Why our editing services are exactly what you need

When you’ve invested many hours, weeks, months or years in a manuscript, and taken it as far as you can go, it might be time to give it over to an editor for a further polish.

Editing services are not just about catching an elusive comma or grammar error that has crept into your work, they’re also about making the writing more accurate and engaging, restructuring it where needed, and dealing with the arcs of the plot or characters.

In other words, an editor does far more than you might have imagined and might be the difference in getting your work accepted to a publishing house, or just pass your boss.

You might be surprised just how much an editor can improve your work, how they can save you time in the long run, and provide a good investment for your money. In fact, there are many reasons why you should hire a professional editor.

Read on to find out a bit more.

Summary of our editing services

First Editing offers services in five key areas: books, academic papers, journals and scientific publications, marketing and business documents, and editorial support services such as consultations and critiques/reviews. We try to cover most written fields.

The kind of service you require depends on what you want, but also the quality of your work. So we suggest you submit a sample with a description of what you’re looking for. When we return that free sample, you receive a short edited part of your document, a summary of what we recommend, and a quotation at the recommended level of editing.

Our levels of editing cover everything from a general proofread to catch small errors and give a final read through before publication through to copy editing, line editing, content editing, content editing and critique, and our highest level of editing, developmental editing. These all different services and give an increasing level of attention to various aspects of your work.

We also offer additional services such as rush jobs, formatting, professional critiques, query letters and book synopses for agents and publishers, and more. In other words, there is little we can’t help you with.

Our editors are trained to pick up all the little errors and inconsistencies you’ve missed to save you time in rejection from publishers, agents, or your boss, and provide feedback that will help you restructure your work and improve the language you use.

This makes our services perfect for students, researchers, professors, experienced writers, and everyone in between.

To find out more about our services, read our blog “Five things you probably didn’t know about our editing services.”

Levels of editing

As described above, we provide a number of different levels of editing. Here are the most common editing levels for our novels.

Copy Editing: this is the last edit before formatting and publishing. It looks at grammar, spelling, and punctuation for accuracy; ensuring consistency in your writing’s word choices, style, and compositional spacing; and eliminating jargon and repetitious words.

Line Editing: an ideal choice when you know you may need ongoing revision. The line editor addresses your writing style, creative content, and use of language at the sentence and paragraph level. This is considered an industry standard for most universities and publishing agents.

Content Editing: prefect for the first round of editing when you need a thorough look at the structure and organization of your work. It provides formatting specific to a chosen style guide, covers copy and line editing, but also structural feedback and assessment of your work.

Developmental Editing: this is a more big picture edit looking at the character, plot, and setting elements that form the backbone of your story. The developmental edit offers high-level corrections and critiques that look at content development in terms of characters, voice, point of view, pace, suspense, motivations, and more.

Experienced and qualified editors

The editors at First Editing bring an array of experience to the table, not just through their qualifications but an array of backgrounds that include publishing houses, media, corporate fields, TEFL, investment banking, and academia. This gives them both real world experience but the necessary know-how to edit your dissertation, children’s story, poetry, thesis, or work report in a variety of subject fields and areas.

Some of our editors have a penchant for certain areas like academic writing, science, Christian genres, history, or children’s literature. So you can request a subject expert if you wish. Between them, they have covered thousands of papers and documents, bringing their love of words and language along the way.

Read more about our editors here, including a synopsis of each one’s history, talents, and hobbies. You might be surprised.

Pros/benefits compared to other companies

Obviously, we think we offer a lot at First Editing and benefits above other companies. That is because:

You can try before you buy: we offer a sample editing process so you can see how we work and what we can do for you. This includes a sample of our editing in your document, an explanation of the editing level we recommend, and detail about how long this will take.

We can tailor our services to your needs: while we offer the usual editing levels, we also provide consultation services to cover any questions you may have and an array of additional options that you can join to your order. These can include anything from an index to a table of keywords, editing in a particular style, formatting for an eBook and more.

We are available: our website provides an online chat area so you can be in contact with our office about any matters pertinent to your needs. Our editors also respond to all queries about your manuscript.

We provide quality work on time: all our services provide a quote for the time required to edit your document based on its length and complexity. Our editors are trained to meet that deadline without compromising the quality of work. They learn to work fast and efficiently so you can keep your work on task as well.

We are a team: First Editing is a family of editing and editing consultants that work as a team to provide our services. We meet regularly to discuss industry issues and keep up to date with our skills and provision of services.

Conclusion

At First Editing, we pride ourselves in treating every writer’s work with the same professional attention, quality, and efficiency. It’s our bread and butter.

Our website contains a plethora of information about our editors, services, writing tips, published authors, and an array of blogs about everything you can imagine. Feel free to reach out at any time with questions. We’d love to help you on your writing journey.