Rachel Stout – Editor

I have been working as an editor for over ten years after cutting my teeth in the New York trade publishing world at a literary agency, where I was for the five years previous.

I offer editorial services on manuscripts, book proposals, and query packets (query letters, synopses, sample chapters). I am a great resource for strategy and resource tips for authors who are interested in being traditionally published and are eager to find the right literary agent for their work. On occasion I also offer to do some preliminary research and provide a list of suggested agents for a manuscript, which comes along with suggested notes of personalization and the reason behind each choice.

While I take on only a limited number of non-fiction projects, where I do, I am available to offer feedback, guidance, and edits on book proposals as well, using my unique perspective from the other side of the desk. No need to have a completed proposal at this stage--I'll walk you through the process and be there for support and feedback along the way.

My editing style is very hands-on with open lines of communication before, during, and after the actual edit itself. Any marked-up manuscript received back from me will be heavy on comments and notes with a lengthy editorial letter to accompany. No suggested change goes unexplained, and any notable issue I raise in my letter will come along with several suggestions on how an author might go about addressing it.

I'm big on followup questions and comments from my authors, so am always open to brainstorm solutions or act as a sounding board after my initial edits have been returned. If there are brief reworked passages after the edit, I am also generally open to glancing those over as well.

Last, I'm always very happy (and in fact prefer) to provide a sample edit of five-ten double-spaced pages for nominal fee (which would be deducted from the full cost of any edit that follows) so that you may get a sense of my work ahead of any further commitment.

Any and all questions are welcome, so please don't hesitate to ask!