So I made an error. I found a local woman in the small ads in the local church rag to clean up my text before my guy formats it and it goes to Lulu. I went to see her first, explained what I wanted in regards to American/UK spelling etc and various details. She is a retired English teacher who assured me of a super job. I cant afford to pay a huge price, so her services and proclaimed skill seemed to fit the bill. Her study is crammed full of grammar books, dictionaries, you name it. So tonight I went to collect the finished product on disc. She even made a report highlighting the areas she had corrected and claimed to have spent many hours on it. To cut a long story short, here is some text from the e-mail I just sent her: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- We have a problem. I sat down and started to go through the revised text. I am unable to use it. It is littered with so many errors just in the first 20 pages it makes me want to cry. This is going to delay the launch date. Just to start with......... Inconsistent dashes of differing sizes not spaced away from letters. Inconsistent punctuation inside/outside speech marks. Spelling errors. American spelling. Double and even triple and bigger spaces between words. Incorrect colon usage. Incorrect word usage that changed the original intent. Hyphens removed where they should actually be (and were) As I write this I am only up to page 21, I cant continue. I am going to send the original off to a proof reader/copy editor to be done from scratch. I appreciate your effort and time expended and I have no doubts at all about your integrity and intent, but I am afraid this is not what I paid for and its not up to the mark. If you doubt what I say, I can print the 1st 20 pages and highlight all the issues as an example. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- So I need a copy editor, pretty quickly at a reasonable price. (I dont mind if the finished product is US or UK spelling) Does anyone here do this? Can anyone recommend anyone?
How long is the document? I'm a studying English teacher, and I've long been the official grammarian among friends. If it's not something extremely long, I might be able to help. I'm not a professional at all, nor would I have any references to give, but you seem to be in a pretty desperate situation and I'd love to help if I could.
I am sorry to hear of the difficulties. Being an English teacher and being an editor/copy editor, while there are some similarities, it is a different mindset, has a few different skills/focus, and requires attention to detail. Some can do both. Others cannot. Here is an individual I highly recommend. Jake George is an author of several books/novels and also a senior editor, and recently promoted to partner (now an aquistions editor) for Virtual Tales ( http://www.virtualtales.com/ ) He also runs Sage Word Services. Check out his website and if it looks like a possiblity to you, contact him. http://www.sagewordsservices.com/ Terry
sorry to hear of your troubles... if it's a short book and has no violent content, i may be able to do it for you... and i do all for free... which doesn't mean you're 'getting what you pay for' in my case, since in my 'old' life, i used to be paid $150 per hour for what i now do for free... let me know if you want me to take a look at it... love and hugs, maia maia3maia@hotmail.com
I think it is great that you all are so willing to help! Manny, I know from experience that Maia is wonderful. Tough... but wonderful. Anyway, if your work has not violence I suggest sending it to her.
