Melanie Madden – Editor

Welcome!

I'm on a mission to make incredible ideas and artistry as widespread and impactful as possible. The Internet has given many worthy ideas a platform, but it has also become fragmented and overrun with chaff. As an "editorial midwife" with more than a decade of experience in the NYC book publishing industry, it has become my life purpose to help separate the wheat, so to speak, and make it thrive across all platforms: great ideas and artistry connecting people everywhere. OK, "you may say I'm a dreamer". . . but where would our world be without dreams?

After some early publishing excursions in London and Seattle, in 2007 I landed in New York City and never looked back. Working in the acquisitions departments at Sterling Publishing, The Quarto Group, and Diversion Books, I've had the privilege of collaborating with a variety of foremost thinkers and trend-setters, including polymath Clifford Pickover, planetary scientist Jim Bell, designer Jonathan Adler, restaurant industry survivor Darron Cardosa (aka "The Bitchy Waiter"), former High Times publisher Mike Edison, longtime NYTimes environmental journalist Andrew Revkin, data scientist Talithia Williams, lifetime geek/home cook Cassandra Reeder (aka "The Geeky Chef"), and YouTube fantasy hairstylist Shannon Burns (aka "Silvousplaits"). I was also honored to work with some incredibly talented writers, including business/technology journalist John F. Wasik and father-daughter duo Jonathan and Emily Jordan, as well as receive a very eloquent foreword from billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates for a book on Thomas Edison.

My primary areas of expertise are categories including science, math, memoir, humor, health, psychology, and history, but I'm comfortable handling a much wider range of topics. A complete development edit begins at $500 (10K words) and includes structural editing, visual/textual content suggestions, as well as a detailed line edit and spot fact-check. Looking for more general/less detailed feedback on your manuscript? I can provide a complete structural evaluation with visual/textual content suggestions (no line edit) for $500 (up to 50K words). Of course, feel free to reach out with a custom request, and I will do my best to accommodate you.

Free of additional charge: My services begin at $500, but all writers who choose to work with me get a few complimentary extras. These include (1) practical advice on maximizing your chances of a book deal from an NYC publishing insider, (2) information on the publishing process at many major book publishers in our current economic climate, and (3) potential referrals to industry contacts, including agents and editors.

Happy writing! <3

Sincerely,
Melanie

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“Melanie’s superb editing of the manuscript in all its stages turned a rough draft into a complete book. She possessed the right vision of how to organize the complex material into parts, chapters, and sidebars, making the stories come alive and their heroes shine. Melanie wisely made me see what needed further explanation or expansion and what could well be omitted, and I am deeply indebted to her for her great insight and talent.”

--Amir Aczel, author of the international bestseller "Fermat's Last Theorem"