single edit.

I use Track Changes to input all of my comments and suggestions. Editing changes are made directly to the document to correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Colored highlights will be used to bring attention to redundancies and echoes in the writing.

I believe in positive reinforcement for making suggestions and notes on developmental issues, but that does not mean I ignore any potential negatives in the manuscript. When possible I try to explain myself fully so you understand the reason behind the changes suggested for you. It is, however, your manuscript, so you make the final call when it comes to adapting notes or ignoring them.